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US Dept. of Justice, ICE Still Seizing Domains

Posted by timothy on from the gotta-keep-in-practice dept.

Chaonici writes "Operation In Our Sites, a US initiative to crack down on websites related to online copyright infringement, appears to be ongoing. Rojadirecta is a site that links to (but does not host) broadcasts of major sporting events, including soccer matches. It is highly popular in Spain, where it has prevailed twice in court after its legal status was challenged. However, US authorities have now seized the .org domain of the website without notifying the site's owner or its web host, GoDaddy. Rojadirecta can still be accessed through .com, .es, .me, and .in domains, which are not controlled by the US, but rojadirecta.org currently redirects to this well-known image."

12 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Summary is wrong, as usual. by ethan961 · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, it really is seized. As of 4:20 PST I get the ICE image. The change is probably still propagating.

  2. What Egypt and the US have in common... by metrometro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... is a complete lack of due process and the right of appeal in regards to Internet censorship. This is appalling. The entire Western legal code is built on the idea that if you cannot be penalized for something without the right to defend yourself in court. I realize that the seizures are of property and not people, but it's not hard to argue, hey, maybe seizing someone's business and wrongly broadcasting that the owner is a criminal* might negatively impact the owner.

    * I'm referring to the case of the hip-hop blogger, who was hyping unreleased material on the request of labels and accused of piracy. I don't know the details of the site in question here.

    1. Re:What Egypt and the US have in common... by pugugly · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I hate to be blunt, but the authorities have long since seized the right to abscond with *actual* property - cars, homes, et al based on the mere accusation of a drug related crime. Unfortunately everyone save the Libertarians (and some Liberals, including the ACLU.) went "Well, that's drug stuff - I'm sure they did *something* to deserve it".

      From Findlaw

      "As detailed in a Frontline report from 2000, federal and local practices regarding property seizure in drug cases shifted in 1984, when federal law created forfeiture funds for property seized by the DEA and FBI, and allowed local law enforcement to share proceeds from the sale of property seized."

      You've waited about 25 years too long to suddenly realise "Oh . . . this could apply to *me*?!?" (Good old Saint Reagan - Who'da thunk it? I mean - not counting people actually familiar with his record.). If people don't like this, they're going to have to go back to stopping the actual real property seizures and start pushing back from there.

      Pug

      --
      An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
    2. Re:What Egypt and the US have in common... by tragedy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There is a double standard. I'm not sure why you can't see that the government is the one applying it. They're the ones who _set_ the rules, we expect them to follow them too.

      As for whether or not this is property. It's certainly not conventional property directly. On the other hand, this isn't exactly IP, as you seem to think. This has nothing to do with trade secrets, copyright, or patents. There's an argument to made, perhaps, that it's a trademark issue, since they're putting up their own site (with that one image on it). Of course, I'm against trademark applying to domain names unless the page the domain directs to is itself infringing on a trademark (using someone else's trademark to promote products, or represent them as being from that organization). The money that they paid for a registration of the domain for a set time would seem to be a form of property. In any case theft of service is generally treated as seriously as if the property were real property and is probably a felony on this scale. Aside from being theft of service, it's also a denial of service attack. If you didn't notice, the government just went after a bunch of Anonymous members for a denial of service attack.

      So any argument that this is somehow ok without a warrant and some sort of judicial process is just wrong.

    3. Re:What Egypt and the US have in common... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Additionally, if I recall, this includes money. They freeze your accounts, etc. Which often times can make it hard to defend yourself in court, when you don't have any access to hire a decent lawyer.

      When I learned of this, lawyers on retainer suddenly made sense. I always wondered why you would give money to a lawyer prior to being accused of something, when you could just hire them when the need arose.

  3. DNS replacement by Joe+U · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Again, it's past time for a DNS replacement.

    Not an alternate DNS root, an actual replacement that maps some kind of human readable names to an IP address.

    ICANN and Network Solutions have proven that they are happy to hand over domains without a full trial, it's time to replace them.

    1. Re:DNS replacement by Joe+U · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Isn't the point of a temporary restraining order/seizure warrant to stop an action/take something before a full trial has occurred? Under whose laws should a full trial be held? Am I naive in believing that ICANN delegates control of the TLDs?

      The problem with the current system it's an instant death penalty when it comes to seizing a domain. It's tough to recover from that, and we should be operating under innocent until proven guilty.

      As for whose laws, I've always been a fan of where the server is located, or in the case of cloud computing, where the owner is located.

      ICANN delegates to NetSol (and others) for .com and others. ICANN doesn't really register domains directly.

  4. Thank you Streisand Effect by bobdotorg · · Score: 4, Funny

    Had never heard of Rojadirect.

    Now I have another bookmarked site.

    --
    __ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
  5. ATDHE.net by doroshjt · · Score: 4, Informative

    Was also seized. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/01/atdhe-sports-streaming-website-seized_n_817224.html

  6. Way to go Justice Dept. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Countdown until the EU starts bitching about USA control of ICANN servers again? Starting... now.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_governance#Globalization_and_governance_controversy

    Fucking morons. The diplomatic consequences of this will be far reaching and even if we get to keep our queen despite taking these pawns, the diplomatic backlash over the soon to ensue ICANN debate is going to cost the USA billions of dollars over the next decade. How? In lost profit from trade agreements as a consequence of losing our bargaining position.

    Let the record show that no one can claim the reprecussions of this were unforseeable. It took me 10 seconds from reading the summary to understand the big picture consequences.

    Hopefully this will be the straw that breaks the camels back and causes a public uproar which will put an end to this pro-Corpyright anti-fair use insanity.

  7. This keeps the US safe by d6 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This keeps the US safe from the terrorists how exactly?

    Change the name to 'The Department of Homeland Security and Corporate Enforcement' guys

  8. Re:No, there is due process. by b0r0din · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Of course you're welcome to defend yourself in court, against lots of lawyers and monetary interests (because court victories are mostly bought nowadays) and leave yourself at the hands of a 50-yr old jurist who probably can't figure out how to plug in his friggin toaster.

    Power is always misused, but in terms of law, well let's just say that the US government is way behind on real justice anymore. The law is written to protect the corporate interests.

    Copyright and patent law is broken. It's totally broken. And corporate lobbyists with money and very specific interests want to make sure no politicians challenge their little cabal of self-preservation. And politicians happily accept this money and there's very little you can do about it.

    I'm increasingly despondent at the state of our country right now, when stuff like this is actively happening, when our own government wants a kill switch on the Internet. It saddens me that we even need 1st amendment rights, but Jefferson's insistence of their inclusion was apparently the right choice. I know we're talking about specific sites here, but now we're getting into some serious territory here, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, CENSORSHIP. When the government is seizing sites like this, you know some businesses are just going to move offshore to avoid exactly the same problem. It'll happen quicker than you think.