Slashdot Mirror
Court: Domain Seizures Don't Violate Free Speech
Since last year we've been following the story of how domains are being seized by the U.S. government for allegedly facilitating online piracy. The seizures received a legal challenge back in June from the owners of one such site, and now a U.S. federal court has returned a ruling in the matter:
"District Court Judge Paul Crotty decided to deny Puerto 80's request, which means the domain will remain in the hands of the U.S. Government. The Judge argues that seizing Rojadirecta's .com and .org domains does not violate the First Amendment of the Constitution. 'Puerto 80's First Amendment argument fails,' the Judge writes. 'Puerto 80 alleges that, in seizing the domain names, the Government has suppressed the content in the "forums" on its websites, which may be accessed by clicking a link in the upper left of the home page. The main purpose of the Rojadirecta websites, however, is to catalog links to the copyrighted athletic events — any argument to the contrary is clearly disingenuous.' The judge further ruled that the claimed 32% decline in traffic and the subsequent harm to Puerto 80s business is not an issue as visitors can still access the site through foreign domains. Puerto 80's argument, that users may not be aware of these alternatives, was simply waived."
Color me surprised that the Government sides in its own favor in its own cases.
I read enough to get my blood boiling as this topic always does.
[rant]
For all the world ICE looks like a puppet for the RIAA / MPAA and operates with little to no oversight or recourse for those they choose to target. It should be front page news that domains are being seized with nothing more than a bit of false/misleading testimony from an ICE agent, and a signature from a judge that knows nothing about the inter-webs and the magical tubes that are stealing things. All this is going to do is make honest businesses fear having their domain and servers under US jurisdiction.
Hosting with we-dare.net or other offshore locations is going to become par for the course for small upstart companies ("engines of the economy") until they get acquired by google or microsoft and have an army of lobbyist, lawyers and a patent trove to fend off the bull shit that now stands between a good idea and the marketplace in the US.
[/rant]
It gives me hope that people like Sen. Wyden are out there fighting the good fight though...