Feds Seize Korean Movie Download Portals

SharkLaser writes "Homeland Security's ICE unit has just started another phase of Operation In Our Sites. Last week the seized sites were selling counterfeit goods, but this time the list consists solely of movie download sites. ICE has now seized the domains of 11 Korean movie download portals. This is first time Operation In Our Sites has been expanded to include sites targeting non-U.S. nationals and non-English sites. ICE has since added a message in Korean to the seized sites. Interestingly, while the sites were in Korean, the domain names are all connected to a Seattle-based company World Multimedia Group, Inc."

Comments

First (I think)

[cpicon92]

Honestly this is getting kind of ridiculous, though. Doesn't the US government have more pressing issues on its hands right now?

Re:First (I think)

[masternerdguy]

Do you think the US is going to just pass up a chance to throw their weight around?

Re:First (I think)

[TheGratefulNet]

elections are coming up, maybe?

Re:First (I think)

[cheekyjohnson]

It's funny because they probably actually think they're saving it by seizing a domain name. Or that the website was actually a threat to anything.

Re:First (I think)

[Anonymous Coward]

Like what? Jailing bankers, economy advisors, rating agencies CEO's for fraud, extortion, betting against their clients lying to congress (ahem...), getting 7 trillion with virtually 0%tax then selling it back to the government and the people at interests rate to pay for their bonuses, their credit default swaps, and the damage themselves created and extorted from both public and private (AIG's etc) entities? Oh yes the US government has allot of issues not only right now, but right years ago. See how well they'v been busy at pretending to care while fund raising more bribes...err financial support..incentives...America needs you! god bless America, 999!

Re:First (I think)

[houghi]

The only thing America manufactures any more is Intellectual Property.

They keep using the word Intellectual, but I don't think it means what they think it means.

Re:First (I think)

[gVibe]

Not in a million gajillion years. I mean...who really wants to solve unemployment, education, or the economy anyway...right?!?

Re:First (I think)

[Anonymous Coward]

elections are coming up, maybe?

The Democrat party wants more "donations" from the Hollywood corporate entites, sorry, "people".

Re:First (I think)

[Runaway1956]

MPAA, RIAA, and the other alphabet soup organizations OWN the US government. Said government does NOT represent the American people, anymore. That government represents only the wealth "rights holders". A mere citizen is unworthy of congress' attention, or concern.

Re:First (I think)

[SuricouRaven]

Now, that isn't fair. The GOP arn't attacking Obama because he is black - they are attacking him because he is a Democrat, their natural enemy. They may at times use the blackness in some manner - typically indirectly, by questioning his patriotism or by suggesting that he is a racist himself who will unfairy hurt the white man to enrich his black bothers - but it's his alignment with a major political party that makes him their enemy. The racial is just a tactic.

Re:First (I think)

[Fluffeh]

Can someone PLEASE tell me what in the hell Immigration and Customs has to do with movie piracy...?

It is likely a simple distraction method to make them look like they are doing something. Business 101: If you aren't able to do your given job well, find something else that is visible and do a great job at it. People will then not focus so much on the fact that you aren't doing your job because you have done such a great job elsewhere.

Can't stop drugs crossing the border? Can't stem the flow of illegal immigrants across the fence? Easy, take down a few shitty websites, do a "great job" of it, get in some news articles, maybe get into TV and do a nice show and tell about how much money this is saving the US (it doesn't matter if everything you say is garbage) just say "millions of dollars" and "American Taxpayers", maybe throw in a few "terrorits groups" and button it with "Jobs for hard working Americans!" and you have a wonderful media distraction while drugs keep flowing, people keep jumping the fence.

Sadly, I think that there will be a lot more of your type (Americans who are disgusted with the state of your nation) long before anything positive happens. From what I see, there are three types of political views in America at the moment.
1) Happy becuase I am making buckets of money through any means (Small but very connected and powerful group this lot).
2) Disgusted with the state of America (Slowly growing middle class, and generally older or middle aged sensible folks. Remembers the days when America was really something special - and wants it to happen again).
3) I don't give a fuck about anything, or I don't know enough about politics to make an informed stance (This is the real killer. There are so many Americans who seem to be totally and utterly living in a fairytale land of unicorns, fluffy clouds and the "Red, white and blue", getting all their information from Fox News or other similar sources who would likely be totally stunned if they knew what the rest of the world thought of America and it's longer term prospects.

While the media and big business/big government is doing all it possibly can to ensure that group three totally outnumbers group two, I think that it is a slow war of attrition. The glory days of America are fading fast, and while there are still of course bright sparks in otherwise doom and gloom, America needs to learn to compete truly on a global scale again. Not just in small high tech niches, but in day to day manufacturing, tools, construction and really try to force home a concept of getting back to business, not importing anything and everything from some third world country with cheap labour.

Re:First (I think)

[Anonymous Coward]

blatant violation of copyrights was how Holywood got its power and industry where it is to begin with.

fixed.

Re:First (I think)

[countertrolling]

...a Democrat, their natural enemy...

Yeah, in the same way that Curly was Moe's 'natural enemy.

Re:First (I think)

[Bob9113]

The GOP arn't attacking Obama because he is black - they are attacking him because he is a Democrat, their natural enemy.

I suspect you are thinking of the 20th century. This is the new millennium. The GOP is attacking Obama because the political theater script specifies it. The unwritten charter clearly states that the one political party (commonly known as The Lobbyist Party) shall be split roughly evenly along pretentious wedge-issue lines, that no substantive change will be made on any wedge issues unless it increases the vitriol on the lips of the 80% of citizens who are not really paying attention, that all office-holders will work in earnest to prevent anyone who is not a member of the lobbyist party from winning any election, and that all actual bill passage must be coordinated in closed-door sessions to be attended by representatives of not less than 10% of the major lobbying firms.

The GOP's greatest ally in keeping their share (of political seats and of the lobbying cashflow) at 45% - 55% is the Democrats. And visa versa. The parties are not stupid, and they most certainly are not honorable. The one party exists either by evolution or by intelligent design, depending on your perspective, but that it exists is as obvious as a pumpkin in a pea patch.

Look at it this way: Nobody would believe in God if it weren't for Satan. Put either party in either role, the other is the other. 'round about the 80's or so, the parties smacked their collective forehead and said, "Ohhhhh, that's how we keep ourselves in power without having to actually figure out a healthy path forward for all citizens (that would be hard)."

Re:First (I think)

[Ihmhi]

Yes, if we're not careful, illegal copies of movies will... do... something.

Look man, I don't know. The only thing that comes to mind is translating Glitter into Arabic and air-dropping it over our enemies.

It is only a matter of time...

[bky1701]

...until the United States loses this power. You can't abuse control of a protocol like this and not have people in other countries (like Europe and Japan) start to wonder if they should break off.

Re:It is only a matter of time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? .com domain names are US domain names. If they want to have a pirate site in Korea, how about getting a .kr domain name? You do know that the US can only seize US domain names right? If you don't want it taken, then get your domain name registered in your own damn country.

Re:It is only a matter of time...

[Fluffeh]

Why? .com domain names are US domain names. If they want to have a pirate site in Korea, how about getting a .kr domain name?

Seriously, I can't believe that this gets modded up on /. still. A .com is NOT a US domain name. The .us suffix is what is used to denote site within the United States of America. The .com TLD is open for anyone to use, though it was designed for a commercial entity with the idea of not being localized to a single country - hence no suffix denoting a country.

Seriously mods, use your brains before you mod up rubbish that belongs on Fox News.

Re:It is only a matter of time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oi.. .com is a US tld. No matter if YOU like it or not. Every country in the world has a tld... the US also has .com, .net, .edu, and .org. .com is international like the NYC streets outside the UN complex is international. Lots of people from lots of countries are on it. But its still US soil. You actually GET to the UN complex, and that is international. Just like the actual machine hosting the a site may be international.

Re:It is only a matter of time...

[shutdown -p now]

"International in nature" is so vague as to be virtually meaningless.

international

Adjective:
Existing, occurring, or carried on between two or more nations.

And what does that have to do with the plain fact that that .com, .org, and .net are run by companies under the jurisdiction of the US Government?

It means that U.S. government is abusing its historical jurisdiction over those domains in a way that was not intended by the designers of the system.

Selling copyrighted material

[Dan East]

On first inspection, the majority of the sites offered access to downloads of the latest Hollywood blockbusters for a small charge.

Okay, so they were selling and profiting off of someone else's IP. Doesn't matter who they were "marketing" it to, if the copyright violation crosses into the jurisdiction of the US government then of course they will act.

Re:Selling copyrighted material

[Ethanol-fueled]

There were congressmen comparing ICE to the gestapo years ago.

The moment I knew that Homeland security was out of control happened a few months ago. I was in the City Heights section of San Diego buying beer. Some little Mexican kid jaywalked and ran across El Cajon Blvd in front of an SUV. The SUV, along with another SUV and an unmarked car, pulled into the parking lot the kid ran into and then no less than 6 fully armed ICE agents jumped out of all 3 vehicles and had the kid sitting on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back. A truly disgusting and overkill display of power. The kid was probably 4 feet tall.

What is especially creepy about this is that all three vehicles were all unmarked GM-made vehicles (undercover cars are always American-made) with inconspicuous non-government ("average-Joe") license plates.

You can rest assured that the DHS are like the Iranian Basij, a paramilitary force bent on enforcing the morality of the citizenry and keeping them in check should they get to loud for the status quo. They will be the ones rounding up the protesters and other undesirables, eventually whisking them away into detention centers.

Re:Selling copyrighted material

[Arker]

Okay, so they were selling and profiting off of someone else's IP. Doesn't matter who they were "marketing" it to, if the copyright violation crosses into the jurisdiction of the US government then of course they will act.

On the surface that seems like a reasonable argument. However it ignores the fundamental principles our justice system is founded upon, on several points. We supposedly believe in innocent until proven guilty, and due process of law, for example. Yet these actions are being taken without a trial. Furthermore, the offenses you mention are not criminal offenses, but civil offenses, which in our system of justice are supposed to be handled in a very different way from this.

Without in any way defending the sites in question, the actions being taken by ICE in this case do not seem at all consistent with the principles of american justice.

Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Further proof that the US Govt/ICE is a police whore for the Entertainment Industry.

Re:But illegals with fake health cards make our fo

[masternerdguy]

Vote with your wallet. If you're really against big media don't consume their products*. There's tons of high quality CC licensed, and independently produced, media out there. Otherwise quit your bitching.

*That doesn't mean you can pirate them. Consuming them anyway without paying isn't a protest.

Re:Take some of the big names already.

[houghi]

Unfortunately it won't piss off enough people. You perhaps can't fool all the people all the time, but you only need to fool enough of them.

The abuse of power has not reached its peak yet. Not even close. It is going to get much worse. This also means when people are fed up with it, the American Revolution will look like a tea party.

I think in 25 to 50 years. This is what history has thought me.

Re:But illegals with fake health cards make our fo

[betterunixthanunix]

Vote with your wallet

Sounds like wealthy people get more of a vote than I do.

Media Companies Need To Change or Die

[Hyperhaplo]

I am in Australia. I would like to play several movies and TV shows on my mobile. How can I do this legally?

I have a stack of CDs at home. Went through them last night to organise what I'll be watching for the next month or so (in regards to watching from physical medium). While annoying to have to change the disks each time, it's something I can put up with.

My SO is currently travelling. Good news is that the primary communications device she has, a Samsung Galaxy S, is well capable of video playback and could store several movies and quite a few TV episodes.. so how can this be done legally?

The answer of 'rip the DVDs, compress, and encode to AVI, then upload the files to the phone' is not the answer I am looking for.
Big Media is currently looking to sue downloaders, and by extension any related illegal activity in Australia.

So let's drive in the white lane. Let's do The Right Thing. Here is a list of movies and TV shows to put on this phone. How can this be done legally?
(and not all at once, obviously, due to the amount of content. Although, with enough memory sticks space should not be an issue)
(this is her 'for start' list.. just the things she'd like to watch now.. and yes, already have the DVDs for all of these

* Easy A
* Gilmore Girls
* Life on Mars
* JAG
* Serenity
* Firefly
* Brothers and Sisters
* Morning Glory
* The Good Witch
* Modern Family
* Castle

Now, for a good old fashioned rant regarding the story..

Some time ago we purchased the Gilmore Girls DVDs. Local store, all 10 seasons. All good, right?
Well, no. The sound was bad. Terrible actually. So, we put up with it thinking that it was our TV / System.
Had a few issues with a few disks. Long story really short is that a kind soul purchased the series online (and yes, the whole 10 seasons) as a boxed set which "patched the holes" from the 'store bought' disks. Excellent.
The 'online version' of the Gilmore Girls DVDs is of superior quality for the sound, the DVD menus and DVD functions. (I am not sure how to explain this. The 'store bought DVDs always seem to have issues loading / reading .. but the online version just works.. some issues with loading sometimes, but generally works without issue.. )

Cost comparison:
Store bought: We between $15 and $20 per season for Gilmore Girls at the local Kmart / BigW stores. For the 10 seasons I estimate that we spent ~170 in total for 10 seasons.
Online version: The boxed set of 10 seasons on DVD online apparently was just under $100 delivered (along with other stuff.. so, possibly $80).
Difference: Around $50 to $90 depending on local price vs online price

Quality: I would never purchase this DVD boxed set, either locally or online. The sound is terrible.

So, here the 'pirates' are producing a superior product, selling it for cheaper than the local retailers, have a 'disk replacement' policy with (what amounts to) DRM free and no UOP (which are highly irritating).

It's a pity that they don't have a service to buy properly encoded and tagged AVI's.

So far as I am concerned, Big Media are shooting themselves in the foot right now. Who doesn't have a smart phone capable of playing movies an TV shows? How many of us would watch shows on our phone if we could?

Here is my money. Will you take it?

No.

*sigh*

Yes, I know, it's been said before. Now it's just biting, kicking and screaming. Personally, I wish the 'pirates' all the best. They are providing a service that Big Media won't.