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)

[failedlogic]

The great American companies complaining about IP problems are happily headquarted in tax safe havens. They get the protections of American law and Washington policymakers while paying a minimal amount of tax to the American government.

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)

[InsightIn140Bytes]

US is just scared of rest of the world going forward while they're still lacking in last century. They should know - blatant violation of European copyrights was how US got its power and industry where it is to begin with.

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)

[bzipitidoo]

Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

You talk of products and of counterfeiting. You are once again conflating the material with the immaterial. Although the term "product" does apply to a movie, there are better terms, such as "data". Nor is piracy is the same as counterfeiting. Counterfeiting also means that the origin of a product is being misrepresented, similar to plagiarism. Pirates aren't claiming to be the authors of a Beatles' song.

You speak of "allowing", as if the default is that copying is hard, and as if some human agency has the power to grant people the ability to make copies, and can take that privilege away anytime. And as if the US has authority over Korea.

Nor do you know what effect it all has on jobs. For all you know, your way would kill jobs, not create them. Your way certainly would hurt the economy, benefiting a few monopolies a little in exchange for a lot of expense for everyone.

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: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...

[shutdown -p now]

RFC 1591:

Each of the generic TLDs was created for a general category of
organizations. The country code domains (for example, FR, NL, KR,
US) are each organized by an administrator for that country. These
administrators may further delegate the management of portions of the
naming tree. These administrators are performing a public service on
behalf of the Internet community. Descriptions of the generic
domains and the US country domain follow.

Of these generic domains, five are international in nature, and two
are restricted to use by entities in the United States.

World Wide Generic Domains:

COM - This domain is intended for commercial entities, that is
companies. This domain has grown very large and there is
concern about the administrative load and system performance if
the current growth pattern is continued. Consideration is
being taken to subdivide the COM domain and only allow future
commercial registrations in the subdomains.

EDU - This domain was originally intended for all educational
institutions. Many Universities, colleges, schools,
educational service organizations, and educational consortia
have registered here. More recently a decision has been taken
to limit further registrations to 4 year colleges and
universities. Schools and 2-year colleges will be registered
in the country domains (see US Domain, especially K12 and CC,
below).

NET - This domain is intended to hold only the computers of network
providers, that is the NIC and NOC computers, the
administrative computers, and the network node computers. The
customers of the network provider would have domain names of
their own (not in the NET TLD).

ORG - This domain is intended as the miscellaneous TLD for
organizations that didn't fit anywhere else. Some non-
government organizations may fit here.

INT - This domain is for organizations established by international
treaties, or international databases.

United States Only Generic Domains:

GOV - This domain was originally intended for any kind of government
office or agency. More recently a decision was taken to
register only agencies of the US Federal government in this

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.