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US Grabs More Domain Names, $1.4M From Online Counterfeit Operations
coondoggie writes "According to court documents, investigation by federal law enforcement agents revealed that subjects whose domain names had been seized in a November 2010 operation continued to sell counterfeit goods using new domain names. In particular, the individuals, based in China, sold counterfeit professional and collegiate sports apparel, primarily counterfeit sports jerseys." So now the government has again taken over a swathe of domain names used in crime.
I didn't speak out for them because I didn't own domains and when they came for me....
Is anyone else underwhelmed by this "accomplishment"? Sports jerseys? Really? I guess as long as the proceeds more than fund the operations I am OK with this, but it had better be a net win for the government.
We really need to take the USA out of the internet-control. About everything is illegal in the USA and we should not take the risk they keep shutting more and more sites down. Yesterday it was for the children, today it's for the really rich and bad guys (riaa) and tomorrow it's because you tweeted you would go to LA and dig up Marilyn Monroe to party like there is no tomorrow. The world is in need of a new internet, a true internet without the current system of root-servers. A 100% decentralized internet, or in the event that isn't possible, an internet where the rootservers are in international waters. It's become to dangerous and we need to act. Fast.
Ah. Whack-a-mole. That most American of games. Such an excellent way to spend someone else's money.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
I don't believe that this is right of the American government to do. The Internet is not sole U.S. property and there are no court proceedings to justify it.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
try and try again!
Note: that's not also the definition of insanity...
Captcha: paranoia!
This quick recovery those counterfeiters managed goes to show just how futile it is to attach the domain name infrastructure for these kinds of infringements. And for obvious reasons... nobody types an URL anymore, they just go to google/bing/whatever. And it's really a point & click matter to have your brand-new replacement domain indexed by them: you just have to fill in a form and watch googlebot crawl your site.
If they had invested all that effort in seizing bank accounts instead (and the warrants they need to do that), they'd have shut them down for real. Instead, they just inflict collateral damage without any real damage to counterfeiters.
ACTUAL crime being committed? Check.
Warrant? Check.
Proper procedure followed? Check.
Crime investigated? Check.
Crime confirmed? Check.
Crime properly documented? Check.
PUBLIC DULY INFORMED???
Check and check.
I don't have a problem with this.
[End Of Line]
...that seizing domains does absolutely no good, and that in at least a one case, it does significant harm to people who haven't violated the law.
It's a flawed, ineffective, and destructive policy that can only cause harm and can never have any significant benefit. It needs to be stopped immediately.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
...different parts of the world have VERY different interpretations on what constitutes a crime.
define "ACTUAL crime" in a border-less environment like the internet...
- considered a crime in the offenders country of origin?
- considered a crime in the victims country of origin?
- does it need to be both? if so, who has jurisdiction?
- if there are treaties... whose take precedence?
- where was the crime committed? at the point of manufacture? at the point of sale? where is the point of sale exactly? at the point of delivery?
- does it all come down to he who has the bigger missile silos?
Its really easy for us to state that something on the internet is "wrong". Its a lot harder to state that its "illegal"
http://gigaom.com/2012/05/11/louis-vuitton-asks-for-sopa-like-seizure-of-hundreds-of-websites/ links to
http://www.scribd.com/doc/93228219/Louis-Vuittion-Complaint
At the end of the page 20 some ~380 domains are listed?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
what i'd lke to know:
how much does it cost us to identify the sites?
how many legit sites are affected and lose money?
etc etc
what's the point of seizing domains when it's pretty simple to just switch to a new one
If you want to see all of the banners used by the Operation In Our Sites initiative, I have collected them here: DOJ Seized Domain Notices - Paul Nickerson - Picasa Web Albums
So according to ACTA promoters, counterfeiting is a $100 billion a year business, and yet these websites combined, resulted in seizure of only $1.5 million??
"Under warrants issued by a U.S. District Judge, law enforcement agents seized $1,455,438.72 in proceeds that had been transferred from the money service business accounts to various bank accounts in China."
I notice they included the decimal point in the story and the fraction which makes the number longer, but it is only $1.5 million, probably far less than the budget of the department investigating it, and certainly not worth crippling the world with censorship, surveillance etc.
So can we now again have a proper assessment of the true damage counterfeiting is and stop this ACTA funny number nonsense??
are not being punished? You can't tell me they couldn't get the transaction history from the payment processors.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
The constatution does not EXPRESSLY make couterfetting a crime, nor does it EXPRESSLY allow the siezure of domain name's without due process.
This is therefor by definition an illegal tax on competition.
(roman_mir, can't login for some reason)
Much as I feel sympathy for your cute girls, if they are not making money from this it's probably because they are/were paying too much for the licence fee. They made a bad business decision somewhere down the line and flunked out. I have no personal knowledge of the market for Loony Tunes car floormats but would suspect it's not huge anyway.
If their themed mats are markedly more expensive than an ordinary mats then people just will not buy them. To blame pirated mats for this is just trying to find reasons to avoid taking the blame themselves.
To a large extent this is how the capitalist system works though, we need survival of the fittest businesses to ensure the market works. The companies that sell the licences will always try to get higher fees for them, it's only the fact that a number of the licensees fail that stops these fees going up any more and us the public having to pay even more for our goods.
N.B. this user is far too lazy to write a witty and intelligent sig.
Banksters continue to loot the savings and investments of millions of people, and our "leaders" are focused on knock-off NFL jerseys and copied mp3's.
Also, we are going to finally win the drug war any day now.
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