US DOJ Drops Charges Against Two Seized Websites

angry tapir writes "The U.S. Department of Justice has dropped its case against two Spanish websites that stream sports events nearly 17 months after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement seized the sites and shut them down for alleged copyright violations. In a one-page brief to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the district said his office had dropped the case against Rojadirecta.com and Rojadirecta.org. ICE seized the two sites on Jan. 31, 2011, and the DOJ asked the court to order that Puerto 80 Projects, the owner of the sites, forfeit the sites to the U.S. government."

Comments

Seizure without cause

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that this tactic has some interesting consequences. The DOJ can seize the website, take it offline and make it unavailable to users. Thus removing all revenue streams. In the mean time, they wait. After a significant amount of time passes they go and "unsieze" the websites which now have lost revenue and users.

Seems to me like a use of the courts as a tool that they were not intended. What sort of remediation can the site owners take on the DOJ?

Re:Seizure without cause

[FireFury03]

It seems that this tactic has some interesting consequences. The DOJ can seize the website, take it offline and make it unavailable to users. Thus removing all revenue streams. In the mean time, they wait. After a significant amount of time passes they go and "unsieze" the websites which now have lost revenue and users.

Seems to me like a use of the courts as a tool that they were not intended. What sort of remediation can the site owners take on the DOJ?

I've been saying this for a long time - if you're hosting something, doing it outside the US is a good plan. If you can host it somewhere that's US-hostile, even better (so long as the US doesn't bomb the datacentre).

Re:Seizure without cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone with a .org, .net, .com, etc US controlled domain even if their servers are hosted elsewhere in the world won't escape a similar fate.

Re:Seizure without cause

[Rich0]

Seems to me like a use of the courts as a tool that they were not intended. What sort of remediation can the site owners take on the DOJ?

Intended by who? Somehow I suspect this was exactly what was intended by these kinds of seizure rules.

Winning court cases is hard. So, the solution has been to turn the process of justice into its own form of punishment. If you don't like somebody you accuse them of a crime, and seize half their possessions as evidence. Then you hold onto them for years, or drag them through a long and very expensive process. By the time it is over the person has lost their job, family, home, and is in a mountain of debt. At that point, does it really matter what the verdict is?

And seizure is often even worse - in many cases there may not even be an opportunity to mount a defense. The property is sezied, and the owner need not even be charged with a crime.

Re:No even a "we're sorry?"

[AliasMarlowe]

What about the lost money? Time to sue.

And for damaged reputation and lost customers, due to those went to one of the seized sites, freaked out, then never visited again. Definitely damage was done to Puerto80 Projects (their owner), but can the the DOJ escape liability by claiming the seizure was not unlawful?

Re:No even a "we're sorry?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Better sue them for thousands of dollars for each potential lost customer! I estimate that they owe over 100 trillion dollars.