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US DOJ Drops Charges Against Two Seized Websites

Posted by samzenpus on from the forget-about-it dept.

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."

15 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. No even a "we're sorry?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What about the lost money? Time to sue.

    1. Re:No even a "we're sorry?" by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?

      --
      Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
    2. Re:No even a "we're sorry?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    3. Re:No even a "we're sorry?" by jythie · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Sadly, while the US can seize foreign assets, often courts rule that foreign companies do not have standing to sue. The standards for what constitutes having a local presence seem to vary according to which side the government is on....

    4. Re:No even a "we're sorry?" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      100 trillion dollars isn't exactly a lot of money these days, dr. evil.

    5. Re:No even a "we're sorry?" by Hatta · · Score: 4, Insightful

      courts rule that foreign companies do not have standing to sue

      Standing seems to get in the way of justice quite often. We need to strongly consider removing these loopholes in our justice system that allow the government to commit crimes with impunity.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    6. Re:No even a "we're sorry?" by Inda · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What lost money?

      I used Rojadirecta before I found a better site. It was only when my 'better' site didn't stream a game I was after that I looked back to Rojadirecta.org and saw it was down.

      Rojadirecta.se came to the rescue. I see there is a Rojadirecta.me too. When will these ban-hammer organisations learn? How long have we seen the same processes repeated over and over?

      I don't give a shit about Hollywood or Poptastic music. I do give a shit about my sports.

      If only they'd let me buy the stream on a Saturday afternoon. I only want to watch Tottenham Hotspur play. I cannot afford to travel to the game, even if I could get a ticket - their ground is full most weeks. I can afford a few quid to stream the game.

      I pay for Sky Sports. I'm happy to pay for my sport. Let me give you more money, you fucking idiots.

      --
      This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
  2. Seizure without cause by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:Seizure without cause by FireFury03 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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).

      --
      http://blog.nexusuk.org
    2. Re:Seizure without cause by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Seizure without cause by Rich0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Seizure without cause by BigSlowTarget · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What remediation will happen? None. The government has sovereign immunity except under special cases. This would not qualify as you would have to prove they not only did not have a case but could never have reasonably thought they could ever have had a case. That isn't going to happen.

    5. Re:Seizure without cause by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't know. May be Kim Dot Com is wondering the same.

  3. Why not? by jdev · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The U.S. government makes an even more bold claim than that. They have argued with Megaupload that the government can continue to seize their servers even if the case is dismissed. I'm halfway surprised that the government bothered to drop the charges against Rojadirecta since they feel they can keep cases like this in limbo indefinitely without any consequences.

  4. Re:DNS = FAIL by cpghost · · Score: 4, Informative
    Yes, the hierarchical nature of DNS invites exactly this kind of abuse. However, to be fair: designers of the DNS never expected this kind of lawfare. They thought about cities being nuked etc..., not about a rogue government controlling the top-level of the DNS hierarchy.

    As to countries going offline when a submarine cable is being cut, it's their problem: they were supposed to provide some levels of redundancy by connecting to multiple international backbones in the first place.

    --
    cpghost at Cordula's Web.