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tangent4ronpaul
06-21-2013, 04:41 AM
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/domains-seized/

By David Kravets
06.20.13
3:06 PM

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2013/06/Screen-Shot-2013-06-20-at-11.44.48-AM1.png

Federal authorities said today that, since June 2010, they have seized more than 1,700 domains that allegedly breached intellectual property rights.

Seized under a program known as “Operation in Our Sites,” the domains hosted material the authorities said illegally streamed sporting events; hawked counterfeit drugs, clothes, and accessories like handbags; and unlawfully allowed the downloading of copyrighted movies and music.

The figures were buried in the White House’s 2013 “Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement,” (.pdf) and they represent about 50 seizures a month following the operation’s adoption three years ago.

Under the program, implemented by the nation’s first and only IP czar Victoria Espinel, federal authorities are taking .com, .org, and .net domains under the same civil-seizure law the government invokes to seize brick-and-mortar drug houses, bank accounts, and other property tied to alleged illegal activity. The feds are able to seize the domains because VeriSign — which controls the .net and .com names, and the Public Interest Registry, which runs .org — are U.S.-based organizations. Under U.S. civil forfeiture laws, the person losing the property has to prove that the items were not used to commit crimes.

“After the domain names have been seized, they are processed for forfeiture to the United States. The Operation has resulted in 14 arrests and over $3 million seized,” Espinel wrote in the report that was delivered today to Congress and President Barack Obama.

The seizures are often based on the word of rightsholders, who claim infringement.

One of the clearest examples of the government going too far concerned a hip-hop music site called Dajaz1.com.

Federal authorities seized the popular site based on assertions from the Recording Industry Association of America, which said the site was linking to four “pre-release” music tracks. In 2012, a year after the seizure, the feds gave the site back to its New York owner without filing civil or criminal charges because of apparent recording industry delays in confirming infringement, according to court records obtained by Wired.

Espinel, in her letter today, said the government’s overall intellectual property enforcement efforts “will focus on infringement that has a significant impact on the economy, the global economic competitiveness of the United States, the security of our Nation, and the health and safety of the American public.”

A complicated web of bureaucracy and Commerce Department-dictated contracts signed in 1999 established that key domains would be contracted out to Network Solutions, which was acquired by VeriSign in 2000. That cemented control of all-important .com and .net domains with a U.S. company, putting every website using one of those addresses firmly within reach of American courts regardless of where the owners are located.

When the sites are seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcements, a message is left behind to online vistors warning that the government has taken control of the site.

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As usual, Wired has tons of links in their articles, so click through if interested. Also, other interesting articles...

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tangent4ronpaul
06-21-2013, 05:06 AM
Senator Wants Answers from DHS Over Domain Name Seizures

By David Kravets
12.09.11
7:34 PM

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) said Friday he would demand answers from the Department of Homeland Security about its domain seizure program known as Operation in Our Sites after it was revealed that the government kept a hip-hop music review site’s name for a year without affording the owner a chance to challenge the seizure.

Wyden also wants to know why there was no court record of the case, other than the initial seizure filing a year ago.

“I expect the administration will be receiving a series of FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requests from our office and that the senator will have very pointed questions with regard to how the administration chooses to target the sites that it does,” said Jennifer Hoelzer, a Wyden spokeswoman. She said the senator was “particularly interested in learning how many secret dockets exist for copyright cases. There doesn’t seem to be an obvious precedent or explanation for that.”

Wyden’s interest comes a day after federal authorities returned the domain name dajaz1.com, which was back online greeting visitors Friday with a powerful message about proposed web-censorship legislation that expands the government — and copyright holders — power to shutter and cripple sites suspected of copyright infringement.

The federal government already has the power to seize web domains under the same forfeiture laws used to seize property like houses, cars and boats allegedly tied to illegal activity such as drug running. A year ago, it started invoking that law against sites marketing and trafficking in counterfeit goods, unauthorized sports streaming and unauthorized music — seizing more than 350 domain names in all.

One of those sites caught in that crackdown (.pdf) was dajaz1.com. Operation in Our Sites, run by the Department of Homeland Security, accused the site of allowing its users to download pre-release music. But as it turns out, some of that music was sent to the popular blog by the artists or labels.

The site’s homepage on Friday was dominated by a video pointing to alarming legislation known as the Protect IP Act — which is stalled in a procedural muck — that a Senate committee passed months ago basically giving copyright owners the right to shutter websites believed to be dedicated to infringing activities. Judicial oversight is not needed. In a recent editorial, we spoke about such dangers that this and a similar proposed House measure are ripe for abuse. After all, if the movie industry had its way, the VCR would have been outlawed.

Techdirt disclosed Thursday that for a year, the government refused to allow the site’s owner, who goes by the moniker Splash, to challenge the November 2010 seizure of the domain name by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, which is a branch of DHS. The only publicly available court record regarding the seizure was the initial filing of a court order a year ago. Everything else was sealed — invisible to Splash, his lawyer, the public and the press. On Thursday, the site was returned to the owner of the Queens, New York-based site with the only explanation being that forfeiture was unwarranted.

ICE’s complaint against the site listed four songs that the site allegedly linked to in violation of copyright law. Three of them were e-mailed to Splash by record executives associated with labels that belong to the Recording Industry Association of America, which helped create the complaint.

“It’s not my fault if someone at a record label is sending me the song,” Splash told The New York Times last year.

His attorney, Andrew Bridges of San Francisco, said in a telephone interview Friday that the issue underscores that “powerful corporate copyright interests have taken advantage of the post 9-11 era to obtain the services of Homeland Security to enforce commercial interests.”

The Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s public response to keeping Splash’s property for a year, without due process, boils down to a belief that it’s acceptable collateral damage:

(cont)

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/wyden-domain-seizure/

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tangent4ronpaul
06-21-2013, 05:12 AM
Feds Expand Domain Seizures to Mobile-App Pirate Sites
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/app-domains-seized/


By David Kravets
08.22.12
4:40 PM

The U.S. government for the first time has seized internet domains of online sites accused of selling pirated mobile applications, in this instance, Android apps.

Seizing domains is nothing new under the President Barack Obama administration. Usually, however, sites are shuttered for offering gambling, hawking counterfeit goods, or providing links to or streaming unauthorized movies and sporting events, or selling unauthorized copies of software. The government has seized more than 750 domains in the past two years under a program called “Operation in Our Sites.” (.pdf)

The domains seized, announced late Tuesday, include applanet.net, appbucket.net and snappzmarket.com. The servers of the targeted were largely hosted overseas, the authorities said. No arrests were announced.

The U.S. government has been seizing .com, .org. and .net domains with court approval, under the same civil seizure law the government invokes to seize brick-and-mortar drug houses, bank accounts and other property tied to illegal activity.

Most importantly, the United States has the legal right, it says, to seize any .com, .net and .org domain name because the companies that have the contracts to administer them are based on United States soil.

The seizures are not without controversy. For instance, the feds seized the domain of a hip-hop blog at the behest of the Recording Industry Association of America, only to quietly return the Dajaz1 site more than a year later after having found no way to press charges against the New York site for allegedly distributing pre-release music.

When a domain name has been seized, the authorities leave behind messages to visitors informing them that the pirate site has been commandeered by the authorities.

“Cracking down on piracy of copyrighted works — including popular apps — is a top priority of the criminal division,” said Lanny Breuer, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s criminal division. “Software apps have become an increasingly essential part of our nation’s economy and creative culture, and the Criminal Division is committed to working with our law enforcement partners to protect the creators of these apps and other forms of intellectual property from those who seek to steal it.”

The government said agents downloaded thousands of apps from the sites, which were distributing the wares without permission of the app developers.

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tangent4ronpaul
06-21-2013, 05:16 AM
Did you notice the important part?

1,700 domains seized is from now.
750 domains seized is from Aug 2012
350 domains seized is from Sept 2011

Somethings coming online in a BIG way!

-t