Since then Operation in Our Sites has resulted in thousands of domain name seizures and several arrests. While most of the sites are linked to counterfeit goods, dozens of “pirate” sites have also been targeted.

After a period of relative calm the authorities appear to have restarted their efforts with the takedown of two large music sites. RockDizFile.com and RockDizMusic.com, which are connected, now display familiar banners in which ICE takes credit for their demise.

“This domain has been seized by ICE- Homeland Security Investigations, pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by a United States District Court under the authority of 18 U.S.C. §§ 981 and 2323,” the banner reads.

TorrentFreak contacted ICE yesterday for a comment on the recent activity but we have yet to receive a response.

The domain names are now pointing to the same IP-address where many of the previously seized websites, such as torrent-finder.com and channelsurfing.net, are directed. Both domain names previously used Cloudflare and had their NS entries updated earlier this week.

Despite the apparent trouble, RockDizFile.com and RockDizMusic.com’s Twitter and Facebook pages have remained silent for days.

RockDizMusic presented itself as an index of popular new music. Artists were encouraged to use the site to promote their work, but the site also featured music being shared without permission, including pre-release tracks.

RockDizFile used a more classic file-hosting look, but with a 50MB limit it was mostly used for music. The site offered premium accounts to add storage space and remove filesize and bandwidth limitations.

Both websites appear to have a strong focus on rap and hip-hop music. This is in line with previous ICE seizures which targeted RapGodFathers.com, RMX4U.com, OnSmash.com and Dajaz1.com.

The latter was seized by mistake. The record labels failed to deliver proof of alleged infringements to the authorities and after a long appeal the domain was eventually returned to its owners.

This incident and the general lack of due process of ICE’s domain seizures has led to critique from lawmakers and legal scholars. The authorities are nevertheless determined to keep Operation in Our Sites going.

“Operation In Our Sites’ enforcement actions involve federal law enforcement investigating and developing evidence to obtain seizure warrants from federal judges,” ICE states on its website.

Once a credible lead comes in ICE says it “will work with the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute, convict, and punish individuals as well as seize website domain names, profits, and other property from IP thieves.”

At this point it’s unclear whether ICE has targeted any of the individuals connected to RockDizFile.com and RockDizMusic.com or whether the unit has taken down any other sites in a similar fashion.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

On the contrary, the MPAA is often disliked for their aggressive censorship regime. Not SOPA-style Internet censorship but film censorship, allegedly used to protect the interests of the major studios.

Aside from leading the war on piracy, the MPAA is also the moral judge who decides what films the public is allowed to see. Through its ratings system they can make or break films. Just ask South Park creator Matt Stone or watch “This Film is Not Yet Rated” to get an idea of what’s going on behind the scenes. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Another filmmaker who came out against the MPAA recently is small-time film director Heather Ferreira who wrote a flaming rant directed at the MPAA on Quora. According to her, pirates are not the threat – it’s the MPAA that’s killing creative filmmaking through its censorship regime.

“What I see when I examine the MPAA is not a friendly guardian of feature film directors’ rights, even at the studio level. Instead, I see a very large lobby that began as a Christian right-wing organization instituted to keep minorities off motion picture screens, promote racism and homophobia, and restrict creative freedom in America,” she writes.

Ferreira feels left out in the cold by the movie group, and gives several examples of trivial censorship rules filmmakers have to abide by today.

“The Motion Picture Association of America has never written me a paycheck for anything. They’re not backing my picture. These are not nice guys. They are not in this business to help filmmakers at all.”

“They’re censors waiting to pounce my film and yours with an NC-17 rating for violence or for showing two consenting adults laughing while enjoying sex (rape however is okay), while curiously no one censors the news media for showing [..] eight-year-olds Paris Hilton’s latest upskirt with very little pixellated out,” she writes.

“Isn’t that pauseworthy? If there’s no censors for the news, why for dramatic movies and television?”

Eventually, Ferreira gets to answering the original question and then it becomes evident that she dislikes the MPAA much more than those who download her work. “Thanks. I hope you enjoyed it,” would be her response to pirates who download her work.

“What the MAFIAA fails to realize is p2p is not a black and white issue of ‘piracy is wrong; all of it; and if you didn’t pay us, you’re a criminal’,” she writes.

Ferreira then goes on to note that the MPAA could better address piracy by stopping killing the creativity of filmmakers, and offer reasonably priced and top quality films. After all, pirates are potential customers.

“They’re a potential paying future audience member. The technology has changed. The playing field is different now. We need to adapt to it, not it to us,” she ends.

Although the above is just a single example of a filmmaker’s disappointment with the MPAA, a rather extreme one too, Ferreira is not alone. The lobby group represents the major studios who themselves are also guilty of crushing the creative dreams of independent filmmakers.

Just last week a former film student detailed how his career was ruined by a major movie studio. In 2001, the student found inspiration for his thesis in a short story from Isaac Asimov’s that was part of the book “I Robot.” But even though he had consent from the Asimov estate, a major studio threatened to take him down if he dared to bring it out. Turns out that studio was working on a film titled “I Robot.”

This week another major studio sued the Corleone estate because they want to publish a “Godfather” sequel. The studio claims that it’s to “protect the integrity and reputation of The Godfather trilogy.”

It would be kind of weak to say that the questionable censorship practices described above are an excuse to go and pirate movies. However, they are examples of how common protectionism and censorship is among the biggest players in Hollywood, and that this may be more detrimental to creativity than piracy will ever be.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

“I spent a day like a thief, locked in their cells filled with shit and even showered on the walls,” said Blackistef at the time. “A hole in the ground for a toilet (which you can not flush) and a single concrete bench.”

Blackistef lost his case in 2009 and was given a four month suspended jail sentence and ordered by a court to pay SACEM 17,000 euros in damages, plus costs.

Earlier this year the Court of Appeal heard the case but rejected Blackistef’s defense that as a service provider he should not be held responsible for links posted by users, provided he complied with takedown requests.

The court disagreed, noting that having the dirty word “torrent” in a domain name was reason enough to presume that Blacklistef knew that infringement took place on the sites. The original ruling was upheld leaving Blacklistef with a debt to SACEM of just over 19,000 euros.

Speaking with TorrentFreak today, Blacklistef told us that TorrentNews was a place where members exchanged torrent links found on The Pirate Bay, isoHunt and Miniova. It was a non-profit forum and there were no ads to create income.

But now, five months later, SACEM are hoping to generate some revenue of their own.

“Hello, this is for you!” said the bailiffs at Blacklistef’s door last week, handing him documents containing the breakdown of debts owed. As can be seen from the details below, in interest alone SACEM are already claiming more than 500 euros.

The documents further warn that if Blacklistef doesn’t pay the money owed within 8 days, the bailiffs will seize his property to cover the debt.

“But why me, what have I done to deserve this?” asks Blacklistef rhetorically. “Fortunately the costly act comes with a copy of the decision, and allows me to read the reasons for my conviction.

The accused has created websites contributing to the development of a vast underground economy, and whose actions contributed to the destabilization of the economy of artistic creation. He must be given an exemplary and deterrent punishment.

“According to the judge, I was the “Godfather of Wareziens,” he told TorrentFreak.

In order to try and reach some sort of compromise, Blacklistef went to see the bailiff and offered an interim payment of the 50 euros he had in his pocket to show good faith, but the offer was declined. Two days later he received documents containing the notice below:

Translated, the words “Saisie de vos meubles” mean “Seizure of your furniture”.

So now Blacklistef has until tomorrow to raise 19,303 euros or he says he will be forced to “say goodbye” to what little he has left. “My coffee table, my wooden shelf, my carpet,” he adds.

Other items he could have sold to raise money, including computer equipment, a TV and a cable receiver, were all confiscated by the court and never returned.

“So I called on the community to help me pay my SACEM fine so that I may not be ruined for a simple story of linking to torrents,” he concludes.

Blacklistef’s PayPal fund raiser can be found here, but progress is slow with just 175 euros pledged. Maybe a miracle can happen overnight.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Recent polls for the federal elections show that the Pirate Party is now polling double digits across the country. With 10 percent of the total vote, the Pirates would become the third largest party in the country if federal elections were being held this week.

This means that the good run in Berlin, where nearly 9 percent of the people voted for The Pirate Party, hasn’t gone unnoticed by the rest of the country. On the contrary, support for the Pirates only increased.

Perhaps even more impressively, it also shows that the party nearly quintupled their voter base since the last federal elections two years ago. With 845,904 votes at the 2009 federal elections, the Pirate Party got stuck at 2 percent of the vote, where 5 percent was needed to enter the Bundestag.

“This is a landmark event,” godfather and founder of Pirate Party movement Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak commenting on the news. “Getting to mainstream awareness takes metric tons of work. Getting to 10% in a poll is an achievement that only some five parties achieve per country in an entire century.”

In common with all other Pirate Parties across the world, the German Pirate Party’s policy focuses around three pillars; shared culture, free knowledge, and fundamental privacy. Based on the recent election and poll results, these key points appeal to a wide audience.

Although the results of the polls are promising, there is still a long way to go before new federal elections are held in Germany. The difficult task for the Pirates is to keep the momentum going. However, Rick Falkvinge thinks that this week’s poll results are a clear sign that they are on course.

“This isn’t an election result, but it is still something that starts to shift policy making away from neomercantilistic monopolies and toward the free exchange of TICKS (tools, ideas, culture, knowledge, and sentiments) that build the next generation of industries. That’s good for every country and for the youth in particular.”

Despite being just five years young, the German Pirate Party has already booked several successes. The party currently has more than 150 members in elected offices across Germany and with their recent surge in popularity this appears to be just the beginning.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Under the flag of “Operation In Our Sites” the authorities shut down a dozen file-sharing and streaming sites, as well as close to 80 sites selling counterfeit goods. After two months of silence on the domain seizure front, the MPAA has now applauded the US authorities for their “successful” enforcement efforts.

“Operation In Our Sites has not only put illegal sites out of business, but has raised public awareness about this specific form of crime on the Internet. Most importantly, these enforcement efforts have resulted in most of these entities ceasing their illegal activity,” wrote the MPAA two days ago in a letter to the US Government.

In more ways than one, the above statement from the movie studios is a gross twist of reality. For one, the public awareness that was raised mostly concerned the realization that the Government was willing to sacrifice a lot, including first amendment rights, to protect the interests of the entertainment industries. The seizures resulted in heavy critique from journalists, legal experts, senators and most prominently, the public.

It is of course hardly a surprise that the MPAA is misrepresenting the truth in their favor, but adding that the domain seizures “resulted in most of these entities ceasing their illegal activity” goes too far. Let’s take a look at what really happened to the allegedly infringing file-sharing and streaming sites that had their domains seized, starting in reverse chronological order.

It wasn’t hard for the affected sites to continue their operations. Since their servers had not been touched physically it was a simple matter to change a few settings to make the sites available to the public again under a new domain, something achieved in a few minutes. This is exactly what most of the streaming and file-sharing related sites have done.

During the latest round of seizures under the “Operation In Our Sites” flag in February, a total of 10 domain names were targeted, belonging to 6 different sports streaming services. Despite the thousands of dollars in tax payer money that were spend on the enforcement effort, all of the sites were back up in no time under new domains.

As of today, only one of the six is no longer accessible and that is the site of Bryan McCarthy, who was arrested by the feds last month. McCarthy initially continued his Channelsurfing.net website under a new domain at Channelsurf.eu. The day after his arrest this site was still up and running and it is believed that due to the circumstances he took it offline himself after he was bailed out.

So, although all the sites noticed an initial dip in traffic due to the seizures, the actions of the US Government did little to actually stop the streaming services from operating. This was no different to the situation November last year when 82 domain names were seized. Although most of the targets were sites selling counterfeit goods, 4 file-sharing related domains were also seized, including Torrent-Finder.com.

As mentioned previously, the operator of Torrent-Finder immediately announced he would fight the seizure in court and continued operating under the Torrent-Finder.info domain. Of the three other ‘piracy’ related sites that were seized, two – OnSmash and Rapgodfathers – came back on another domain, carrying on where they left off. Again, the seizures appear to have had little effect.

If we look back at the first round of “Operation In Our Sites” seizures in June last year, a similar pattern emerges. Of the 8 movie streaming services that were targeted at least 3 have continued, and it wouldn’t be a big surprise if the smaller sites that didn’t return immediately started over under a new name.

The above clearly illustrates that a domain seizure is not the ultimate anti-piracy tool the authorities and the MPAA claim it is. Most of the piracy related sites simply continued under new domains, undeterred. This raises the question whether the costs involved warrant the mediocre outcome.

Aside from the tens of thousands of dollars in tax money being spent on the enforcement actions, the unconstitutionality of the seizures are also a cost that has to be factored in. And with the seizures failing to achieve the desired outcome, one has to question whether it’s all worth it.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Torrent-Finder, which shifted to a .INFO domain to continue its operations, is fighting back with legal representation. Others, unsettled by the developing atmosphere of uncertainty, are taking steps to mitigate any potential future action against their sites.

Already several private trackers have invested in alternative domain names which are at least currently believed to be outside US control or influence. Early December the popular Demonoid tracker showed its hand with a shift from a .COM to a .ME domain.

While seizing the domain names of a fully fledged torrent site with index, categorization, heavy moderation, tracker and seedboxes might not be a huge surprise in the current climate, the targeting of the Torrent-Finder meta-search engine came as a real shock to the file-sharing community.

So there can be little doubt that Torrentz, the Internet’s second biggest torrent site, eyed the recent developments with an element of disbelief. As a meta-search engine it should be absolutely fine but the unofficially established rules of the game appear to have changed, despite being based on a case filled with serious mistakes.

To that end, today we can confirm that Torrentz has officially dumped its .COM domain in favor of Torrentz.eu. There’s no official announcement from the site but anyone visiting the old URL is immediately redirected. This change is a permanent one, we have learned.

Two years ago Torrentz already faced a hostile domain takeover from a hacker, but this issue was resolved quickly and without any serious consequences. We assume that moving away from the .COM domain is deemed to be the path of least resistance by the Torrentz.eu team.

But its not just BitTorrent sites that are affected by this environment of uncertainty. With the seizing of the domains of several hip-hop sites – RapGodFathers.com, RMX4U.com, Dajaz1.com, and OnSmash.com – that community is also worried for its future.

A handful of bewildered site owners have contacted TorrentFreak during the last month with questions ranging from “Why were these sites taken down?” through to “What can we do to avoid the same fate?” Our answer to these sites has been consistent – they have been targeted for being involved in RIAA-label music.

For those in hip-hop, the chance to really take their music back to the streets should be a breath of fresh air and a poke in the eye for the corporates who have tried, once they realized it was a money spinner, to absorb their scene during the last 20 years.

For everyone else, other tactics will have to be employed. The technology war to stay online – and findable with a search engine – has only just begun.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

All this time the authorities remained silent on the purpose and scope of the actions, until today. Apparently the DOJ and ICE had picked the label “Cyber Monday Crackdown” for their actions, and this meant that they couldn’t release their statement earlier.

However, today a press release was finally issued, detailing which sites were targeted and why.

“As of today – what is known as ‘Cyber Monday’ and billed as the busiest online shopping day of the year – anyone attempting to access one of these websites using its domain name will no longer be able to make a purchase. Instead, these online shoppers will find a banner notifying them that the website’s domain name has been seized by federal authorities,” it was announced.

“The coordinated federal law enforcement operation targeted online retailers of a diverse array of counterfeit goods, including sports equipment, shoes, handbags, athletic apparel and sunglasses as well as illegal copies of copyrighted DVD boxed sets, music and software.”

“By seizing these domain names, we have disrupted the sale of thousands of counterfeit items, while also cutting off funds to those willing to exploit the ingenuity of others for their own personal gain,” said Attorney General Holder in a subsequent press release.

Since 95% of the domains were related to counterfeit goods, this explanation was kind of expected, but one question remains unanswered. In fact, this is the question that prompted so many news outlets to pick up the story over the last few days.

Those who took a careful look at the list of seized domains will have noticed that there are some odd entries. Among the replica watches and fake sport shirts are three sites that were directly or indirectly linking to music. That’s not counterfeiting, although releasing music before it hits the stores is a criminal act so these targets can be explained.

But there’s an even stranger entry, and that is Torrent-Finder.

Torrent-Finder is not a typical torrent site where one can download torrent files. It’s merely a meta-search engine that redirects users to other sites. The site simply displays a search box and has no browsable archive. The site is not encouraging or even facilitating copyright infringement any more than other search engines such as Google.

So the question that we’d like to see answered is what the grounds were to seize Torrent-Finder? Could it have been a mistake? Or perhaps a test?

If the US authorities were to target BitTorrent sites then Torrent-Finder is arguably the least likely target. Still, the owner lost its domain without even receiving a notice. That doesn’t seen right somehow.

If it’s so easy for the US Government to obtain a seizure order for a website that is simply a meta-search engine, and not by any means involved in linking to or hosting copyrighted material, then where does it stop?

Meanwhile, TorrentFreak has been made aware of (many) additional domains that are on a Government seizure list. More info on this is expected to trickle in later in the week and might reveal more about the future direction of Operation In Our Sites 2 after “Cyber Monday Crackdown.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

When a site has no tracker, carries no torrents, lists no copyright works unless someone searches for them and responds just like Google, accusing it of infringement becomes somewhat of a minefield – unless you’re ICE Homeland Security Investigations that is.

This morning, visitors to the Torrent-Finder.com site are greeted with an ominous graphic which indicates that ICE have seized the site’s domain.

“My domain has been seized without any previous complaint or notice from any court!” the exasperated owner of Torrent-Finder told TorrentFreak this morning.

“I firstly had DNS downtime. While I was contacting GoDaddy I noticed the DNS had changed. Godaddy had no idea what was going on and until now they do not understand the situation and they say it was totally from ICANN,” he explained.

Aside from the fact that domains are being seized seemingly at will, there is a very serious problem with the action against Torrent-Finder. Not only does the site not host or even link to any torrents whatsoever, it actually only returns searches through embedded iframes which display other sites that are not under the control of the Torrent-Finder owner.

Torrent-Finder remains operational through another URL, Torrent-Finder.info, so feel free to check it out for yourself. The layouts of the sites it searches are clearly visible in the results shown.

Yesterday we reported that the domain of hiphop site RapGodFathers had been seized and today we can reveal that they are not on their own. Two other music sites in the same field – OnSmash.com and DaJaz1.com – have fallen to the same fate. But ICE activities don’t end there.

Several other domains also appear to have been seized including 2009jerseys.com, nfljerseysupply.com, throwbackguy.com, cartoon77.com, lifetimereplicas.com, handbag9.com, handbagcom.com and dvdprostore.com.

All seized sites point to the same message.

Domain seizures coming under the much debated ‘censorship bill’ COICA? Who needs it?

Update: Below is an longer list of domains that were apparently seized. Most of the sites relate to counterfeit goods. We assume that the authorities had a proper warrant for these sites (as they had for RapGodFathers yesterday), but were unable to confirm this.

Update: A spokeswoman for ICE confirmed the seizures in the following statement. “ICE office of Homeland Security Investigations executed court-ordered seizure warrants against a number of domain names. As this is an ongoing investigation, there are no additional details available at this time.”

Update: The authorities have revealed further details on “Cyber Monday Crackdown.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Acting on a search warrant issued on 23rd November and signed by United States Magistrate Judge Jeff Kaplan, DHS and ICE agents arrived at a Dallas datacenter Tuesday with orders to take down the 146,500 member RapGodFathers site (RGF), seize its servers and gather evidence on its owners, administrators and moderators.

The site had been in operation since 2005 and the authorities were authorized to take evidence relating to all activities right back to April 1st of that year.

“We only link to mixtapes, albums in the hiphop/rap genre,” a senior staff member told TorrentFreak this morning.

“Lots of those mixtapes help new artists become much bigger for example Drake, Chamillionaire, Wiz Khalifa. It also gives the users to listen to an album before buying it to judge the quality. Almost 99% of the time if people on RGF liked the album and posted positive comments, that given artist had a big success.”

RGF carries no direct downloads and hosts no copyright material itself but instead links to file-hosting websites such as RapidShare and MegaUpload.

TorrentFreak was informed that while the site had received DMCA takedown requests in the past, this was a fairly rare event and there was certainly nothing to indicate the authorities might be interested in the site.

“We ALWAYS removed links connected with any DMCA requests so this is a big surprise to us and our host because we collaborated to get all the links removed asap,” our source added.

In common with previous raids where U.S. authorities have taken control of domain names, the staffer at RapGodFathers believes the same is now happening to them.

“Our domain name is being seized. It’s blocked now with the registrar (Namecheap).”

RGF are now trying to get back on their feet with a new domain name, are keeping people informed via their Twitter and Facebook accounts and are hoping that someone with hosting outside the United States will get in touch.

If the message wasn’t clear previously, it should be by now. File-sharing link sites that remain in the United States or have their domains registered there should be prepared for trouble, even if they believe they are DMCA compliant.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

ALIS reached private agreements with the admins of ‘xvoom’ and ‘MYakuza’, under which the sites would be closed and compensation paid.

“The feeling is very difficult. A website that I have put 2.5 years of work into was closed”, said the owner of ‘mYakuza’, who didn’t hire a legal team. “Links to illegal films were never available on the website but I preferred not to destroy my life and decided to shut it down completely. They have more lawyers and money. We came out lucky.”

Effi Teva, the admin of ‘Donkey’ wasn’t included in the settlement and legal procedures against him have begun.

Last Wednesday, the district court in Haifa, Israel, ordered the permanent closure of the movie and TV subtitling sites donkey.co.il and sratim.co.il.

The court decided that the sites infringed copyrights by offering links to unauthorized subtitles and Judge Gideon Ginat ruled that the defendant, Effi Teva, should pay compensation of 160,000 shekels to ALIS and various filmmakers, which includes the lawyers’ fee of 60,000 shekels.

Effi Teva didn’t give any testimony. The previous hearing in the case took place in 2007, but Teva didn’t show up then either, instead asking the plaintiff’s lawyer to request an extension.

Judge Ginat says that Teva requested postponements numerous times. “I want to make it clear”, said the judge, “that I said in the last meeting to those present that I won’t be able to keep postponing the dates of the hearing.”

Judge Ginat criticized the behavior of the defendant and his lawyer and said, “It goes without saying that the defendant and his proxy cannot dictate the hearing date in a last minute phone call.”

Lawyer Sarah Prazanti, who represents movie anti-piracy outfit ALIS said that the judge refused to accept the request to postponed the hearing, and gave the verdict. Effi Teva did not comment on the matter.

In France this week, Warner has been taking action of its own against subtitling sites. It says that such sites “make intellectual property available to the public without authorization,” such as foreign translations of Warner productions. “This,” says Warner in threats to various subtitling sites, “will affect your liability and exposes you to possible civil lawsuits.”

One site under threat is ‘Frigorifix’, which appears to be taking the threat seriously. “Never, until now have we had threats from rights holders that are as real and immediate as the ones we received yesterday.”

“Our names and addresses are listed with our registrar and web host,” said a representative of the site, “and we can not afford to undergo a judicial process.”

It is believed that members of the site will continue to translate, but no subtitles will be available from the site itself.

Earlier this month we reported on the problems faced by Brazilian sub-site Legendas.tv after anti-piracy action, but it quickly bounced back.

Thanks go to Q-subs translator ‘Godfather’

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.