TorrentFreak

The U.S. Department of Justice is ramping up its battle against online piracy. Yesterday another $2.4 million was dedicated to the ever-increasing threat, and Attorney General Eric Holder seized the opportunity to gloat about some recent anti-piracy successes. Besides claiming the Megaupload takedown as a clear victory, Holder also noted that the DoJ has trained, educated and met with thousands of foreign judges, prosecutors, investigators, and policymakers on piracy issues.

During the last 24 hours Homeland Security seized another domain and put up the copyright infringement notice but now a quite unusual picture is forming. Allegedly an anti-vaccine blogger and claimed “batshit” conspiracy theorist with plenty of enemies had his server hacked and filled with illegal material. This appears to have resulted in his domain being seized for copyright infringement.

Yesterday and without warning, US authorities resumed “Operation In Our Sites” seizing several domain names associated with copyright infringement and counterfeiting. Today, yet more domains were added to the growing list. TorrentFreak caught up with one site owner who told us that while they were taken by surprise by a “pointless” seizure, they’ll soon be back.

US authorities have seized the domain of the hugely popular sports streaming and P2P download site Rojadirecta. The site, which is one of the most visited sites on the Internet, lost its .org domain which now redirects to a notice from DOJ/ICE. Rojadirecta is an unusual target because two courts in Spain have ruled that the site operates legally, and other than the .org domain the site has no links to the US.

Three weeks ago the US Government seized 82 domains as part of Operation in Our Sites 2. The authorities claimed that the actions were targeted at websites that were involved in the illegal sale and distribution of counterfeit and copyrighted goods. However, the seizure application that was made public today suggests that the seizure of the BitTorrent meta-search engine Torrent-Finder rested on painful mistakes.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have just confirmed the seizure of 82 domains as part of Operation in Our Sites 2. The authorities claim the actions were targeted at websites that were involved in the illegal sale and distribution of counterfeit and copyrighted goods, but fail to explain why a BitTorrent meta-search engine was included.

United States lawmakers have proposed new legislation today that would allow the Department of Justice to take over domain names of websites that promote copyright infringement. The proposed bill would allow for court orders against domestic as well as foreign sites, which could potentially shutter many torrent sites including The Pirate Bay.