U.S. Government Seizes BitTorrent Search Engine Domain and More

[lockwoodx]

http://torrentfreak.com/images/seizedservers.gif
http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-seizes-bittorrent-search-engine-domain-and-more-101126/

“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.

Free as in beer right? Freedom as in you're fucked.

update: Here's a huge list (http://www.osnews.com/story/24074/US_Government_Censors_70_Websites) of over 70 other websites the Government decided to censor.

[lost]

This is a complete minefield. We all know that torrents are used for pirate material in (my totally scientific estimated figure) 99/100 cases.

I think the greater question is whether or not piracy actually has benefit for the entertainment industry. I genuinely believe that music piracy has driven that industry forward.

My 2 cents...in a very vague manner. Not really interested in a long debate about it, such a minefield.

[lockwoodx]

Not really interested in a long debate about it, such a minefield.

When I submit something I make it worth it. :cool:

[Agnostic Pope]

The biggest daddy torrent site of them all hasn't been taken down...yet. So people (and by people I mean 80 percent of the INTERWEBS population) are still pretty much in lulz. The government internet laws are extremely dastardly. They might as well put a woman over the train tracks.
iMa-fadNs7Y

[Anenome]

Gotta have due-process no matter what man, this is just wrong. Copyright infringement or not, you don't just take people's shit without due process.

The courts will slap this down for sure. And after 10 years of legal process we might even get some landmark rulings.

[lockwoodx]

1234567890 http://anonops.net/ "vivendi universal, emi, warner music and sony music's main ifpi (international federation of phonographic industry) website is down. Not coincidentally, there's an operation payback post addressing the pirate bay crew's lost sentencing appeal: 'dear ifpi, mafiaa and other parasites, the recent verdict in the swedish appeal court (thepiratebay spectrial) provoked this statement from operation: Payback. We emphasize our statement with a distributed denial-of-service attack aimed at the ifpi's website.'"

[Agnostic Pope]

A 5 year old could start a DoS attack. There must be over 25 free applications that require that you only name said website and attack. Don't mean they won't track you and rape you with all the force of the law.

[RevXwise]

Gotta have due-process no matter what man, this is just wrong. Copyright infringement or not, you don't just take people's shit without due process.

The courts will slap this down for sure. And after 10 years of legal process we might even get some landmark rulings.

I normally disagree with just about everything I read from the users on this site, but this is correct. The government should not be allowed to act on a whim; this should be brought before the courts and decided there.

[Evil Avatar]

I think the greater question is whether or not piracy actually has benefit for the entertainment industry. I genuinely believe that music piracy has driven that industry forward.

Oh, I disagree. The music industry is hurting bad, their revenues are down significantly and decline every year and this year even the sales of individual tracks on iTunes was down. The music industry is in a downward spiral and I think that music piracy and the legitimate sale of digital music is a significant source of lost revenue for that industry.

I'm not sure how much money the movie industry is losing... I think that people who can't or won't download a movie end up using services like Red Box, Blockbuster or Netflix to see the movie anyway and Hollywood doesn't get much or anything from those companies.

I fail to see the difference if someone were to download a movie vs watching it on the streaming Netflix or using Netflix's mail in service or renting it for $1.00 from Red Box.

That isn't lost revenue for Hollywood, they would have never received that revenue in the first place.

I'm not saying anyone should pirate movies, I'm not sure I see as much of a real loss as you do from music and games.

[Evil Avatar]

Gotta have due-process no matter what man, this is just wrong. Copyright infringement or not, you don't just take people's shit without due process.

The courts will slap this down for sure. And after 10 years of legal process we might even get some landmark rulings.

You didn't read the article correctly. They did their due process, they siezed those websites as the result of a legal warrant issued by the court.

[Mantooth]

What the hell does Homeland Security have to due with copyright infringement? Is Al Qaeda hosting torrents now?

[brandonjclark]

When large amounts of money are involved, you can count on our Feds to act quickly and decisively.

All according to their lobbyist's desires, of course.

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

I have family involved in the music industry... That horse is long dead. Now its all about charging for access which few companies have done successfully. Just like most television shows, and movies, when it's easier for me to just torrent something and get it in a higher quality with less restrictions than I could paying full prices why would anyone bother doing so?

The truth here is that these industries didn't evolve in time and are miserably trying to recoup losses with ridiculous lawsuits and lobbying instead of being creative since it takes far too much effort than anyone cares to put forth these days.

Hollywood is still doing alright with a majority of their box office sales and people crazy enough to pay upwards of $20-30 for a DVD. All the crazy new technology showing up to prevent people from recording in theater helps as well. Too bad there are an infinite amount of insiders releasing screener copies.

Put some original content on the table and I might gladly hand over my money since I won't feel as if I got ripped off which happens so much more often.



Manually update host files. Fuck the po-lice...

[Anenome]

I'm surprised screeners have lasted this long. Come on people, just because it's the only useful perk of belonging to SAG doesn't mean the system can't change.

Basically everyone in Hollywood has a SAG friend and can watch screeners, they throw screener parties. It's one of the true ironies of Hollywood insiders--they're basically legal pirates.

[Anenome]

Some think the whole thing is a hoax (http://grandgood.com/2010/11/27/domain-name-seizures-of-popular-rap-file-sharing-sites-potentially-an-elaborate-hoax/).

[Capt_Thad]

I'm surprised screeners have lasted this long. Come on people, just because it's the only useful perk of belonging to SAG doesn't mean the system can't change.

Basically everyone in Hollywood has a SAG friend and can watch screeners, they throw screener parties. It's one of the true ironies of Hollywood insiders--they're basically legal pirates.

Screeners are what the publishers send out to theaters in order to demo films before deciding to show them. They're promotional materials, and kinda important ones too. They're also heavily marked, with watermarks and scrolling texts and whatnot. Not exactly the same as actually seeing the movie in the theater or buying a retail copy.

That said, we do pass around the screeners from time to time for when staff misses films. Have a giant drawer full of them upstairs. Generally I prefer to wait until stuff hits Netflix than to bother with them though (provided I don't catch it when we run it). Something about "THIS IS FOR PROMOTIONAL PURPOSES ONLY" scrolling through the middle of the screen every 10 seconds that kills the immersion.

[Major Dan]

Oh, I disagree. The music industry is hurting bad, their revenues are down significantly and decline every year and this year even the sales of individual tracks on iTunes was down. The music industry is in a downward spiral and I think that music piracy and the legitimate sale of digital music is a significant source of lost revenue for that industry.

I'm not sure how much money the movie industry is losing... I think that people who can't or won't download a movie end up using services like Red Box, Blockbuster or Netflix to see the movie anyway and Hollywood doesn't get much or anything from those companies.

I fail to see the difference if someone were to download a movie vs watching it on the streaming Netflix or using Netflix's mail in service or renting it for $1.00 from Red Box.

That isn't lost revenue for Hollywood, they would have never received that revenue in the first place.

I'm not saying anyone should pirate movies, I'm not sure I see as much of a real loss as you do from music and games.


I just don't buy music any more. :( I mean I have bought some, but I bought many CD's in the 80's early 90's but pretty much stopped all together. I rather just listen to the radio and Sirius, I like that when driving. It just seems easier to have some else pick from all the music out there and then I listen to it. If I get tired of the music I change the channel, easy.

Movies don't buy them either, except for my son. But as he is getting older, we are buying less. Just watch them on Satellite, rent or the actual theatre. I have been liking the Digital copy with the Blu-ray and or DVD, when on sale that seems like a good deal.