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

Sat Nov 27 15:21:36 CET 2010

@Nuno., at least here in Egypt, the site is down
(http://www.torrent-finder.com), however, if you go to the other domain name
(http://www.torrent-finder.info), that should still be working as indicated
in the blog.

I'm still puzzled how ICANN staff have not commented about any of this at
all. Doesn't this in any way represent an undermining of their management of
the DNS? As per my understanding of the UDRP, their role in protecting
trademarks is limited to copyright infringements made in the domain name
itself and not in the content published on the website (as seems to be the
case here), but still., unilateral seizure of domain names by government
agencies seems like a very grey area to me as far as they should be
concerned.

Amr Elsadr M.D.

Chief Operating Officer

Tele-Med International

 <http://www.telemedint.net/> http://www.telemedint.net

Tel: +2(023)534-6098

Fax: +2(023)534-6029

From: NCSG-NCUC [mailto:NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of
Nuno Garcia
Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2010 3:40 PM
To: NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: U.S. Government Seizes BitTorrent Search Engine Domain and More

I am just wondering, do these domains appear seized to you at this time?
Torrent-finder is working fine here (in Portugal).

BR,

Nuno Garcia

On 27 November 2010 13:25, Marc Rotenberg <rotenberg at epic.org> wrote:

According to the New York York Times, it was the Dept of
Homeland Security (the same agency that brought us
airport body scanners) that seized the BitTorrent site and others.
This seems odd since it is the US Dept of Justice that would
typically investigate copyright matters.

Note also that this action took place prior to Senate action
on COICA.

Marc Rotenberg
EPIC

-----------------------------

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/technology/27torrent.html

U.S. Shuts Down Web Sites in Piracy Crackdown
By BEN SISARIO
Published: November 26, 2010

In what appears to be the latest phase of a far-reaching federal
crackdown on online piracy of music and movies, the Web addresses of
a number of sites that facilitate illegal file-sharing were seized
this week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the
Department of Homeland Security.

By Friday morning, visiting the addresses of a handful of sites that
either hosted unauthorized copies of films and music or allowed
users to search for them elsewhere on the Internet produced a notice
that said, in part: "This domain name has been seized by ICE -
Homeland Security Investigations, pursuant to a seizure warrant
issued by a United States District Court."

 * * *

On Nov 27, 2010, at 1:57 AM, Alex Gakuru wrote:

> Does this mean *all* search engines with links will be shut down
> anytime, including 'Big G'?
>
> On 11/27/10, Alex Gakuru <gakuru at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Why complained earlier on expectations that cash strapped ccTLDs
especially
>> in Africa/developing cannot afford parallel servers, databases and time
>> costs to enforce third parties IP/copyrights/trademark etc interests. It
>> somehow 'feels' safer NOT to register a .com now?
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 7:34 AM, Robin Gross <robin at ipjustice.org> wrote:
>>
>>> The latest info that I've seen is that Verisign assigned new DNS servers
>>> at the Registry level, and then locked the domain so that even the
>>> Registrar
>>> can't update it.  So now it looks like it may have been VeriSign who
>>> "seized" them.  No word on ICANN's role in this situation, if any.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Nov 26, 2010, at 8:29 PM, Marc Perkel wrote:
>>>
>>> So was it ICANN that actually did the seizing?
>>>
>>> On 11/26/2010 7:25 PM, Michael Haffely wrote:
>>>
>>> The concerning part about the report from today is that the domain owner
>>> never received any complaint or due process before the domains were
>>> seized.
>>> It appears that no Cease and Desist, warrant, suit, or other criminal
>>> complaint was brought up before the domain was taken.  What if (for an
>>> example) this behavior is taken up by the Patent and Copyright "trolls".
>>> What happens to an individual/nonprofit/organization when they have
their
>>> domain yanked out from under them?
>>>
>>> If ICANN is to seize domains from their rightful owners by demand of a
>>> law
>>> enforcement agency we need to have a clear, *rapid* appeals process to
>>> prevent abuse by corporations, law enforcement agencies, and
governments.
>>>
>>>
>>> -Mike H.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 8:46 PM, Andrew A. Adams <aaa at meiji.ac.jp>
wrote:
>>>
>>>> Very similar moves are happening in the UK, with Nominet (UK non-profit
>>>> with
>>>> the .uk (and .gb) country-code delegation) engaging with the UK's SOCA
>>>> (Serious and Organised Crime Agency *) to remove 1200 "sites engaged in
>>>> selling counterfeit goods" recently and now doing a more explicit deal
>>>> with
>>>> the police to take down the DNS registration for sites "alleged to be
>>>> involved in criminal activity".
>>>>
>>>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/25/nominet_crime/
>>>>
>>>> (*) The SOCA is a rather dodgy organisation, IMHO. When it was set up
>>>> the
>>>> then home secrewtary made a big thing of it not being actually police
>>>> and
>>>> therefore not bound by the requirements that the police have to respect
>>>> the
>>>> human rights of citizens. THat's a recipe for a secret police operating
>>>> extra-judicially and here we see exactly that kind of approach.
>>>>
>>>> I am very worried by these kinds of moves. Zittrain's "The Future of
the
>>>> Internet" and Mueller's "Networks and States" concerns about censorship
>>>> becoming the norm not the exception online seem to be coming true.
While
>>>> I'm
>>>> not in favour of criminals having free reign, the trouble is that all
>>>> the
>>>> hard won freedoms such as due process, balance of rights, etc. seem to
>>>> be
>>>> being thrown out in the digital domain.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Professor Andrew A Adams                      aaa at meiji.ac.jp
>>>> Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration,  and
>>>> Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics
>>>> Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan       http://www.a-cubed.info/
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> IP JUSTICE
>>> Robin Gross, Executive Director
>>> 1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA  94117  USA
>>> p: +1-415-553-6261    f: +1-415-462-6451
>>> w: http://www.ipjustice.org     e: robin at ipjustice.org
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> regards,
>>
>> Alex Gakuru
>> http://www.mwenyeji.com
>> Hosting, surprise yourself!
>>
>
>
> --
> regards,
>
> Alex Gakuru
> http://www.mwenyeji.com
> Hosting, surprise yourself!

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