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

Mon Nov 29 14:50:27 CET 2010

The UK is in its early steps of developing such policy/laws - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11845961

What seems to be happening is that criminal activities and IP enforcement become conceptually blurred, which allows for such actions to be legitimized and validated. What I think will happen is that we will start seeing more criminal laws get amended to include IP issues (rather the other way around) under a general context which will provide a catch all environment for Internet-related activity. Through this, it will also make more sense for law enforcement agencies to get actively involved without concerns over separation of powers or legitimacy.

KK

Dr. Konstantinos Komaitis,

Law Lecturer,
Director of Postgraduate Instructional Courses
Director of LLM Information Technology and Telecommunications Law
University of Strathclyde,
The Law School,
Graham Hills building,
50 George Street, Glasgow G1 1BA
UK
tel: +44 (0)141 548 4306
http://www.routledgemedia.com/books/The-Current-State-of-Domain-Name-Regulation-isbn9780415477765
Selected publications: http://hq.ssrn.com/submissions/MyPapers.cfm?partid=501038
Website: www.komaitis.org

From: NCSG-NCUC [mailto:NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Marc Rotenberg
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 12:09 PM
To: NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: U.S. Government Seizes BitTorrent Search Engine Domain and More

More news today.

(I had a hunch that the Dept of Justice would
be involved.)

Marc Rotenberg
EPIC

--------
                    From:                 Morning Tech <morningtech at politico.com<mailto:morningtech at politico.com>>

                     Subject:           POLITICO's Morning Tech, presented by Washington's NewsChannel 8: Today: DOJ discusses IP enforcement - NetCoalition opposing Comcast-NBC merger - Fmr. Pres. George W. Bush heads to FB for live book chat - The privacy debate returns

                     Date:                November 29, 2010 5:20:38 AM EST

DRIVING THE DAY: DOJ DETAILS IP ENFORCEMENT - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and ICE Director John Morton are holding a press conference this morning at DOJ where the two will announce "an intellectual property enforcement action," according to the release. This comes on the heels of ICE seizing the Web addresses of several file-sharing websites late last week - more on that below. ICE officials declined to comment on the websites that were taken down.

ICYMI: U.S. CRACKS DOWN ON PIRACY HAVENS - From the NYT: "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. ... The new seizures also come as a new bill, the Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act, is making its way through Congress. The bill, which was approved by a Senate committee last week, would allow the government to shut down sites that are 'dedicated to infringing activities.'" MORE: http://nyti.ms/dOTbmb

On Nov 28, 2010, at 11:17 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:

Exactly, DHS consolidated functions that used to be in separate departments (Customs, INS)

-----Original Message-----
From: Marc Rotenberg [mailto:rotenberg at epic.org]
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2010 11:09 AM
To: Milton L Mueller
Cc: NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU<mailto:NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
Subject: Re: U.S. Government Seizes BitTorrent Search Engine Domain and
More

As a US lawyer, it seems odd to me that the DHS would have
this role. International law enforcement matters are routinely
coordinated by the Dept. of Justice. ICE is a relatively
recent creation, gathering powers that traditionally resided
with Customs and the INS.

Marc.

On Nov 28, 2010, at 10:56 AM, Milton L Mueller wrote:

Not so odd, Marc, because Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is
part of DHS.
Customs would be the primary agency involved in transnational
counterfeiting enforcement actions.
Recall ACTA and related negotiations. Interesting that this can go on
without COICA.

-----Original Message-----
From: NCSG-NCUC [mailto:NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf
Of
Marc Rotenberg
Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2010 8:26 AM
To: NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU<mailto:NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
Subject: Re: [NCSG-NCUC-DISCUSS] U.S. Government Seizes BitTorrent
Search Engine Domain and More

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<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto: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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