LITTLE ROCK — In what appears to be the latest phase of a far-reaching federal crackdown on online piracy of music and movies, a number of sites that facilitate illegal file sharing were shut down this week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the Department of Homeland Security.
By Friday morning a handful of sites that either hosted unauthorized copies of films and music or allowed users to search for them elsewhere on the Internet were shut down, their content replaced by 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.”
In seizing the domain names of the sites, or Web addresses, the government effectively redirected any visitors to its own takedownnotice.
“ICE office of Homeland Security Investigations executed court-ordered seizure warrants against a number of domain names,” said Cori Bassett, a spokesman for ICE, in a statement. “As this is an ongoing investigation, there are no additional details available at this time.”
Among the domains seized were torrent-finder.com and three that specialized in music: onsmash.com, rapgodfathers.com and dajaz1.com. TorrentFreak, a news blog about BitTorrents - a file-sharing system that has tended to elude the authorities because it is decentralized - said that at least 70 other sites had been seized, most having to do with counterfeit clothing, DVDs and other goods.
On Friday, torrent users were already discussing new sites that had popped up to serve them.
The takedown notices are similar to those that went up on nine sites in June as part of an initiative against Internet counterfeiting and piracy that the agency called Operation in Our Sites.
In announcing that operation, John Morton, the assistant secretary of ICE, and representatives of the Motion Picture Association of America called it a long-term effort against online piracy and said that suspected criminals would be pursued anywhere in the world. “American business is under assault from counterfeiters and pirates every day, seven days a week,” Morton said. “Criminals are stealing American ideas and products and distributing them over the Internet.”
Front Section, Pages 10 on 11/27/2010