ICE Docs: Linking to Copyrighted Material Enough for Domain Seizure

By Jared Moya
ZeroPaid
Jan. 05, 2011

Complaint for Forfeiture filed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement reveals that many are merely sites that link to copyrighted material hosted elsewhere, yet should be seized because they “facilitate the commission” of copyright infringement.Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, finally filed a Complaint for Forfeiture against 8 of the more than 82 domain names seized late last month as part the ongoing "Operation In Our Sites.”

Seizing the domain names was the first step in the forfeiture process, and publishing a notice of the forfeiture action is the next step towards formally taking them away from their owners. [...]

For example, it targeted TVShack.net for linking to other sites that allow users to illegally stream and/or download copyrighted material. TVShack is never accused of actually hosting any copyrighted material, just linking to other sites that do.

It gives four examples of occasions on which ICE agents were able to access copyrighted movies, but in each case the movies we’re hosted elsewhere: zshare.net, DivxDen.com, and NovaMov.com, all of which are still online by the way.

It’s the same with the seven other sites mentioned in this forfeiture action. They linked to copyrighted material that was illegally hosted elsewhere.

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