SHARE

New York – Federal authorities announced on Wednesday that
they have seized the domains of seven websites said to be involved in the
illegal distribution of copyrighted movies and TV shows online. Six of the
sites — TVShack.net, Movies-Links.TV, FilesPump.com, Now-Movies.com,
PlanetMoviez.com and ThePirateCity.org — are classified by the feds as
"linking" websites, as they do not host copyrighted content
themselves, but instead provide links to sites that do.

"Linking websites
are popular because they allow users to quickly browse content and locate
illegal copies of movies and television shows that would otherwise be more
difficult to find," reads a statement from Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney
for the Southern District of New York, whose offices partnered with the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unit of the Department of Homeland
Security on the action.

The seventh site targeted, ZML.com, is a
"cyberlocker" service that lets users anonymously upload content to
an online locker, and features ads for movies still in theaters available from
the site.

Bharara said that authorities also executed search warrants on
servers associated with the websites, and said he would ask that the domains be
forfeited.

"ICE and our partners at the National Intellectual Property
Rights Coordination Center have been tracking the proliferation of pirate Web
sites run by people who have no respect for creativity and innovation,"
said Assistant Secretary of ICE John T. Morton.

"We are dedicated to
protecting the jobs, the income and the tax revenue that disappear when
organized criminals offer stolen movies for their own profit."

 

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/2bb64zo

(PDF of announcement)

http://tinyurl.com/39oqj7k
(AP)

4 COMMENTS

  1. About time someone did something. Every time someone rips off a movie (or anything else online) they are hurting all the little people who work behind-the-scenes. Think about it, the studio heads aren’t the ones suffering, it’s all the people who depend on studio (and indie) film work to put food on the table. Kudos to the Feds for protecting the workers. That is what this really is about, studios aside.

LEAVE A REPLY