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from torrent freak:
US authorities have resumed “Operation In Our Sites” and have seized several domain names associated with copyright infringement or counterfeit related crimes. Among the new targets are two sites that linked to copyrighted films hosted on third party streaming sites such as megavideo.com and veoh.com. Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has yet to officially announce the new operation.
Over the past several months a series of domain name seizures by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made headlines across the Internet.
Under the flag of “Operation In Our Sites” the authorities shut down a dozen file-sharing and streaming sites and many more accused of selling counterfeit goods.
Today ICE continued the operation with a 4th round, and the first one since February this year. Although the authorities are yet to give an official comment on the new seizures, TorrentFreak was able to confirm the following targets:
* Re1ease.net
* Watchnewfilms.com
* Dvdcollectionsale.com
* Dvdscollection.com
* Dvdsetsonline.com
* Newstylerolex.com
The first two domains are accused of copyright-related offenses, but did not host any copyrighted films themselves. Both Re1ease.net and Watchnewfilms.com linked to popular movie streaming sites such as Veoh.com and Megavideo.com. The rest of the domains appear to be connected to sales of counterfeit goods.
The new targets were most likely put forward to ICE by movie industry groups. In April of this year ICE director John Morton admitted that his organization was acting based on “tips from industry representatives,” among others.
The authorities are also aware of the fact that the domain seizures themselves are not really an effective tool. As pointed out before, more than half of the piracy-related domains that were seized by Operation In Our Sites simply continued under a different name.
Morton replied to this critique by emphasizing that the seizures also act as “public education about pirating.”
To quash allegedly copyright infringing sites more effectively U.S. lawmakers introduced the PROTECT IP Act last week. Aside from domain seizures, the new bill will also make it possible to block sites on an ISP level, to censor search engines, and to cut funding of allegedly copyright-infringing websites.flashbacks: government seizes domains alleged to infringe copyright & dhs seizes more domains; this time for linking to copyrighted material
from cnet:
The White House today proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making "illegal streaming" of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspected infringers. In a 20-page white paper (PDF), the Obama administration called on the U.S. Congress to fix "deficiencies that could hinder enforcement" of intellectual property laws... In October 2008, President Bush signed into law the so-called Pro IP ACT, which created Espinel's position and increased penalties for infringement, after expressing its opposition to an earlier version. Unless legislative proposals--like one nearly a decade ago implanting strict copy controls in digital devices--go too far, digital copyright tends not to be a particularly partisan topic. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, near-universally disliked by programmers and engineers for its anti-circumvention section, was approved unanimously in the U.S. Senate. At the same time, Democratic politicians tend to be a bit more enthusiastic about the topic. Biden was a close Senate allypicked top copyright industry lawyers for Justice Department posts of copyright holders, and President Obama. Last year, Biden warned that "piracy is theft." No less than 78 percent of political contributions from Hollywood went to Democrats in 2008, which is broadly consistent with the trend for the last two decades, according to OpenSecrets.org.related: dem rep intros bill to give dhs larger cybersecurity role
flashback: israel tested stuxnet at dimona* 
white house to unveil cyber security proposal* 
video: 'pentagon papers' whistleblower daniel ellsberg says bradley manning can't get fair trial after obama's comment* 
from boingboing: Earlier this year, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement shocked the world by asserting the right to seize any .com or .net domain that it characterized as a "pirate" or child porn site, with little due process or judicial oversight. ICE conducted a series of high-profile seizures that were notable in that they were sloppy (80,000 sites were erroneously seized for being implicated in child porn and anyone who subsequently visited them was redirected to a page chiding them for being horrible perverts). They were also notable for being almost completely ineffective at shutting down the targeted sites. Once their domains were seized, the site operators simply registered new domains, avoiding .com and .net. It wasn't much of a challenge for their users to locate them again. Nevertheless, the ICE has promised more seizures in the years to come. But one developer decided that subverting ICE censorship was too important to be left to chance, so he created MAFIAA Fire, a Firefox plugin that automatically redirects links to the seized domains to their new homes, effectively undoing the seizures.
nasa admits all previous warming trends caused by sun?* 
hypnosis by lcd becoming increasingly rampant* 
emp legislation awaits senate action* 
video: obama working on plan to wiretap skype, facebook, blackberrys & more* 
fcc sets plan for limited broadband control* 
army intel acorn-ing wikileaks? web publisher under attack* 
