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U.S. Shuts Down Web Sites in Piracy Crackdown
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a division of Department of Homeland Security, resumed last week what appears to be its latest phase of a federal crackdown on online piracy of music by seizing web addresses of a number of sites that facilitate illegal file-sharing.
A number 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.” Among the domains seized were torrent-finder.com and those of three sites that specialized in music: onsmash.com, rapgodfathers.com and dajaz1.com.
The recent seizures come in the wake of a new bill, the Combating Online Infringements Counterfeits Act. The bill, which has been approved by Senate, allows the government to shut down sites that are “dedicated to infringing activities.”
Critics say that the law is too broad, and could affect sites that have nothing to do with file sharing. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil liberties group, has called it “an Internet censorship bill”.
For additional information, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/technology/27torrent.html?_r=1&ref=technology