14 DAY TRIAL // Operation In Our Sites, launched by the Department of Homeland Security’s ICE unit, continues with the seizure of 11 Korean domain names that were allegedly related to movie piracy. According to TorrentFreak, the Department of Justice and the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement seized the domains as a result of the operation that battles counterfeiting and online bootlegging.
Since Korean websites are becoming likely targets for the operations launched by US authorities, the well-known banner that declares a site illegal, alerting its visitors that it has been shut down by law enforcement agencies, now benefits from a Korean translation of the warning.
007disk.com, 007disk.net, 82movie.com, 82movie.net, 82us.com, bzserv.info, itvwmg.com, ktvwmg.com ,wmgitv.com, wmgus.com and wmgus.net were domains that offered download links to the latest movies in return for a small fee.
The odd thing is that many of the seized domains belong to a US company, even if they were clearly designed to target Korean speakers.
“Through this operation we are aggressively targeting those who are selling counterfeit goods for their own personal gain while costing our economy much-needed revenue and jobs,” revealed Attorney General Eric Holder after a similar operation.
“Intellectual property crimes harm businesses and consumers, alike, threatening economic opportunity and financial stability, and today we have sent a clear message that the Department will remain ever vigilant in protecting the public's economic welfare and public safety through robust intellectual property enforcement.”
So far, 350 domains have been taken into custody by the US federal government and these operations will not stop too soon. Even though the media industry welcomes these actions, many organizations argue that some serious violations occur as a result.
If the highly controversial SOPA and Protect IP laws are adopted, they will give authorities even more power to perform domain seizures worldwide. On one hand, this will be beneficial for the copyright holders, but on the other hand online rights groups will certainly continue questioning their legitimacy.