Arrgh! Internet Piracy Domain Names Seized

Here’s a report from the LA Times about the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement division (ICE) seizing the domain names from 9 Web sites that had made movies and television shows available on the Internet within hours of their theatrical release. One of the sites, movielinks.tv, advertised links to illegal downloads of “The Karate Kid”, “The Prince of Persia” and “Sex and the City 2” (no word yet on whether the punishment can be enhanced for making a movie as lousy as Sex and the City 2 even more widely available). The sites are alleged to have engaged in criminal copyright violations. Pretty serious stuff. If you try to get to the sites, you’ll see this. And I love this comment from the US attorney for the Southern District of New York (where the criminal case is pending). “If your business model is piracy, your story will not have a happy ending.”