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U.S. Resume Controversial File-Sharing Domain Seizures

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Blackhead

Redarse
U.S. Resume Controversial File-Sharing Domain Seizures (Updated)

TorrentFreak said:
US authorities have seized the domain of the hugely popular sports streaming and P2P download site Rojadirecta. The site, which is one of the most visited sites on the Internet, lost its .org domain which now redirects to a notice from DOJ/ICE. Rojadirecta is an unusual target because two courts in Spain have ruled that the site operates legally, and other than the .org domain the site has no links to the US.

rojaRojadirecta is known as one of the world’s major Internet sports broadcast indexes. The site links to broadcasts of many popular soccer matches plus other sporting events including NBA, MLB, NFL, NPB, IPL.

The site has well over a million visitors a day, and is listed among the 100 most popular sites in Spain in terms of traffic. This morning, however, visitors were surprised by a warning from US authorities. Continuing the previous “Operation in Our Sites” actions, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had seized Rojadirecta’s .org domain.

Rojadirecta is an unusual target for several reasons, not least because the site has been declared legal twice by Spanish courts. The site’s owners have previously fought a three year legal battle in Spain, which they won, but a single seizure warrant from US authorities has made this victory pointless.

Without receiving a notification or the option to defend themselves, the site’s domain was seized this morning.

“We have not been notified,” Rojadirecta’s Igor Seoane told TorrentFreak. As with the previous seizures the domain registrar was bypassed in the seizure. “According to Go Daddy they have not touched anything,” Seoane said.

Similar to BitTorrent sites, Rojadirecta doesn’t host any copyrighted material. Instead, it indexes HTTP links to sports streams that can already be found on the Internet, and also carries links to .torrent files which are hosted on other sites.


The site is owned by a Spanish company that pays its taxes and has been declared to operate legally in Spain. In addition, the site is not hosted in the US either. The only connection to the US is that the .org domain is maintained by a US company.

This indirect connection to the US makes the seizure a dubious action, according to Rojadirecta’s owner. “In our opinion the US authorities are completely despising the Spanish justice system and sovereignty,” Seoane told TorrentFreak.

At the moment Rojadirecta displays the same message from DOJ and ICE as the sites seized last year, including Torrent-Finder. It is expected that Rojadirecta is one of the first of a new list of seized domains.

The message below is posted on Rojadirecta.org
BoK5p.gif


The sports streaming and P2P link site is currently looking for legal advice, both in Spain and the US, and its owners are determined to fight the seizure with all means they have.

Despite losing the .org domain, Rojadirecta can still be accessed via rojadirecta.com, rojadirecta.es, rojadirecta.me, rojadirecta.in. The latter two domains are interestingly enough maintained by the same company as the .org domain, but Rojadirecta ensures us that they have many other domains that are not controlled by US authorities or companies.

The seizure of Rojadirecta shows that commercial interests are high on the agenda of the US Government. Seizing a domain that has been specifically declared to operate legally in other countries does not appear to be an obstacle. In this light, one has to wonder if generic domain names should be controlled exclusively by US companies.

Update: The owner of Channelsurfing.net informed us that his site was seized as well. Channelsurfing embedded videos from other sites and never hosted any copyrighted material on its servers.

Update
: Atdhe.net has been seized as well, another sports related site.

Update: firstrow.net has been seized, yet another sports related site.

Update: ilemi.com has been seized, yet another sports related site.

Update: kingdom-kvcd.net was initially reported to be seized as well (image), but the site's owner told us that this is due to a "huffy ex-staff member" who decided to point the DNS to the server where the other seized domains are hosted.

Atdhe.net moved to atdhe.me

giga said:
 

jjasper

Member
yeah I went to channelsurffing and ADTHE today and saw that. Watching sports on the internet is going to be a whole lot harder.

Edit: Thanks for the adthe tip.
 
This is a futile attempt at stopping something that can't be stopped. Thanks for wasting tax dollars on this though to make the big corporations happy:/
 

JGS

Banned
BoboBrazil said:
This is a futile attempt at stopping something that can't be stopped. Thanks for wasting tax dollars on this though to make the big corporations happy:/
You mean the big corporations that own the stuff?

I like this part:
The site is owned by a Spanish company that pays its taxes and has been declared to operate legally in Spain. In addition, the site is not hosted in the US either. The only connection to the US is that the .org domain is maintained by a US company.

This indirect connection to the US makes the seizure a dubious action, according to Rojadirecta’s owner.
“In our opinion the US authorities are completely despising the Spanish justice system and sovereignty,” Seoane told TorrentFreak.
It's pretty direct, but it also should mean it's pretty easy to find a replacement so no worries and Spain can keep chugging along without US interference.
 

lo escondido

Apartheid is, in fact, not institutional racism
giga said:
Atdhe.me is an impostor. Correct url: http://atdhenet.tv/

And: http://www.rojadirecta.es/


Looking at both those sites it seemed that they just changed today. It stupid for DHS to do this though because they'll just go overseas where they can't be touched. They only think I can think they could do would be to force the ISPs to block them but I don't know how they could do that and it could get around it just as easily.

Also these stories just seem to promote sites that people didn't know existed.
 
i panicked when i got home and tried to find the milan game only to find out that all the sites i normally use were shut down. damn gub'ment. these soccer games don't even show up on any channels over here, who the fuck cares if we view european streams.
 

speedpop

Has problems recognising girls
You would think by now that they may have realized the benefit in streaming their sports online via licenses right?
 

linkboy

Member
This is starting to get ridiculous. This isn't a slippery slope, its a sheet of ice at a 45 degree angle polished to a shine.
 

Lambtron

Unconfirmed Member
Well I am glad that The Department of Homeland Security is diligently keeping the homeland safe today. I, for one, will be able to sleep soundly knowing that people will not be watching illegal streams of sporting events.
 

Dead Man

Member
ApopkaATM said:
This has nothing to do with the Spanish legal system, they are legal over there.
I think that is sort of his point, that corporate interests in the US are of greater influence than the Spanish legal system, which is a fucked up situation.
 

Zaptruder

Banned
linkboy said:
This is starting to get ridiculous. This isn't a slippery slope, its a sheet of ice at a 45 degree angle polished to a shine.

But that is a slippery slope....

Do you mean to say this is a sheer drop at this point?
 

linkboy

Member
Zaptruder said:
But that is a slippery slope....

Do you mean to say this is a sheer drop at this point?

Yea, I've got a ton of different things going on right now and I'm not thinking straight.
 
A week before the Super Bowl. What a coincidence...

Nice to see the Homeland security boondoggle doing something with that 56 billion dollar budget.
 

emomoonbase

I'm free 2night after my LARPing guild meets.
Well if just the names are seized and not the actual servers than it's not a big deal, just a couple hours or days until they come back with a different .whatever host name extension.
 

dschalter

Member
Frank the Great said:
i panicked when i got home and tried to find the milan game only to find out that all the sites i normally use were shut down. damn gub'ment. these soccer games don't even show up on any channels over here, who the fuck cares if we view european streams.

espn3. i watched the milan game on it, sad result to be sure.
 
D

Deleted member 8095

Unconfirmed Member
I'd gladly pay the NFL $100-200 a season if they let me stream every game in nice high quality HD. Until then, I will find streams online.
 

dabig2

Member
emomoonbase said:
Well if just the names are seized and not the actual servers than it's not a big deal, just a couple hours or days until they come back with a different .whatever host name extension.

It really is just a minor inconvenience. Just a reminder to people though to know and log the actual IP addresses of the websites they go to in case the domain name is seized!

Or just wait 2 hours for another domain name to be registered :lol
 

itxaka

Defeatist
kiunchbb said:
More evident that Corporation > US > Spain legal system?


This. I'm so glad that to protect the average american the US is able to do whatever is needed with no opposition from legal systems and such.

This rojadirecta site is probably a cover up terrorist-communist association.
 

sangreal

Member
itxaka said:
This. I'm so glad that to protect the average american the US is able to do whatever is needed with no opposition from legal systems and such.

This rojadirecta site is probably a cover up terrorist-communist association.

Where did you get the idea that there is "no opposition from legal systems" ?

Did you read the relevant laws? After all they are cited right in the image:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode18/usc_sup_01_18_10_I_20_46.html
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002323----000-.html
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000506----000-.html
 

Zeke

Member
Roche178 said:
So the US government seems to think they own the internet, fantastic.
well we did invent the internet, a great American Patriot and Vice President named Al Gore brought us the glory of the internet.
 

sans_pants

avec_pénis
Instro said:
Adthe is the best sports related steaming site I know of so thank god they got back up so fast.


veetle used to be great for football but then they kept getting shut down so no one streams it anymore
 

itxaka

Defeatist
sangreal said:


Those are US laws. What do they have to do with a spanish site? They are just used to basically steal a domain for a page in another country that they don't like no matter how legal it is on that country.

Not that I give a fuck, they registered another domain with a non-us registrar, problem solved. They accomplished a lot with that domain hijack (mainly more publicity lol)
 
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