Cyber Monday Crackdown: 82 Sites Shut Down In Piracy Bust

The government shut down 82 websites on Cyber Monday, one of the busiest online shopping days of the year, in a crackdown on counterfeit goods and copyrighted material.

The domains targeted are suspected of selling knockoff goods, including sports jerseys, DVD box sets, handbags and other pirated items. The seizure is a part of Operation In Our Sites 2 by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

"The sale of counterfeit U.S. brands on the Internet steals the creative work of others, costs our economy jobs and revenue and can threaten the health and safety of American consumers," ICE Director John Morton said in a press release. "The protection of intellectual property is a top priority."

ICE agents made undercover purchases from online sites thought to be selling pirated goods. If the goods received were confirmed as counterfeit, the domains were seized. "As of today - what is known as 'Cyber Monday' and billed as the busiest online shopping day of the year - anyone attempting to access one of these websites using its domain name will no longer be able to make a purchase," the ICE announced. Instead, the site displays a banner informing the shopper that the domain has been shut down.According to CNN, most of the sites were operated from China, and most of the goods were manufactured in China.

This most recent investigation stems from Operation In Our Sites I, which was launched in June. "Intellectual property crimes are not victimless," Attorney General Eric Holder said at a press conference. "The theft of ideas and the sale of counterfeit goods threaten economic opportunities and financial stability, suppress innovation and destroy jobs."

Comments

[xploream]

05:31 PM on 11/30/2010

It's about time the Gov't does something. Artists are being screwed.

[bassfishingchief]

03:35 PM on 11/30/2010

Good, now I can rest easy at night. I mean can you imagine if all these corporations were losing money to some counterfeiters, can imagine the horror if the couldn't afford the gold drawer pulls on their jets?

[Indiefilmmaker2010]

04:34 PM on 11/30/2010

It's easy to direct scorn towards the big corporations, but, as an indie filmmaker I'd like you to understand the piracy really does damage the little guys too. All our revenue comes from downstream (non-theatrical) sources. We've been killed by piracy. Our film is available via legit sources (online and off) throughout the world, but it's it's hard to compete with the FREE streams offered on numerous pirate websites.

Like their legit brethren, counterfeiters and bootleggers have moved their businesses online. Finally the laws (and U.S. Customs) is catching up with these black market operators online.

Ultimately, despite your dislike of corporations, it's important to realize a lot of people's livelihoods are hurt by these online thieves.

[bassfishingchief]

01:13 AM on 12/01/2010

First off let me thank you for making Indie films, I don't know if yours are good or not but anything different from what Hollywood spews out is a welcome change.

I see and agree with your point on protecting your livelihood. Where do you think the list of these 82 websites came from? Where you or anybody you know contacted about your materiel being pirated for the purposes of getting a website taken down? The best you can hope for is some backhanded collateral benefit, the true purpose is to protect the income of large campaign contributors (who probably happily provided a list of the sites they wanted taken down).

[PeiposVeb]

12:16 PM on 11/30/2010

Maybe this is just me but I would never buy counterfeit stuff as gifts to give to others. I would just buy it for myself because the quality sucks anyway. You could probably buy the real thing cheaper somewhere else or get them a cheaper alternative. I wonder how shutting down sites based in China will affect our relations with them. Obviously, they would be pissed that we are shutting down their "business opportunities." Does the US gov even have the right to do this? There was a poll asking this question a few hours ago, http://my-take.com/poll/should-the-gov-be-allowed-to-seize-domains-to-stop-piracy Besides, shutting down a site doesn't stop piracy. It isn't that hard to move to another domain. There will always be a demand for fake goods as long as our society remains a capitalist and material obsessed nation.

[AMJ889]

11:00 AM on 11/30/2010

I actually would like to pay less for the goods that are made here. But the real items are out sourced and come from the same country the knock off's do.. Go figure....

[Organic-Guy]

10:16 AM on 11/30/2010

I wish our government would realize that China is not our friend.

[ttaz4dqm]

09:27 AM on 11/30/2010

They call 82 sites a 'crackdown'? They must be smoking crack...

[warghul]

09:10 AM on 11/30/2010

What about all the sites seized that were not operated out of China? What about the torrent search aggregation sites and many others which were not doing anything illegal? This act by ICE is blatantly illegal and it doesn't surprise me that CNN is simply repeating the government's line without actually investigating.

[edejan]

02:30 AM on 12/01/2010

I'm glad to know you see through the smoke and mirrors. Yesterday the article Huff was more honest than this iteration. The important point is not that "suspected pirates who are robbing artists of their livelihood...boohoo"...it's that the government, through the Dept. of Immigration, without warning shut down a bunch of domains without any warning or recourse. This is the beginning of the government taking total control of the internet and shutting off our connection to anything they deem inimical to whoever....probably the corporatists who own everything in this country. It's also the first salvo to shutting out Wikileaks. This is right along the line of illegal government actions resulting from the illegal wiretappings of the Bush reign.

[tailgateshirts]

10:08 AM on 12/01/2010

well this is counterfeit items... the other day was more focused on torrent sites (search engines), big difference.

Physical goods vs Digital, big diff

[cybersense]

09:02 AM on 11/30/2010

Knock off's from china? Well, money spent for the real deal here in America does sound better.