Rojadirecta.org One Of Several Sites SEIZED By U.S. Authorities

Together with several other sites, popular sports streaming and peer-to-peer website Rojadirecta has had its domain seized by U.S. authorities.

A large notice appeared on Rojadirecta.org's website informing users, "This domain name has been seized by ICE-Homeland Security Investigations, Special Agent in Charge, New York Office, in accordance with a seizure warrant obtained by the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York [...]" (See screenshot below)

The seizure of the site is particularly controversial because Rojadirecta, a Spanish site, was found by Spanish courts to be operating legally. The domain's closure has been accompanied by a spate of other crackdowns by the government: Other sports-streaming websites such as ATDHE.net, Firstrow.net, ChannelSurfing.net, and Ilemi.com have also been seized by the authorities. It's a controversial move that comes just ahead of the Super Bowl.

Rojadirecta confirmed that its site had been seized by the authorities in a tweet posted Tuesday. "ENG: US authorities "steal" our domain rojadirecta.org! We are now on http://www.rojadirecta.me (and also on .com .es .in .be ...)," the site wrote. It followed up with another alert: "US authorities sizes also our .com ! Retweet: www.rojadirecta.me rojadirecta.es rojadirecta.in."

Rojadirecta, which compiles links to live broadcasts of sports events such as the NBA, NFL, and MLB, typically receives more than a million visits each day and is "listed among the 100 most popular sites in Spain in terms of traffic," according to TorrentFreak. TorrentFreak also notes, "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."

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Comments

[Bigg Doni]

05:30 PM on 03/12/2011

the new atdhe1 and rojadirecta
http://atdhe1.net/
http://atdhe1.net/
http://atdhe1.net/

[walidmessi]

12:08 PM on 02/28/2011

There are total 6 Sportshttp://ronaldo2012.blogspot.com/

[dogster]

11:07 PM on 02/06/2011

If anyone knows the new site for atdhe.net, please post it.

[Indira Gutierrez]

04:42 PM on 02/06/2011

I love the age we live in where no goverments no army no "warrant" can stop us.
Technology and knowlege are our weapons.

[Bigg Doni]

10:25 AM on 02/06/2011

http://www.myrojadirecta.com/ is the new link for roja directa
http://www.myrojadirecta.com/
http://www.myrojadirecta.com/

[ThinkByYourself]

12:28 AM on 02/06/2011

No one should use a US company domain.

[c3141huf]

02:17 PM on 02/04/2011

The arrogance of the US Imperial Government is astounding. Time and time again, the US Imperial Government has demonstrated that it will be more than happy to do the dirty work of every corrupt corporation in the country, even at the expense of citizens and legitimate fair use rights.

While the fascists in ICE are busy stealing domain names, the government turns a blind eye when Goldman Sachs rapes and pillages the economy and sends hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes and into the streets.

[rjhuntington]

08:18 AM on 02/04/2011

Proposed Constitutional Amendment:

1. The treatment in law of the corporation as a person for whatever purpose shall not be construed to include natural or constitutional human rights as enjoyed by actual people.

2. The only constitutional right attaching to the corporation shall be the right to due process of law and no other. No corporation shall enjoy any natural human rights whatever.

3. Except for the right to due process of law, the rights and protections enumerated in the first ten amendments to this Constitution, and known as the Bill of Rights, shall not extend to corporations.

4. The lobbying of the government for any reason whatever is an exercise of The right to petition the government for redress of grievances, is reserved to actual people, and is denied to corporations.

5. Any statutory grant in any form shall be construed as privilege, shall be the object of regulation, subject to taxation.

6. Corporations are permanently enjoined from political activity of any kind in any form or amount, including the donation of any funds to any political campaign, all such activities being exclusively the purview and prerogative of actual people.

7. The receiving of any benefit or emolument of any kind in any amount whatever, directly or indirectly, from any corporation by any elected or appointed official during that official's term of office or campaign for office shall constitute a recallable or impeachable offense and shall disqualify that individual from holding puclic office under the United States.

[rikilii]

12:16 PM on 02/04/2011

What's any of that have to do with the enforcement of a corporation's intellectual property rights against a foreign infringer?

[chalaco58]

12:23 PM on 02/05/2011

That's the problem, corporations do not and should not have or own "intellectual property rights". Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court decision to consider corporations as regular citizen is a grave aberration that infringes against the civil liberties of every American.

[rjhuntington]

08:12 AM on 02/04/2011

TYRANNY!!

[FCBarca]

11:58 AM on 02/03/2011

All these sites are all back up...Pointless exercise by the US authorities but when has that stopped them before?

[rikilii]

03:57 PM on 02/03/2011

It's not pointless if a significant portion of the users don't know the new site or decide to use the content-owner's site instead.

[Eric Penner]

08:24 PM on 02/03/2011

One Google search yields tweets about the new site. I've been watching live sport online for years. Never going to stop!

[Breandn Mac Gabhann]

02:53 PM on 02/07/2011

aside from the incredible naivety over a technological issue, that's like saying if the war on drugs scares one kid away from doing drugs, then its a success. never mind all the externalities, the costs and the damages endured.

[deepintheheartoftejas]

11:16 AM on 02/03/2011

The federal government only managed to seize the domains because of the lucky accident that the top-level domains were controlled by US companies. Might be time to start boycotting US-controlled TLDs, if the US government cannot be expected to behave in good faith.

[HalEBurton]

05:26 AM on 02/03/2011

I remember a time, before cable television, before the internet, when there were three channels, and every game I wanted to watch, Mets Knicks, Rangers, Jets were on TV. Every game. No packages. No fees. I love progress.

[HalEBurton]

05:24 AM on 02/03/2011

Fascism: Government in service of corporations

[European1919]

07:39 AM on 02/03/2011

You might want to splash out on an encyclopaedia.

[Nick Yannias]

11:00 AM on 02/03/2011

"Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power."

-Benito Mussolini

[rjhuntington]

08:15 AM on 02/04/2011

We don't need no stinking encyclopedia to know fascism when we see it. If it looks like crap and smells like crap it is crap.

Government of by and for the corporation = Fascism

Government of by and for the people = Socialism

[rikilii]

03:50 PM on 02/03/2011

So any time a corporation uses the U.S. Courts to enforce its property rights, is that also an example of Fascism?

[dwhuston]

04:03 PM on 02/03/2011

Any enforcement of rights should include a thing called due process.

[rjhuntington]

08:17 AM on 02/04/2011

The notion of corporate rights is at the heart of the problem. As artificial privileged entities created through government franchise, it is legally absurd to conclude that corporations have or could have rights like a natural person. The only right a corporation could sensibly have is the statutory right to due process of law and no other.

[Acharn]

03:59 AM on 02/03/2011

Why is "la Migra" enforcing copyrights?

[edejan]

01:35 PM on 02/03/2011

Apparently it's just another arm of the corporatocracy. Thus, its failure to come to grips with the illegal immigation problem, but it CAN take down sports rebroadcast sites which MIGHT impinge on corporate profits.

[rikilii]

04:46 PM on 02/03/2011

Yeah, just another example of big corporations squashing the small guy, the "small guy" being a division of a $3 billion Euro Spanish media conglomerate.

http://www.prisa.com/en/quienes-somos/