Seizure of Domain Names

A post from a student:

"Earlier this year an Act was passed by the US government (Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act) which specifically allows the seizure of any website which has been "'primarily designed' to offer goods and services in violation of the Copyright Act and / or the Lanham Act".

In February the US Department of Homeland Security used this new act to seize 83 internet domains. The seizure involved re directing the DNS of that domain to a banner as shown here. One domain in particular was channelsurfing.net, this web site hosted links to other sites which hosted copyrighted material. The site operator Brian McCarthy is now facing court for Criminal Infringement of a Copyright.

As a part of this DNS seizure the DNS hosting provider FreeDNS was disabled. This caused the approximately 84,000 customers of FreeDNS to be redirected to the DHS 'banner', some of whom were not related to the original seizure at all (eg RapGodFathers.com)."

Compare the Australian case of

Cooper v Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd [2006] FCAFC 187

See also

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20023918-93.html

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/10/new-york-man-faces-five-years-in-jail-for-linking-to-online-videos/

http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/dhscomplaint/?source=front