Internet piracy is something that is always a topic of discussion amongst people who resell domains, and a lot of businesses, including domain resellers, are eager to crack down on piracy and internet theft.
But the USA are going a step further and taking what are deemed to be drastic measures to protect their assets, seizing domains from people committing offences whether they are American citizens or not. This is regardless of whether your servers are on US soil, whether you are in the country or not, and regardless of if your site complies with the jurisdiction for the country that you are currently residing in.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) are enforcing infringement on their copyrights, and a lot of sights that illegally stream TV or film that is the property of the United States will be targeted.
Recently Richard O’Dwyer, a twenty three year old British student whose site offered streaming of unlicensed film content, was informed that he faces extradition to the United States, and the site now currently redirects to a page with a the logo of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, informing people browsing there that the site has been seized.
Erik Barnett, the deputy drector of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency declined to comment on the O’Dwyer case simply saying in a generic statement:
“By definition, almost all copyright infringement and trademark violation is transnational. There's very little purely domestic intellectual property theft”.
Many Civil Rights organisations are arguing the unfairness of this new rule and urging the British government to make changes to the current extradition laws that exist between the UK and the US. They feel that America is being very heavy handed in the way that they are approaching this proposal, and feel it necessary for our extradition laws to be reviewed as a matter of urgency. Changes would mean that before a person is extradited for this crime, they face a court hearing before a UK judge who will determine whether they are guilty of a crime or not.