Federal Officials Take Down Nine Domains For Offering First-Run Films

In the never-gonna-end battle against internet piracy, the government has just taken down nine domains, all of which were found to be streaming full-length rips of movies still in their first run in theaters. The claim against the domains is theft of intellectual property.

The seizure of the nine sites was part of a new mission called “Operation in Our Sites.” The announcement that the sites were taken down was made in a press conference to highlight the creation of the new Operation (don’t touch the sites!). Even though the announcement was made by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in L.A., seven of the sites were New York-based.

The seized domains are Tvshack.net, Movies-links.tv, Filespump.com, Now-moivies.com, Planetmoviez.com, Thepiratecity.org, Zml.com, Ninjavideo.net and Ninjathis.net. Ninjavideo and Tvshack are likely the most high-profile of the bunch, but they all are often used by those who don’t want to pay high theater prices.

But this is all done in the effort to protect working America, which is, admittedly, a worthwhile goal:

“We are dedicated to protecting the jobs, the income and the tax revenue that disappear when organized criminals traffic in stolen movies for their own profit,” the I.C.E. assistant secretary John Morton said in a statement explaining the new initiative.

(via NYT)