US Government Hits 73,000 Blogs With Ban Stick
by Alphaville Herald on 19/07/10 at 11:46 am
by IntLibber Brautigan
In a blatant show of force against a host of more than 73,000 wordpress blogs, the US Government ordered BurstNet Technologies to take down the server of Blogetery.com for repeated acts of abuse of intellectual property and insufficient respect for the DMCA. According to a story on TorrentFreak, the owner/renter of the server received the following notice from BurstNet: "
Due to the history of abuse and on going abuse on this ‘bn.***********’ server.
We have opted to terminate this server, effective immediately. This termination applies to: bn.affiliateplex.com
Abuse Department
BurstNET Technologies, Inc"
Herald readers will note that the governments ban notice sounds much like the sort of banhammer notice that some less than above board members of SL have received in the past – as well as some innocent residents. Given the extensive abuse of intellectual property in SL, could the other shoe may finally be dropping on Linden Lab’s abysmal and often capricious DMCA enforcement in Second Life?
Consider the number of what could be Star Wars, Star Trek, LOTR, Harry Potter, NFL, MLB, Michael Jackson, and do we need mention, Marvel and DC Comics, copyright violations occuring in Second Life — then wonder how soon it will be before Linden Lab gets a similar takedown notice from its internet service providers. The situation is complicated by illicit third party SL clients capable of "securing" backups of user owned content, regardless of creator permissions – while spoofing themselves as approved clients.
Blogetery.com has a rather notorious record of hosting blogs of rather blatant software and other IP piracy operations, providing links to download the latest video games, hollywood blockbusters, and music MP3s. While it claims it maintains a policy of timely response to DMCA filings, their timeliness evidently had not satisfied the demands of the federal government. It surely wasn’t like they were being punished for hosting, say, certain SL related weblogs.
It stands to reason that not ALL of the 73,000 blogs on Blogetery.com were involved in piracy, but the innocent were swept away with the guilty as everyone lost the entirety of their blog content. It is well established that the federal government is constitutionally prohibited from exacting collective guilt on people merely for being customers of a company that provided services to criminals, so this case may wind up in the courts – at least for the legitimate bloggers who want their data back. Apparently BurstNet is under orders not to release the data on the server in question to anybody, which leads us to wonder if any newsy WikiLeaks content originating in the middle east may have been on that server, but at this point we can only speculate.
Judge Joker
Jul 19th, 2010
This was after they took down 9 domains hosting video content.
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/in-anti-theft-effort-officials-seize-9-domain-names/
As part of a new initiative against Internet theft of intellectual property, federal officials on Wednesday said they had seized nine domain names of Web sites that were found to be offering first-run movies.
The seizures were announced in Los Angeles by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Seven of the targeted sites were seized by federal officials in New York, though the action was disclosed during the announcement of the new initiative — called “Operation in Our Sites” — at a press conference on the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, Calif.
Domain names that were seized included Tvshack.net, Movies-links.tv, Filespump.com, Now-moivies.com, Planetmoviez.com, Thepiratecity.org, Zml.com, Ninjavideo.net and Ninjathis.net, the federal officials said.
“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,” John Morton, assistant secretary for the immigration and customs agency, said in a statement explaining the new initiative.
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
http://www.saveninjavideo.net/
Kiddoh
Jul 19th, 2010
Now that’s what I call a nuke.
had enough
Jul 19th, 2010
That really suck if Second Life got the Ban hammer over sick fuks stealing the name Gor or some fags in spandex pretenting to be the Justice League. Linden Labs needs to pull out their ban hammer and get rid of the trademarks in world along with the people who stole it.
Jumpman Lane
Jul 19th, 2010
we’re still up hehehehehe
Darkfoxx
Jul 19th, 2010
There is of course a big difference between blatant copyright violations, and simple fair use as in the many fan made items in SL.
I’m not too well informed about copyright law, but I’d say the difference is in the profit that’s made of it. As in, someone making (for instance) a Harry Potter AV for himself and a Hagrid AV for his friend as a gift, or someone making the Ghostbusters car to sell for L$.
I think the latter might be in trouble, whereas no-one would really care about the former.
But judging the many innocent blogs that were taken out with the trash in this particular case, everyone might be bothered if LL catches this kind of attention.
I once made a Hello Kitty backpack for myself only, never sold it to anyone, using textures found on the net that weren’t paid for by me. I’m sorry in advance for getting everyone in trouble :/
All Seeing Eye
Jul 19th, 2010
Guess that’ll teach them ISP fuckers to not allow right wing anti obama truth sites. Soon all there will be on the internet is obama.com and goose stepping black panthers rounding up krackers for extermination.
Ajax Manatiso
Jul 19th, 2010
There is quite a huge difference between what these websites offered and what SL members are involved in. The hollywood movies are the ultimate end-products of the movie makers. If anyone was showing full-length, first-run movies in SL, they better run and hide. But if you made Scooby Snacks, or Harry Potter glasses — the copyright owners will most certainly be happy to hear of the fandom. The point is — they were offering the actual product the IP owners were marketing — not items that would actually be nothing but free promotions for their products.
MarkByrn
Jul 19th, 2010
So how does this story affect Second Life, MMOs, or this blog?
had enough
Jul 19th, 2010
In Highschool we used to have a one act play contest with the other schools in our state. We had to pay royalties when we used a scene “Clevenger’s Trial” from Catch-22. This was a contest that was non-profit. Also the video rentals in Second Life and clubs that play music could prove to be a thorn in Linden labs side.
The fandom role play from movies and stories in RL may not be making a profit for the sim owners, but it could be argued that this making a profit for Linden labs by attracting people into the game.
Hylee
Jul 19th, 2010
This is the response from the owner of blogetery.com, if anyone is interested.
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=964013
Darien Caldwell
Jul 19th, 2010
I find it outrageous that he was given no reason, nor given any contact information for the ‘authorities’. At this point it’s questionable that there were any ‘authorities’ even involved. Likely BurstNet just wanted him gone, and made a convenient excuse to delete his blogs.
But yes, if there’s one thing to take away from this, Always make backups.
Emperor Norton hears a who?
Jul 19th, 2010
Hitler took down websites. this is just like when the Nazis took power in St Petersburg in 1917.
Just saying.
Richard McMinnar
Jul 19th, 2010
I’ve often wondered when someone would pop up thinking that teh intertoobz has always existed. I guess we’ve reached that point.
Orion
Jul 19th, 2010
Uhm, what does ICE have to do with enforcing copyrights? You mean to tell me that the movie and recording industries have somehow lobbied the government to pull people away from securing the borders from illegals and terrorists, then shipped them off to internet land to protect poor little WMG’s profit line?
Alyx Stoklitsky
Jul 20th, 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_America:_A_Letter_of_Warning_to_a_Young_Patriot
Just saiyan, yo
Little Lost Linden
Jul 20th, 2010
Long Live Mario and Luigi!!
JustMe
Jul 20th, 2010
Hitler took down websites. this is just like when the Nazis took power in St Petersburg in 1917.
LOL .. both of those statements are just wrong on so many levels!
Yep
Jul 20th, 2010
“Uhm, what does ICE have to do with enforcing copyrights?”
ICE becomes involved with items sent into the USA from another country. ICE had a sting back in the 90′s where they sold over seas a cheap brand of cigarettes (named ICE) to the Native smoke shops tax free. Since ICE was the only company selling the “ICE” brand, Customs was able to track their movement across the United States with ease. During the raid on these smoke shops selling the untaxed “ICE” brand, Customs agents also seized credit card information on the customers who made purchases. This information was forwarded to the State agencies who then sent the people on the list a big tax bill with penalties. The accounts are more than likely frozen while ICE finds out who uploaded and downloaded what ever it is they are looking for. Like the people who downloaded and file shared on napster and other p2ps, these people could find themselves with a nasty bill in their mailbox or wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of their doors being smashed in by law enforcement officers.
Little Lost Linden
Jul 20th, 2010
“Uhm, what does ICE have to do with enforcing copyrights?”
I prefer my ICE black:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusion_Countermeasures_Electronics
I want the club sandwich!
I want the cold Mexican beer!
I want a $10,000L a night hooker!
I WANT ROM SERVICE!!!
http://thebotzone.net/2010/07/02/i-want-rom-service-bot-style/
IntLibber is a bad joke
Jul 20th, 2010
Nobody gives a shit about SL copyright violation because it falls under the whole Fansite bullshit, using content from games to cover a website that supports itself (or makes a profit) off ad revenue. A Halo fansite makes more money than Bigjoe Kitty selling his Master Chief avatar, and even if they did chase after Bigjoe he has no assets to seize and no money to pay the fines.
ER, I MEAN, IT’S A CONSPIRACY
Judge Joker
Jul 20th, 2010
@MarkByrn
“So how does this story affect Second Life, MMOs, or this blog?”
Not much, IntLibber Just needed a few L$ for a sandvich.
Senban Babii
Jul 20th, 2010
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10692501
“A web hosting company has said it shut down a blogging platform that was home to over 70,000 bloggers because a “link to terrorist material” and an al-Qaeda “hit list” was posted to the site.
BurstNet said Blogetery.com also posted “bomb-making instructions”.”
marilyn murphy
Jul 20th, 2010
hitler. again. hitler is called upon to demonstrate just how bad humans can be, and is a favored boogey-man to use as a comparison base.
stalin. when germany invaded russia in ww2, the russians were in a bind because stalin had wiped out the higher echelons of the army. he went on to gulag just about everyone who could think after the war. it is estimated he caused more of his own countrymens deaths thru his policies than hitler ever did.
mao. does anyone not know of the great revolution and purges? mao caused the deaths of many more people than hitler ever did.
hitler is used because people hear that name more i guess.
so, emporer norton should have said, stalin enforced internet tos, to cut off mao when he conquered atlanta.
Kiddoh
Jul 20th, 2010
You know who else enforced internet TOS, to cut off Mao when he conquered Atlantis?
Hitler!
marilyn murphy
Jul 20th, 2010
lol, ok, made me laugh.
Darien Caldwell
Jul 20th, 2010
“A web hosting company has said it shut down a blogging platform that was home to over 70,000 bloggers because a “link to terrorist material” and an al-Qaeda “hit list” was posted to the site.”
It’s interesting the hosting company can’t even tell the customer what is going on, but they *can* tell an internet news source. That makes no sense. As for the content, they should be talking to the owner of that particular blog, not the owner of the site. Nor should the other 69,999 blogs have been affected.
Darien Caldwell
Jul 20th, 2010
also from that article:
“However he did say that the FBI had not asked for any websites to be shut down.
The FBI does not have the power to remove content from websites or to take them down. That can only be done with the authority of a judge.”
So I was right, Burstnet took the site down of their own volition, and blamed ‘law enforcement’, when they could simply have asked the material be removed.
Truthseeker One
Jul 20th, 2010
The Story as Published by Torrent Freak IS TOTALLY INACCURATE
Th Blogs were shutdown because the CONTAINED AL QAEDA BOMB MAKING INSTRUCTIONS.
“73,000 blogs shut down as FBI probes Qaeda posts
An Internet hosting service said Tuesday that it shut down a blogging platform because bomb-making instructions and an al-Qaeda “hit list” had been posted on the site.
BurstNET, a Pennsylvania-based Web hosting service, said that it shut down Blogetery.com earlier this month after US law enforcement officials pointed out the al-Qaeda material on the platform used by some 70,000 bloggers.
In a statement, BurstNET said it was asked by law enforcement officials on July 9 to provide information about the ownership of the server hosting Blogetry.com.
“It was revealed that a link to terrorist material, including bomb-making instructions and an al-Qaeda ‘hit list,’ had been posted to the site,” BurstNET said.
“Upon review, BurstNET determined that the posted material, in addition to potentially inciting dangerous activities, specifically violated” the company’s terms of use, BurstNET said.”
more here : http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0720/73000-blogs-shut-fbi-probes-qaeda-posts/
Emperor Norton hears a who?
Jul 20th, 2010
marilyn murphy @ “so, emporer norton should have said, stalin enforced internet tos, to cut off mao when he conquered atlanta.”
Stalin, and Mao? EXCUSE ME,sure they did some bad thing but did any of them
* enforce a RACISTS taning salon tax like Obama has? NO!.
* shut down 73,000 blogs in one day like Obama’s “Night of Long TOS knives’? NO!
* enforce Zwinbae like farm “reform” laws like with Shirley Sherrod? NO!
* persecute citizens for defending their homes like with Roland J. Bourgeois Jr? NO!
Obama is just as bad as radical liberal as Hitler was.
samantha
Jul 20th, 2010
Emperor Norton hears a who is ful of shit. Obama has been the best thing to happen to this country since forever. If the stupid right would only work with him as he FIRST tried to do things would get fixed faster.
Bush rang up more taxes more bills more deficit than obama ever will. The same shit would be happening if old man Mcblunder had got in. Go watch more phaux mews. its about your grade level.
samantha
Jul 20th, 2010
btw dipshit who, Hitler was a socialist not a liberal. Get your facts straight.
It's Unfixable
Jul 20th, 2010
finds it ironic that the Herald now finds the one person telling the truth on this whole blog to be a threat and refuses to post any more posts.
Now that I know you’ve figured out that I know what social principles you’re applying, why, and what your agenda really is, I’m going to see to it that you’re exposed as the fraud you are.
Gaara Sandalwood
Jul 20th, 2010
huh. Here I just thought they were seizing streaming sites as of late. Damn. Shit’s crazy.
K.T.D.
Jul 20th, 2010
@samantha: Quit suckin presidential dick for hits off the crack pipe you stupid diseased cunt.
LOL!
Jul 21st, 2010
@Samatha I do think he was being ironic and sarcastic.
Little Lost Linden
Jul 21st, 2010
Speaking of Hitler, Second Life had a Nazi search problem involving Hitler recently:
http://thebotzone.net/2010/07/07/linden-lab-search-and-nazi-yahtzee/
KM
Jul 21st, 2010
If the al-Qaeda bomb-making instructions turn out to be that stupid nitroglycerin text file that I wrote in high school to get on the phone phreak BBSes, (1) I’m going to be pissed, and (2) it doesn’t work, don’t try it.
S. A.
Jul 21st, 2010
Now that most of our jobs have gone overseas, America’s greatest export is entertainment. And as some people seem to forget, things like movies aren’t made for free. They take millions, sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars to make. So just break even, they need to take in hundreds of millions of dollars from consumers. If they cant do that, the system breaks down.
Now, some anti-copyright people would cheer at this, thinking it wouldn’t affect them. But as we have seen, our economy is much more fragile than we think. If America’s greatest export disappears, then our country, which is now still in a recession with high unemployment, could slide deeper towards a depression.
And as we have also recently seen, the economies of many other countries around the world are dependent on America’s. So if America goes into a depression, so does the rest of the world. So piracy of entertainment isn’t just bad for the talented people who create it. Its bad for the entire world. This is the reason that the copyleft will never gain any traction in the US Congress.
Judge Joker
Jul 21st, 2010
http://www.attributor.com/
” Protect your Revenue by Eliminating Unauthorized Content Use
Your content is copied all over the Web, siphoning valuable audience and significant dollars away from your authorized channels.
Attributor continuously monitors the Web for copies of your content and removes those that violate your anti-piracy policy.”
New start up, Reuters are using this now!
marilyn murphy
Jul 21st, 2010
@samantha: huh. if you like obama, you must have loved bush. every program obama railed against in the campaign has been extended and enhanced under obama. the wars, the spying on americans, the secret deals behind closed doors, the politics as usual nonsense. he has simply added a larger deficit. the whole health care issue was so he could claim to have accomplished what others could not. when bush tried to create more regulation on wall street the dems in congress killed it. when obama tries for it, they give it to him. doh.
obama is simply bush poicies on steroids.
Persephone Bolero
Jul 21st, 2010
@Marilyn Samantha appears to be a troll, but your comment is 100 percent informed.
c3
Jul 21st, 2010
the copyleft HAS already won… byt offering “free toys” to children.
and SL/LL is a perfect model of this immoral act.
and soon congress will be bought by google and facebook- the new owners of our value, the same as they were bought by GM/ GE, and the the BANKS…credit card maker crooks– who all bought “the people gov” in the past.
corporate/gov combos……. driven by virtualization and the illusions it provides, and that too many cant see..will be the future….
untill an asteroid hits us.:)
Darien Caldwell
Jul 21st, 2010
@Judge Joker, Another interesting service is Tineye (http://www.tineye.com) Which is basically a reverse image search. It lets people find the locations of people using images without authorization around the web. It’s pretty impressive, but even they admit the 1.5 billion images they have indexed are but a tiny fraction of the web. No service can ever hope to catalog the web entirely.
IntLibber Brautigan
Jul 21st, 2010
The “lets blame al Qaeda” meme is tired. First of all, instructions on how to make bombs is all over the internet, in your local library, and available in many RL and online bookshops. It isn’t illegal to possess such information, any more than it is to publish recipes on making your own black powder for muzzle loading rifles. At least here in the US. Anybody who thinks otherwise is a kiddie who thinks their student handbook is law.
Laughing my ass off
Jul 22nd, 2010
What I find really amusing is the nerve of some designers. Wake up people, I can name at least 3 designers that i know personally who have designed their skins with stolen bases, there are a couple others who buy sources ( that’s a different story) but then again, there are countless others whom you all buy from everyday and cough up that 2000L for that one skin that was stolen and morphed. This ‘ban stick’ will never come to sl, why? because there are just way too many theives crying theif.
Emperor Norton hears a who?
Jul 22nd, 2010
What’s going on is clear now; The Oboma regime is trying to cover up the growing REVOLUTION against their attempt to turn American into a Swedish style socialist hell hole.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704723604575379650414337676.html
The major bond rating agencies are refusing to rate bonds after the communist take over the National banking system with the radical leftist Dodd-Frank bill. Atlas has shrugged and we need to as ourselves, “Who is John Galt?”. Those blog closers were just a play taken out of Hitler’s book; muzzle the opposition and silence the Second American Revolution against Taxation with Representation!
Gaara Sandalwood
Jul 23rd, 2010
So first I find that the government is taking down movie streaming sites elft and right. I went “Meh, who cares? They can’t get every site”, and they didn’t, haven’t yet, and probably won’t. Then I saw this article and thought “Dude, that’s crazy…”, showed it to a friend, he literally said “Dude, that’s just crazy”.
Then today I go to peruse a manga site and find out that a America-Japan coalition has been brought together to tell manga sites to take their shit down or they sue, and almost every site except for the few I know of that tell even government orders to fuck off close shop.
Movies. Yeah, I can understand that. Video games. Sure, why not? Important and expensive software programs? Yeah, I even heavily support the anti-piracy of those because some of it really shouldn’t be distributed anyway depending on what it is.
But does our government really have to feel that superior? Does it really need to feel that big of a dick in its hand while it strokes off to politics that it has to attack books, comics, and mangas online?
And what’s funny is Japan is claiming that their manga sales have recently decreased by the tens of millions, as if they don’t understand what a recession is.
Emerald Fox
Jul 24th, 2010
I hear that last post about the american goverment likes to and i quote from the last post here
“really have to feel that superior? Does it really need to feel that big of a dick in its hand while it strokes off to politics that it has to attack books, comics, and mangas online?”
One goverment trying to have full copntroll of the internet and whats goes on it and what doseint is just so dangerous info wars wise I dont want to even touch it with a fiften foot pole. Good news is these guys are only going after sites that have domain names registerd in the U.S.A. Which means any manga sites, blogs, and movie link sites that dont have there domain names registerd in the U.S are safe.
And as for those movie link sites well if they would cut the price of a ticket to the movies as well as the outrages prices on D.V.D’s then there would be no need for sites like those
Gaara Sandalwood
Jul 24th, 2010
That IS a problem though. They can go after some sites hosted offshores in Japan, say, if it’s a manga hosting site that’s “costing the manga industry big bucks” or something like that. Now this is bad enough already, but being the paranoid fuck I am, I can’t help but think of images of our government trying to pressure other govs to have sites shut down in their countries.
Either through a coalition with agreement between the two countries or by having other governments of other countries sharing the same opinions towards such anti-piracy and using peer pressure, one of the oldest tricks around, to have it done.
Just saying, this coalition is allowing the government to act in Japan as well as the US. So for example, somehow the US government forms an agreement between the country piratebay is hosted in. They could, with that country backing them up, immediately shut down one of the most longevity torrent sites around. If an agreement fails, they could have a few other countries that agree with their views stand alongside them and try to apply peer pressure. Even if a country doesn’t care two shits about anti-piracy that doesn’t always necessarily mean it will go out of its way to fight against it(unfortunately).
Little Lost Linden
Jul 25th, 2010
Did I hear someone say terrorists?
Quick!!!
Everyone!
GET TO THE CHOPPER!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9-Te-DPbSE