U.S. Claims Jurisdiction Over All .com and .net Domains
U.S. Claims Jurisdiction Over All .com and .net Domains
Posted 07/05/2011 at 9:38am
| by Paul Lilly
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The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency believes it has the authority to shut down any and all .com and .net websites that run afoul of copyright law, even if the site's servers are hosted overseas. Erik Barnett, the agency's assistant deputy director, told the U.K.'s Guardian that ICE will seek to shut down overseas sites it believes are breaking U.S. copyright law and attempt to extradite website owners. Has ICE found a legal loophole?
Perhaps it has. The reason ICE feels its authority extends to any .com and .net domain overseas is because they're all routed through Verisign, a registry service based in Virginia. As far as Barnett is concerned, that alone gives ICE the right extradite foreign site owners to the U.S. on piracy charges.
"Without wishing to get into the particulars of any case, the general goal of law enforcement is to arrest and prosecute individuals who are committing crimes," Barnett said. "That is our goal, our mission. The idea is to try to prosecute."
ICE isn't just targeting sites that host or stream copyrighted material, but those that link to it. One of the more publicized cases is that of Richard O'Dwyer, a 23-year-old British student ICE wants to extradite for running TVShack.net, which linked to non-licensed streams of movies and TV shows. Barnett declined to comment on this specific case, but did offer up some general comments related to chasing linking sites.
"I'll give you an analogy. A lot of drug dealing is done by proxy -- you rarely give the money to the same person that you get the dope from," Barnett explains. "I think the question is, are any of these people less culpable?"
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bpstone
July 05, 2011 at 8:07pm
The content on my website is fully licensed and legal. If they ever threaten me with false charges, I'll chew them a new ***hole. They need to focus their attention on the thousands of illegal porn websites instead of honest people who have no bad intentions. Jerks!
Topperfalkon
July 05, 2011 at 3:34pm
@Barcode: Firstly, I assumed by the mention of "US" that the article referred to some arm of the US Government, as is entirely rational.
Secondly, Verisign is a certification authority and domain name registrar and service provider (they hold two of the world's 13 root nameservers and control the .com/.net TLDs among others. If you want to host a website with that TLD, at some point you have to go through Verisign.
Nevertheless, if the US Government (irrespective of which department) believes this connection is justification for being the sole arbiter of those TLDs I would be shocked is the rest of the world did anything other than tell the US to FOAD.
PTZ
July 05, 2011 at 3:21pm
So, when Libya claims bit.ly breaks laws, they can shut down bit.ly's entire business? I'd say leave it up to international courts to decide.
Barcode
July 05, 2011 at 2:24pm
Judging by the title you are probably purposefully trying to give the U.S. a bad name, but I'll assume it was simply your incompetence. May I remind you it is the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency claiming jurisdiction on .com and .net domains, not the "U.S." in general. You'd be surprised at how much a small mistake like this can skew people's perspectives. Just look at "Steakkils" comment:
>"I think the US goverment is getting to full of itself oh hey look at that we took over Iraq now lets take over everyones lives
>US absolutley sucks. Period."
Or how about "RUSENSITIVESWEETNESS"'s comment?"
>"Fuck the USA."
Or "Damicatz"?
>"This is so typical of the US and US Government"
>"This is the exact reason why the US should not retain control of the domain name system."
U.S. U.S. U.S. , this is the U.S. ICE were talking about. All that hate, just because you (Paul Lilly) made a mistake. Let this be a lesson to you when doing your job.
As for the article itself: Why do all these companies route their domains through a foreign company? I don't believe ICE has the authority to extradite foreign website owners, but they certainly have the authority to refuse service.
steakkills
July 05, 2011 at 8:42pm
I am the type of person that thinks communism is a good idea if it works out, however this is just a democratic communism essentially the United States goverment department of Immigration and Customs enforcment agency is trying to stick its nose everywhere it does not belong. This will end up eventually being declared unconstitutional. This is a quote from Liam Quade from ZL studios on the topic of netnutrality "Now the Internet is a bit different since it’s a global thing and not just a thing that goes on within just the United States. In other words nobody owns the Internet." Ergo the US dep. ICE would not have the power to do anything because the laws are different in each country, so it would require all the goverments to be in agreement to this claim otherwise it is just plain foolhardy.
Also the fact that the internet isn't a company it is just technology.
P.S. I personally dislike the US's stances on certain topics such as this and to my conclusion the "US absolutley sucks. Period."
Another note i don't appreciate you being a little patriot and making an account just so you can comment mister new account ICE is not the voice of the people they are the voice of the greedy bastards in California that want their damned money after they have millions already whilist the those less fortunat have to pay 20 dollars for afreaking movie that sucks.
So before you start turning my opinions into bullets of which to kill me think first.
The US goverment department of ICE does not have the right to butt into other peoples affairs in other COUNTERIES without that country agreeing.
tornato7
July 05, 2011 at 3:19pm
There is no US government then, because everything is a branch of the government. The ICE is part of the government, and if they have jurisdiction of the domains then the rest of the government does too. You don't say 'man's hand kills 3' you say 'man kills three people.' The US government obviously could have stopped this, but didn't, and the rest of the body will follow.
ShyLinuxGuy
July 05, 2011 at 1:21pm
Whoever within ICE who has decided ICE has jurisdiction over .com and .net domains is going to be proven wrong if and when this goes to the Supreme Court.
ICE has more things to worry about. Copyright infringement isn't one of them.
steakkills
July 05, 2011 at 11:43am
I think the US goverment is getting to full of itself oh hey look at that we took over Iraq now lets take over everyones lives. They don't realize that piracy does lead to people buying the actual thing it might be in the long run but people will inevitably buy something that they like am I right?
You gotta love how they does this a day after the 4th of July.
Another thing I absolutley loved tvshack before I had cable no commercails nothing to get in the way of you catching up to what you want to watch when you want to watch it.
US absolutley sucks. Period.
lostcause64
July 05, 2011 at 11:18am
Hey now!! I live here and I'll have you know that my government and legal system is the BEST THAT MONEY CAN BUY...
StaggeredSix
July 05, 2011 at 10:47am
Um. I dunno where he's getting his dope from... but I always get my dope from the same dude. Guess what? He always gets my money.
Ghok
July 05, 2011 at 9:35pm
No kidding!
"I'll give you an analogy. A lot of drug dealing is done by proxy -- you rarely give the money to the same person that you get the dope from," Barnett explains.
I just don't even know what he means. Barnett, which drugs are you doing? Somewhere where you give money to one guy, and another guy comes and gives you the drugs? Is it like those old drive thrus where you give your order at one window, pay at the next, and pick up your food at the last?
bloodgain
July 05, 2011 at 11:01am
His analogy is broken anyway. Running a link site would be like you giving me the name of your pot dealer and telling me which corner he stands in front of. By his analogy, I'd have to give you money to go buy me some pot from your dealer -- not at all the same thing. In the first, you did nothing illegal, morality notwithstanding. In the second, you committed 2 crimes -- purchasing drugs and redistributing them to me (only the first of which would hold up in court, most likely).
Like I said -- broken analogy. I hope they stick with that, though, so some judge with half a brain will point out the stupid analogy, give the correct comparison, and tell the ICE where to stick their tax-dollar-wasting, abusive lawsuits.
praetor_alpha
July 05, 2011 at 10:12am
So anyone anywhere in the world can be hunted down, just by the mere fact they did a completely legal everyday business transaction with an American company, unrelated to the offense??? At the behest of greedy American media corporations?
Too far!
gendoikari1
July 05, 2011 at 10:06am
Well, Karl Benz invented the car, so by this "logic" Germany has to investigate all car crimes around the world.
RUSENSITIVESWEETNESS
July 05, 2011 at 10:03am
So you put a songlist on your Facebook page; next thing you know, you're in federal prison where you belong?
Fuck the USA.
Obviously, they flew their planes into the wrong buildings.
ascendant
July 05, 2011 at 10:27am
Not only that but they want to make it illegal to lipsync songs on youtube and other video sharing sites. It all boggles the mind.
damicatz
July 05, 2011 at 9:58am
This is so typical of the US and US Government in general. The "The US is the center of the world and everyone should bow down to us and follow our laws" arguement is getting tired and old and is a large part in why the US keeps getting attacked. This is the exact reason why the US should not retain control of the domain name system.
thetechchild
July 05, 2011 at 9:47am
Firstly, clear up this whole "registry" thing -- I wasn't aware that Verisign did anything more than SSL certs, and those aren't mandatory, are they?
Second, it's not the same thing as using a middleman to *hand the dope over*, because an analogous situation would be TVShack mirroring (i.e. hosting) the actual content and paying a 3rd party (from which the content came) with customers' payments. TVShack does not host/mirror content, if this article is correct, and is *not* being paid. That analogy is completely twisted and does not fit this situation at all.
praetor_alpha
July 05, 2011 at 10:29am
Certain companies (registrars) are assigned to manage specific TLDs. Verisign bought out the company that managed the .coms in 2000, and sold it's SSL division to Symantec in 2010:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/did_symantec_pay_128_billion_verisign_logo
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