02 July 2010 | Author: J. Morton Search Copywriter

US takes the wind out of pirate sites' sails

The US federal government has dealt a serious blow to the phenomenon of free, streaming television and film sites as it's made good on its promise to take a harder line with copyright infringement on the web.

Nine streaming websites - including Movies-Links.tv, NinjaVideo.net and FilesPump.com - have had their URLs seized in an initiative by the Feds that also included the freezing of assets from 15 bank accounts, in what they described as the "largest takedown of illegal movie and TV websites in a single action" to date.

These sites allow users to view television programmes and films - often just-released or in-the-cinema productions - through their websites, which in turn are funded by advertising revenues.

Though the crackdown was easier than some online anti-piracy efforts due to the site-based nature of the services - the government has admitted it lacks the technology to combat the decentralised BitTorrent phenomenon - officials suffer no delusions that they've seen the last of streaming sites.

The computers and servers for the sites have not been seized, but "if a website reappears, so will we," said Immigration and Customs Enforcement official John Morton. "If the criminals move overseas, we will follow.

"Take it from me, I don't think that we've stopped internet piracy in a day, but this is going to be a sustained effort."

The moves come just under two weeks after Vice President Joe Biden's pledge to form a strategic plan on intellectual property enforcement, citing that infringements - from online piracy to counterfeit pharmaceuticals - "hurts [the American] economy, our health and our safety."