England, February 2014: In other news, the Internet Service Providers' Association announced today that no major English ISP now relies on Verisign, the US company formerly responsible for administering major domains such as .com and .net worldwide.<p>This follows a ruling at the European Court last year that Verisign's actions in blocking the domain of German business Musikjetzt GmbH constituted an unlawful restraint of trade, and a subsequent European decision that all primary DNS management should be run under the newly formed United Nations Internet Oversight Service.<p>The Musikjetzt service allows music fans to stream their favourite songs on demand under the new copyright collective licensing regulations introduced Europe-wide in early 2013, and has sharply increased the consumption of music by independent artists.<p>Shares in major US record labels have fallen over 40% in the past year, which industry insiders have repeatedly blamed on the way that Europeans "don't respect copyrights." As one CEO put it, "If they won't respect our rules voluntarily, we have to make them respect them."<p>A spokeman for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said "Economic attacks on fundamental US industries are a bigger threat than terrorism, and we will always respond accordingly."<p>No-one from the Recording Industry Association of America was available for comment.
FYI, .com/net/org have always belonged to the United States.<p>In the same way that .ca belongs to Canada, com/net/org/us belong to the US. Think of them as the sponsoring organization that originally created them.<p>The only thing the US government has ever given up is control over the registry and DNS management. Under a MoU[1] that facility was handed over to ICANN with the understanding that they would select US based private sector companies to take on the duties.<p>Other TLDs that are sponsored internationally but managed in the US (like .me or .ws) is a whole different issue, but this one is pretty clean cut.<p>1. <a href="http://www.icann.org/en/general/icann-mou-25nov98.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.icann.org/en/general/icann-mou-25nov98.htm</a>
Is this a joke? I thought it might be serious until I read:
<i>ICE is not focusing its efforts just on web sites that stream dodgy content but those that link to them</i><p>Please tell me this is a joke. I don't know whether to laugh or be sad.
Barnett, assistant deputy director of ICE: "The idea is to try to prosecute."<p>If I remember correctly, in the few cases that the domains were confiscated, there was no prosecution, no courts involved. The owners of the domains had practically no means to question or challenge the seizure. At least that's what the media reported at the time.
I'll get downvoted for this.<p>Argument (I don't completely agree, but someone will make it sometime)- I think it is not good for humanity to trust the jurisdiction of a country which has demonstrated tainted judgement by getting involved in nuclear weapons and given their recent involvements in the middle east. The United States is not the country whose jurisdiction should control any form of worldwide open platform.<p>Just a thought. This stuff needs some sort of international law. No jurisdiction in the world is good enough to rule the web, in any damned way. We cannot take our narrow minds into the future for our race.
If these sites are in the jurisdiction of the US, aren't they also entitled to the same right of due process? Have any of these seizures been challenged in court? And if so, what's the status of the cases?
"By definition, almost all copyright infringement and trademark violation is transnational."<p>By definition? <i>By definition</i>!?<p>If that's the case, then as long as the bulk of pirates are in the same country as the copyright owner, then <i>by definition</i>, no violation has occurred.
Suddenly I am happy only the .org was available for my new project.<p>I am wondering though: Couldn't the US make similar claims on .org and .us (and .edu, .biz?) domains?
Verisign is operator of the authoritative domain name registry for the .com and .net top-level domains. Verisign is headquartered in Virginia, and as such, the "property" of the domain is located in the United States and is subject to the jurisdiction of our courts.<p>This isn't new, and it's why anti-cybersquatting legislation (15 U.S.C. §1125) can be enforced.
Hmm. Personally this is how I always thought of the original generic TLDs (com/net/org). In my head I think I even applied the idea to .xxx, .aero and what-not as well. Pretty much how I expect Libya to do whatever they want with the .ly domain.<p>This seizing of domains has been kind of the de-facto behavior for at least some five years by now. In my head this new policy does not change anything (don't run gambling sites on a .com domain etc?). Hell, I might even go as far as to say that it might be a positive thing if there was no such thing as a generic TLD. Most corporations registers all their domains globally anyway (whether that is good or bad is another story).<p>Not the most relevant Google query, but it takes the idea home, I guess: <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=us+seizes+domain+2005" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=us+seizes+domain+20...</a> -- I didn't bother looking for older entries than that.
Why is online piracy such a big business (and hence a problem to the rights holders)? Because there are no comparable legal alternatives. So instead of technology and business innovation, let's do legal innovation and sue them people regardless of where they are.
I wonder where this will end? Claiming all packets that go through the US are in its jurisdiction? All packets that go through routers supplied by American companies who provide finance for the router? All packets that go through routers owned by a company who has 1 or more American shareholders?
I think they may be shooting themselves in the foot with all this litigation against copy infringers. Once it becomes impractical to share files using bit torrent, people will probably just switch to mildly less convenient but more secure methods, like free net.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but why would ICE have anything to do with copyright in the first place, regardless of whether their jurisdiction claims are upheld/fair? How does copyright fall under either immigration or customs?
Intentionally or not this is an excellent way to force the "distributed control" issues of the Internet. It is only a matter of time before other countries (non-US) demand greater say in the control of the policies. This should be an interesting issue and relevant to all users of the Net in the long run.
I ask this completely seriously. What would it take to declare the domain of the internet as its own sovereign entity? The internet to me has become greater than just a communications network. It is a place where people connect/work/play. DNS is a natural resource, and should be regulated by all that is affected by it.
if they even remotely try it, I bet each country will have their own dns server and broken internet. this clearly show that How gradually, USOFA do not have any intention to keep internet open. so it would be wise to move away from them while we can. ( only sometimes, once in a while, why it seems that china is better ? )