Feds seized 16 websites streaming live sports before Super Bowl...

Feds blitz websites streaming live sports before Super Bowl

February 2, 2012 | 5:09 pm


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Days before the Super Bowl, federal authorities blitzed more than a dozen websites illegally streaming live sporting events.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies announced Thursday that they had seized 16 websites and brought criminal charges against a Michigan man who operated nine of them.
Yonjo Quiroa, 28, of Comstock Park, Mich., was arrested Wednesday and charged with criminal copyright infringement. Authorities said he operated websites that streamed pirated telecasts of live sports, including some pay-per-view events. Those included games from the NFL, NBA and NHL as well as World Wrestling Entertainment. Quiroa received $13,000 in profit from the illegal sites, authorities said.
"This enforcement action ... sends a strong message to website operators who mistakenly believe it's worth the risk to take copyrighted programming and portray it as their own,'' ICE Director John Morton said in a statement.
U.S. Atty. Preet Bharara, Southern District of New York, added: "These websites and their operators deprive sports leagues and networks of legitimate revenue, forcing spectators and viewers to bear the cost of this piracy down the line."
The arrest was part of a larger crackdown, coming days before the Super Bowl, in which federal law enforcement officials seized more than $4.8 million in fake NFL merchandise, including T-shirts, jackets and other souvenirs, from flea markets, stores and vendors nationwide.

Why would ICE have anything to do with this? You'd think it would be the DOJ.

DOJ doesnt get involved in anything where a minority is not the victim unless there is 10's of millions to be seized.
ICE is involved because they consider this a form of a customs violation.

By the way did anyone read that the guy from megaupload had his money, cars, guns and properties seized when he was arrested????? how can we arrest a guy from another country and take everything he owns before he even makes it to the jailhouse much less to trial??????

O and it was 300 websites seized...........

People are jobless everywhere and we pay these morons to sit around and do this...

Watch what happens when SOPA gets through

I didn't even know there any still around.

100s of sites went back up on different servers hours later

government is dumb

http://www.firstrowsports.eu/

-murph

I think we will see this yearly around the SuperBowl. Just like the NYPD making a big arrest right before the Superbowl by taking down some bookmakers in NYC. I am assuming some were rousted up this morning for a big press conference.

I got an email in within the last hour from NBC Sports that promoted the availability to stream the game and the email provided a link (actually it said "click here"). I clicked on it and it's about 15 seconds behind my television, but it does appear to work. The following is the URL that's from my browser

http://player.nbcsports.com/SNFPlay...oke/36ohk6dgmcd1n/9/1.0.35/us/en-US/view.html

Upon further review, I think it boils down to this URL

nflstream.nbcsports.com

That sucks..

Its getting harder to find download sites....even for music and movies...

maxdemo said:

Its getting harder to find download sites....even for music and movies...

Click to expand...

i dont download music much.. but tons of sites for movies and tv
http://www.icefilms.info/
http://www.moviesplanet.com/
http://www.dailyflix.net/
http://www.solarmovie.eu/
http://www.movie2k.to/index.php

http://www.surfthechannel.com/cat/61406.html
http://www.watchseries-online.eu/
http://watch-free-movie-online.net/
http://www.watchthisfree.com/
http://www.movie-forumz.tv/
http://watchseries.eu/latest
http://www.1channel.ch/
http://i-watchmovies.net/
http://www.free-tv-video-online.me/internet/
http://one-tvshows.eu/


enjoy

-murph

The DOJ was involved in this operation. Infamous U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, America's Eliot Ness wannabe, was once again a driving force behind the government's ongoing attack on individual liberties and protection of big business:

"These websites and their operators deprive sports leagues and networks of legitimate revenue" in what amounts to "virtual thievery," said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan, who announced the website seizures.

Bharara was instrumental in the takedown of online poker behemoths FullTiltPoker.com, PokerStars.com and UB.com last April. Half a dozen executives from those firms were charged with money laundering and bank fraud in connection with the misrepresentation of gambling transactions through a St. George, Utah bank.

I also noticed one of the torrent sites I used frequently, btjunkie, just shut down too.

Maybe they fear torrent sites are next...

Hache Man said:

I also noticed one of the torrent sites I used frequently, btjunkie, just shut down too.

Maybe they fear torrent sites are next...

Click to expand...

This may be a copy cat of the real btjunkie.. but the search still helps - http://www.btjunkie.name/

also


this article may help to find some new torrent sites hache

Top 10 Most Popular Torrent Sites of 2012

• Ernesto
• January 7, 2012
• 76
• 2012,
  Torrent Sites
• Print

Continuing a long-standing New Year’s tradition, we present an up-to-date list of the world’s most visited BitTorrent sites. At the start of 2012 The Pirate Bay continues to pull in the most visitors, followed by Torrentz and KickassTorrents. The six-year-old TV-torrent distribution group EZTV appears in the list for the first time, ranked 8th.
Which torrent sites get the most visitors at the start of 2012? At first glance little seems to have changed, as many of the sites in the top 10 have been among the top torrent sites for more than half a decade. But moving down the list we see quite a few movers and shakers as well as three newcomers.
The most notable absentee this year is TorrentReactor, one of the oldest torrent sites on the Internet. The Russian-based site hasbeen featured in the top 10 since 2006, but missed the cut in 2012. Last year’s best newcomer LimeTorrents took an even bigger hit in traffic and has dropped off the list as well.
Below we have compiled a list of the 10 most-visited torrent sites at the start of the new year. Only public and English language sites are included. The list is based on traffic rank reports from Compete and Alexa. In addition, we include last year’s ranking for each of the 10 sites.
1. The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay is probably the best known BitTorrent brand on the Internet. The site was founded in 2003 and is still expanding, despite the various legal troubles and blockades that were designed to hurt the site in recent years. The Pirate Bay currently has close to 2 billion page views a month.
2. Torrentz

Torrentz has been the leading BitTorrent meta-search engine for years. Unlike the other sites featured in the list Torrentz does not host any torrent files, it merely redirects visitors to other places on the web.
3. KickassTorrents

Founded in 2009, KickassTorrents is one of the youngest sites in the list, and this year it moved up to the top 3. Responding to the increasing worries about domain seizures, the site moved from its kickasstorrents.com domain to kat.ph a few months ago. The site continues to innovate and release new features every other week.
4. IsoHunt

In 2010 isoHunt became the first search engine forced to implement a keyword filter provided by the MPAA. Despite this setback, isoHunt continues to be listed among the top torrent sites. In 2012, isoHunt hopes to get rid of the filter through the Appeals Court.
5. BTjunkie

BTjunkie had to deal with a setback a few months ago when the site was blocked in Italy following a court order. In response to the block, the site’s owners launched an ad-free proxy site for Italians only. Just as last year, BTjunkie settles in fifth place.
6. ExtraTorrent

ExtraTorrent is one of those robust torrent indexes that doesn’t make the news very often. Compared to last year the site has moved up a spot and is now the 6th most popular torrent venue.
7. Demonoid

The semi-private tracker continues to attract a massive audience, also on the new .me domain name. Behind the scenes the site’s owners are working on a new and improved look.
8. EZTV

Unlike the other sites in the top 10, TV-torrent distribution group EZTV is a niche site specializing in TV content only. Despite its fair share of downtime this year, EZTV has managed to get a spot in the top 10 for the first time in its six year existence.
9. Bitsnoop

BitSnoop is another newcomer that gained a large audience this year. This didn’t go unnoticed by the RIAA, who filed a complaint at the U.S. District Court of Columbia and obtained a subpoena to reveal the identity of BitSnoop’s owner a few months ago.
10. 1337x

1337x is also new to the top 10, and focuses more on the community aspect than some competitors. The site’s owners say they started 1337x to “fill an apparent void where it seemed there was a lack of quality conscience ad free torrent sites with public trackers.” Its 10th place this year proves that they’re getting the success formula right.
Disclaimer: Yes, we know that Alexa isn’t perfect and that Compete has plenty of flaws, but combined both do a pretty good job at comparing sites that operate in a similar niche.