In a continuation of the Department of Homeland Security’s mass seizure of domain names related to “counterfeit goods,” many of which turned out to have been seized in error and without any apparent legal recourse, the DHS has now seized RojaDirecta.org, a popular Spanish soccer website.
RojaDirecta has been legally controversial because the website contains direct links to video feeds of live soccer matches in Spain and elsewhere around the world. At the same time, its legal status was already challenged twice in Spain, and both times the courts found in their favor.
So far the DHS has not commented on exactly what prompted to seizure of the website, but it seems that faced with the reality that the Spanish government could not legally censor the website, the US has decided to extra-legally do so.
The most curious aspect is that the website exclusively offered European soccer matches, a sport that is not particularly popular and only rarely broadcast within the United States. It seems unlikely then that the DHS was acting on behalf of an US interests seeking to prevent the showing of such matches, as there probably weren’t any.
Bloated Homeland Security Bureaucracy is looking to diversify into "IP enforcement" are they? I expect DHS "Intellectual Property Swat Teams" to break down the doors of apartments and give teenagers sharing from Mom's bedroom a righteous anal probing anytime now. Connected to bittorrent? You are terro!
"The most curious aspect is that the website exclusively offered European soccer matches, a sport that is not particularly popular and only rarely broadcast within the United States. "
That's not quite true – on days there are matches even on my very humble cable package you can get two to five lives matches from Europe via struggling upstart cable channels like ESPN and FoxSports
ESPN shows live European soccer on it's ESPN3 website several days a week. And there are several internet pay sites that stream European soccer here to the US. Not that it any of that matters this is just another tiny example of how our government is making us less free every day. And it doesn't matter which party occupies both ends of Pennsylvania Ave.
I live in a very small city here in the south and I am very much in love with football and my cable company offers no football channels here. The only channel you can watch a football game on is on ESPN on Saturday morning and sometimes during the week.
So really most the time I am watching streams on the internet so I think this is a load of crap. DHS can kiss my southern ass.
"" It seems unlikely then that the DHS was acting on behalf of an US interests seeking to prevent the showing of such matches, as there probably weren’t any. "
Who, then, is the DHS working for? What paymaster is pulling their strings to force their cooperation in pursuing a secret anti-televised-soccer agenda? Who is wanting to prevent the broadcasting of the games, and why?
Maybe we should ask that guy over there- the guy standing on a rainy street corner in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. That's Guy Noir, Private Detective. Maybe he can figure it out.