Another Registrar To Avoid: Internet BS Pulls Down Website Based On Confused Understanding Of The Law

from the bs-indeed dept

It seems that many in the anti-piracy world are moving up the chain a bit in their quixotic fight against anything they feel must be illegal (even if it's not). From targeting the sites directly, to then focusing on hosting firms, they're now going directly to registrars and ordering them to pull domain names or face liability. And while many of the better web hosts have learned to be familiar with the law here, many registrars are confused (thankfully, there are a few exceptions).

The latest example of a registrar folding the second someone freaked out is the aptly named Internet BS (or Internet.bs), which apparently suspended Bittorrent.pm's domain, after a company called Rico Management claimed it was hosting infringing files. Of course, it's not hosting any infringing files, because it's an index site, rather than a hosting site. Rico complained, and Internet BS told the site's administrators that it had to take action or face liability, and then it also complained that Bittorrent.pm didn't have a contact page on its website. Of course, as Torrentfreak notes, there's some irony in the fact that the complaining company, Rico Management, doesn't even seem to have a website at all, let alone official contact information.

Either way, the idea that a registrar might be liable for infringement stretches the bounds of secondary liability to ridiculous lengths. Remember, the direct infringement is done by end users. At best, Bittorrent.pm might be found for secondary liability. You could argue that its hosting provider might have (already ridiculous) tertiary liability, meaning the registrar would be at the level of quaternary liability, which is taking the concept of third party liability to extreme and ridiculous levels. And, of course, that doesn't even get into the fact that neither Bittorrent.pm nor Internet BS are in the US, and yet Internet BS seemed to be relying on an extremely strained reading of the US's DMCA to make this argument.

If there's actual infringement going on, the focus should be on holding those actually responsible liable, not twisting liability rules to make everyone else potentially liable. When you go down that path, you guarantee easy and widespread stifling of perfectly legitimate speech and innovation.

Filed Under: dmca, registrar, secondary liability, takedowns
Companies: bittorrent.pm, internet bs, internet.bs, rico management

'Human Error' Briefly Kills All Shortened Twitter Links

from the ick dept

Twitter has been trying to push all links through its t.co link shortener system, which is actually quite annoying. It's experienced some downtime in the past, including earlier this week when a bit of "human error" by the registrar who handles the .co domain made the entire t.co domain dead to the world, basically breaking all of those links. Apparently someone at the registrar responded to a phishing complaint by accidentally killing the entire domain... and with it countless URLs. As security researcher Mikko Hypponen pointed out in response to all of this:

t․co downtime illustrates how shortlinks make the web more fragile and harder to archive.

Indeed. While they're handy given Twitter's artificial limits, and can be useful as a poor man's tracking system for outbound links, on the whole, they seem to cause a lot of problems. Too many times I've had links go through multiple shorteners and fail along the way because one of them hiccups.

Filed Under: human error, link shortener, registrar, t.co
Companies: twitter

US Government Admits It Has Seized Hundreds Of Domains Registered Outside The US

from the this-has-been-happening-for-a-while dept

After the US seized Bodog.com, we pointed to a writeup by EasyDNS that has created quite a stir, claiming that this was the first time that the US had seized a domain that was registered through a non-US registrar by going straight to the register (in this case VeriSign). But as we pointed out, that's simply untrue. Back in 2010 we wrote about how most of the federal government's domain seizures went directly to the register.

For whatever reason, more and more people keep picking up on the EasyDNS piece, including interesting questions about whether or not these seizures could be seen as declarations of war by seizing foreign property.

I'm glad that people are up in arms about this, but it's important to remember that this simply isn't new. In fact, the feds themselves seem bewildered by all these claims. In an interview with Wired, ICE spokesperson Nicole Navas admits that the government has seized approximately 750 domains this way, with the vast majority of them using foreign registrars:

Such seizures are becoming commonplace under the Obama administration. For example, the U.S. government program known as Operation in Our Sites acquires federal court orders to shutter sites it believes are hawking counterfeited goods, illegal sports streams and unauthorized movies and music. Navas said the U.S. government has seized 750 domain names, “most with foreign-based registrars.”

So, sure, speak up about this, but please, please recognize that this isn't new. It's been going on for at least three years. Hell, it's so common these days that PIR, who runs the .org register, has a dedicated page listing out all the domains they've handed over to the feds.

Filed Under: domain names, domain seizures, foreign domains, ice, jurisdiction, nicole navas, register, registrar
Companies: bodog, verisign