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August 5, 2011 09:05 pm

Court: Domain Seizures Don't Violate Free Speech

Since last year we've been following the story of how domains are being seized by the US government for allegedly facilitating online piracy. The seizures received a legal challenge back in June from the owners of one such site, and now a US federal court has returned a ruling in the matter:"District Court Judge Paul Crotty decided to deny Puerto 80s request, which means the domain will remain in the hands of the U.S. Government. The Judge argues that seizing Rojadirecta’s .com and .org domains does not violate the First Amendment of the Constitution. 'Puerto 80’s First Amendment argument fails,' the Judge writes. 'Puerto 80 alleges that, in seizing the domain names, the Government has suppressed the content in the ‘forums’ on its websites, which may be accessed by clicking a link in the upper left of the home page. The main purpose of the Rojadirecta websites, however, is to catalog links to the copyrighted athletic events — any argument to the contrary is clearly disingenuous.' The Judge further ruled that the claimed 32% decline in traffic and the subsequent harm to Puerto 80s business is not an issue as visitors can still access the site through foreign domains. Puerto 80s argument, that users may not be aware of these alternatives, was simply waived."

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