{"id":12897,"date":"2012-02-02T16:49:45","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T21:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=12897"},"modified":"2012-02-02T16:53:54","modified_gmt":"2012-02-02T21:53:54","slug":"counterfeit-nfl-merchandise-bust-blows-hole-in-internet-piracy-apologists-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/12897\/counterfeit-nfl-merchandise-bust-blows-hole-in-internet-piracy-apologists-claim\/","title":{"rendered":"Counterfeit NFL Merchandise Bust Blows Hole in Internet Piracy Apologists&#8217; Claim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the ongoing battle over Congressional legislation to target foreign rogue websites, opponents falsely characterize the battle as one pitting sinister liberal &#8220;Big Hollywood&#8221; against underdog champions of Internet freedom.<\/p>\n<p>That characterization was always false, but too many conservatives and libertarians unfortunately fell for it.\u00a0 The truth is that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fightonlinetheft.com\/content\/current-signatories-draft-rogue-sites-letter\" target=\"_blank\">hundreds of businesses and employers<\/a>, from the NFL to EA Sports to Ford Motor to 1-800-Contacts to Burberry supported the bill.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because their property, employees and innovations actually suffer from the menace of online piracy.\u00a0 Meanwhile, groups like Google have no property right at stake from online piracy.\u00a0 Indeed, they benefit from uninterrupted rogue website traffic.\u00a0 So no wonder they opposed anti-piracy legislation.<\/p>\n<p>Today, just days before the Super Bowl, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency announced a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.networkworld.com\/community\/node\/79724\" target=\"_blank\">major bust<\/a> of 307 rogue websites selling millions of dollars&#8217;-worth of counterfeit merchandise:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Special agents this week seized a total of 307 websites and snatched  up 42,692 items of phony Super Bowl-related memorabilia along with other  counterfeit items for a total take of more than $4.8 million &#8211; up from  $3.72 million last year.\u00a0 Sixteen of the sites the agency shut down during this operation known  as Fake Sweep, were illegally streaming live sporting telecasts over  the Internet, including NFL games.\u00a0 Two hundred ninety-one website domain  names were illegally selling and distributing counterfeit merchandise,  ICE stated.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And the bust wasn&#8217;t limited to counterfeit NFL merchandise:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>During this operation, an additional 22,570 items of counterfeit  merchandise and clothing representing other sports leagues, including  Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association and National  Hockey League were seized by law enforcement. In total, this operation  netted 65,262 counterfeit items worth $6.4 million, ICE stated.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is a critical example to keep in mind as the battle against foreign rogue websites moves forward.\u00a0 That sort of illegal activity is already subject to seizure if it occurs within the U.S., but foreign sites remain largely beyond American law.\u00a0 Piracy apologists want to make this look like anti-piracy legislation is just some sort of Big Hollywood handout, but this bust illustrates the falsity of that claim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the ongoing battle over Congressional legislation to target foreign rogue websites, opponents falsely characterize the battle as one pitting sinister liberal &#8220;Big Hollywood&#8221; against underdog champions of Internet freedom. That characterization was always false, but too many conservatives and libertarians unfortunately fell for it.\u00a0 The truth is that hundreds of businesses and employers, from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3290,3326,2870,3288],"class_list":["post-12897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-pipa","tag-piracy","tag-rogue-websites","tag-sopa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12897"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12902,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12897\/revisions\/12902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}