The FBI has taken over the domains belonging to sites that are involved in pre-release music piracy.The two domain ShareBeast.com & AlbumJams.com currently shows the ill-famed D.O.J- Department Of Justice banner stating that the domain has been seized and the sites are being investigated for copyright infringement.
The RIAA- "Recording Industry Association of America" , welcomed the news describing the takedowns as a "huge accomplishment."
As efforts to block file-sharing websites gather pace around the world, in Europe especially, criminal actions within the U.S. remain comparatively rare.
Home to the Hollywood studios and major recording labels pressing for robust measures elsewhere, the U.S. has taken somewhat of a backseat, with only fitful criminal actions to report within the past few years.
The U.S. authorities say they took action against a pair of websites concerned with music piracy. As per RIAA, ShareBeast.com and AlbumJams.com were liable for the sharing of “huge repository” of popular albums & tracks. Notably, the sites are darned for providing “thousands of songs” that hadn’t however enjoyed their official release.
The U.S. DOJ seizure notices appeared on each sites, suggesting that the immediate domain seizures were needed to bring current copyright violation to an end.
According to the RIAA, ShareBeast was the biggest illegal file-sharing website functioning in the U.S. and the recent IP addresses reveals the file-hosting website was hosted in Illinois.
However, when compared to different file-sharing names the site’s traffic stats were pretty modest & alleged sister website AlbumJams has ne'er been vital.
Nonetheless, the RIAA says that it reported quite hundred of thousand infringing files to the service for takedown. That seems like an inexpensive assessment since the music business group filed an analogous no. of complaints (118,000) with Google over the past few years. Once all rightsholders are taken into consideration, complaints regarding ShareBeast averaged around 36,000 URLs per week.
“This is a huge achievement for the music community and legit music services. Sharebeast operated with obvious disregard for the rights of artists and labels whereas undermining the legal marketplace,” commented RIAA Chairman & CEO Cary Sherman.
“Millions of users accessed songs from Sharebeast every month while not even one penny of compensation reaching to innumerous artists, songwriters, labels and others who created the music.”
The RIAA thanked the FBI and DOJ for its “strong stand” against Sharebeast however stopped short of commenting on what has happened to the site’s alleged operator. There has been no official statement regarding any arrests or any indication that the website was run from within the United States.
