{"id":69379,"date":"2022-12-11T09:01:51","date_gmt":"2022-12-11T09:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=69379"},"modified":"2022-12-11T09:01:51","modified_gmt":"2022-12-11T09:01:51","slug":"u-s-govt-seizes-domains-of-popular-sports-streaming-piracy-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=69379","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Govt Seizes Domains of Popular Sports Streaming Piracy Sites"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/ball-old.jpg\" alt=\"ball old\" width=\"300\" height=\"248\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-201776\">Sports piracy is prevalent around the world, with more than half of all sports fans regularly using unauthorized streaming services.<\/p>\n<p>Football, also known as soccer in some parts of the world, is particularly problematic. It\u2019s seen as a gateway sport that turns fans of other sports into streaming pirates. <\/p>\n<p>This is of particular concern now that millions of pirates are tuning into the World Cup. Keeping this in mind, it\u2019s no surprise that U.S. law enforcement authorities appear to have taken down some of the most used sports streaming piracy domain names today. <\/p>\n<h2>Feds Seize Sports Streaming Sites<\/h2>\n<p>A few hours ago, popular sites such as score808.com, hesgoal.com, 9goaltv.cc, freestreams-live1.com, weakstreams.com, and istream2watch.com became inaccessible. <\/p>\n<p>Most of these sites have millions of monthly visitors looking to stream sports content for free. That is not an option today. Instead, visitors are welcomed by a seizure banner, displaying the seals of U.S. law enforcement outfits.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis domain name has been seized by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) pursuant to a warrant issued by the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, the banner reads, warning that offenders risk criminal prosecution. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><center><strong>The Seizure Banner<\/strong><\/center><br \/><center><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/hesgoalseized.jpg\" alt=\"seized domains\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-227957\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/hesgoalseized.jpg 960w, https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/images\/hesgoalseized-16x12.jpg 16w, https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/images\/hesgoalseized-200x150.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not immediately clear whether the seizures were carried out through domain registrars, which include at least one foreign company, or the Verisign domain registry. However, the latter seems more plausible as Verisign oversees both .com and .cc domains.<\/p>\n<h2>Seizedservers.com<\/h2>\n<p>The domains\u2019 nameservers were pointed at SEIZEDSERVERS.COM. These nameservers are controlled by the US Department of Justice and are often used to <a href=\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/u-s-government-seizes-bittorrent-search-engine-domain-and-more-101126\/\">shut down sites<\/a> as part of criminal proceedings. The same happened to several <a href=\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/u-s-authorities-seize-z-library-domain-names-221104\/\">Z-Library domain names<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n<p>The domain seizures haven\u2019t been officially confirmed but it appears to be a coordinated attack on sports streaming sites. TorrentFreak reached out to the Department of Justice and the IPR Center but we received no immediate responses.<\/p>\n<p>Whether anyone has been arrested, as seen recently in the Z-Library crackdown, remains unknown. There are no immediate signs that any servers have been taken offline either. <\/p>\n<h2>Domain Name Switch<\/h2>\n<p>The seizures are undoubtedly a major blow to the sites, most of which have millions of monthly visits, but whether they will stay offline is unclear.<\/p>\n<p>Stream2watch, for example, has already moved to a new domain name at istream2watch.stream and remains accessible. Other sites may also attempt similar comebacks. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/stream2watch-1.png\" alt=\"stream2watch\" width=\"600\" height=\"371\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-227970\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/stream2watch-1.png 944w, https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/images\/stream2watch-1-18x12.png 18w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t the first time that U.S. authorities have cracked down on sports piracy sites. In fact, one of the first rounds of domain seizures, back in 2012, targeted <a href=\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/feds-seize-sports-streaming-domains-in-new-super-bowl-crackdown-120202\/\">several popular sports streaming sites<\/a> and was specifically timed around the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update:<\/strong> 9goaltv.to is seized as well.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This is a breaking story and this article will be updated with any new information<\/p>\n<p>From: <a href=\"https:\/\/torrentfreak.com\/\">TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wpematico_credit\"><small>Powered by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wpematico.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sports piracy is prevalent around the world, with more than half of all sports fans regularly using unauthorized streaming services. Football, also known as soccer in some parts of the world, is particularly problematic. It\u2019s seen as a gateway sport that turns fans of other sports into streaming pirates. This is of particular concern now [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torrent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/69380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}