One less website for you home dwellers to use to watch the blacked out games - man-up and buy a ticket once-in-awhile and keep the Bucs in Tampa.
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In the midst of a labor squabble that has a potential player lockout hanging overhead, the NFL has been distracted from leading the fight against illegal sports streaming sites.
But the battle is still being fought by other corners, and it's landed one Brian McCarthy in federal lockup. A resident of Deer Park, TX, a Houston suburb, McCarthy has been arrested and charged with copyright infringement and theft of intellectual property.
McCarthy had been operating the Channelsurfing.net site, one of many streaming sites that have been shut down by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations Unit in recent weeks.
Owner of the site since 2005, McCarthy made more than $90,000 from online advertising from the site, and is looking at as many as five years in prison. The Southern District of New York's Complex Frauds Unit will be tackling the case.
Channelsurfing.net was one of the more prominent streaming sites out there, offering pro football, basketball and hockey games for free that fans otherwise wouldn't be able to see, or have to buy a cable TV package to view.
However, McCarthy also offered Ultimate Fighting Championship matches, which are regularly offered on Pay Per View and bring in about $450 million in revenue to UFC. That was a mistake; UFC has been very aggressive in fighting on line piracy of its matches, having reached settlements with more than 500 business and individuals to stop showing its stuff on the Internet.
And UFC has picked up the pace. It has hit justin.tv, another streaming site and still in operation, with a lawsuit, and was thrilled by McCarthy's arrest.
"When people start going to jail, people will stop doing it,'' UFC president Dana White told mmajunkie.com.
Authorities were able to trace the site to McCarthy by tracking a domain registrar, his e-mail address, Internet provider and a money transfer service, all based in the United States.
"(The) arrest is another step forward in the ongoing investigation by HSI agents into copyright infringement and theft of intellectual property rights,'' said HSI special agent James T. Hayes. "We will continue to investigate illegal streaming of programs on the Internet in an effort to preserve legitimate and creative business interests and deter others from engaging in on line piracy.''
Although ICE has pulled the plug on many streaming sites, several of them operating from overseas, there are still plenty of them around. The NFL was particularly interested in ATDHE.net, because it was gaining rapid popularity on the Internet for showing blacked out NFL contests.
In a game of chicken, after atdhe.net was initially shut down, it was brought back to life in different domains, only to be caught and closed by the Feds. It is now up and running under another domain; this reporter logged on to check out the Ottawa-New York Rangers NHL game Friday night. The site is still featuring movies and American television shows as well as a variety of sports.
With the foreign sites, the Feds have been content to shut them down and wash their hands of the issue. But the NFL, UFC and other entities are hoping that McCarthy's arrest is a message for potential domestic pirates to lay off their products.
http://www.sandiego.com/news/houston-area-man-popped-for-internet-piracy-channelsurfing.net
