Obama enhances fight against piracy

The Obama administration has recently initiated a large-scale offensive against piracy.

The movie industry has long lobbied for more stringent enforcement of IP security rules. Hollywood movie makers claim illegal streaming and downloading has cost the business more than $18 million a year.

Now, U.S. authorities have taken steps to end piracy. The American Immigration and Customs Authority, in cooperation with the New York state attorney, the FBI, the Department of Commerce and several military units has implemented what they call “operations in our sites&rdguo;.

“We want to go after foreign-based websites of web services that violate American copyright laws&rdguo;, said Victoria Espinel, leader of the American authorities fight against piracy.

The authorities have already seized nine illegal sites, including Ninjavideo.net, Tvshack.net and Now-movies.com. Visitors to these sites will be redirected to an official government website.

Piracy is a big threat to the movie industry. Recent films in theatres, such as Sex and the City 2 and Sherlock Homes have been severely affected by illegal file sharing and streaming. For these films, 37,000 and 1.8 million people, respectively, have viewed the movie via illegal online services.