Most of these sites allowed users to stream unlicensed copies of still-in-theaters films like The A-Team and Toy Story 3, which allowed federal authorities to obtain warrants against them; along with shutting down their web presence, agents have also seized assets and equipment from at least four U.S. residencies. The move is being characterized as part of a “sustained effort” to crack down on such operations, although a spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency acknowledged that the government “can’t always match” the “level of sophistication” inherent in technologies like BitTorrent, which doesn’t have a central storage of data that can be dramatically raided. Still: Avast ye pirates and so on.
