The feds launched a crackdown Wednesday on Internet movie pirates, seizing seven popular Web sites offering illegal downloads of current movies.
One of the sites, Movies-Links.TV, which links to illegal downloads of such first-run movies as "The Karate Kid," "Prince of Persia," "Sex and the City 2" and "Splice," is one of the most popular Web sites in the world, with approximately 3.3 million visitors per month, officials said.
"If your business model is movie piracy, your story will not have a happy ending," said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.
He said the theft of copyrighted material on the Internet results in billions of dollars in losses to the U.S. economy.
The feds went to court to seize the Web sites, which also included TVShack.net, Now-Movies.com, ThePirateCity.org, Filespump.com, Planetmoviez.com and ZML.com.
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