What does that change? Perhaps these content providers should look into a DMCA takedown request and reconsider their position. The target of this raid wasn't hosting any content himself, he was only hosting links that most likely went out to large video sites, where the copyright holder could request a takedown. My understanding is they were simply annoyed at this guy's aggregation of the links and added him to the target list.

Google respects if I don't want my content indexed.

This guy doesn't.

I can't believe we're even discussing this stuff. This guy is clearly in criminal backwaters fencing illegal stuff. How can you even remotely vindicate his behavior? "Oh but there is a layer of redirection between him and the actual source of the content" really doesn't cut it in my book.

> How can you even remotely vindicate his behavior?

Nobody's defending his behaviour; people are pointing out that the way in which the federal government apprehended him was clearly illegal. There are legal ways to stop him from infringing; let's see more of that.