I personally know someone who had a website seized by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for linking to copyright content. It all comes down to

I personally know someone who had a website seized by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for linking to copyright content. It all comes down to intent. When visiting a site like ThePirateBay or TorrentButler, it's clear that they are intentionally facilitating copyright infringement-- and that's what they will charge you with, amongst other things. It's hard to deny that fact when 99% of the content has a copyright, even if you hide behind the DMCA "user uploaded content" clause. With that being said, they made 1M+ from it and didn't get caught. Your results may vary.