Slashdot Mirror
Megaupload.com Shut Down, Founder Charged With Piracy
zacharye writes "Federal prosecutors in Virginia have shut down notorious file-sharing site Megaupload.com and charged the service's founder with violating piracy laws. The Associated Press broke the story on Thursday, reporting that the indictment accuses Megaupload.com's owner with costing copyright holders including record labels and movie studios more than $500 million in lost revenue."
The indictment was returned in the Eastern District of Virginia, which claimed jurisdiction in part because some of the alleged pirated materials were hosted on leased servers in Ashburn, Va.
To play devil's advocate here: most Slashdot readers contend that music and movie industries should stop complaining and instead "adapt their business models", because their world has been irrevocably changed by technology. You could also say that that same technology has very much changed the way criminals do their dirty work, by allowing a person in one country to administer a server or hack a system on the other side of the world, and law enforcement officials need to adapt accordingly.
Megaupload was one of a few (3-4) sites where a cracked copy of my software product was uploaded. They were extremely slow in responding to DMCA request and clearly had interest in continuously providing an obviously illegally obtained copy of the software (because they make money from download fees, essentially re-selling content without paying me). I don't care much for Hollywood, but I do care about software I spend 24/7/365 writing and supporting.
Is there some reason why the DMCA's safe harbor provisions don't apply to Megaupload, or has the Federal Government decided those provisions are too inconvenient and therefore do not apply? Will Dropbox become the US Government's next target?
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
I don't find the support of figures who say things like this entirely welcome. It shows a great ignorance of history. Copyright is a fairly recent concept, popping up only 500 years ago and mainly limited to the West. So much of the Western canon -- the Greek and Latin classics, Dante, Chaucer, even Shakespeare, arose in a time when content creators were not compensated for each and every copy (and non-Western traditions contain further riches).
And there was a lot of copying going on. In ancient Rome, it was common for audience members to transcribe poetry recitals, have many copies generated by amanuenses, and then sold in the marketplace with no money going back to the original author. As far as I know, the sole example of someone complaining about this was Martial in one of his epigrams, and he only had a problem with people passing off his work as their own -- so plagiarism, not "copyright infringement". Content creation flourished without copyright, and even in recent times, when copyright was in full force, so many classic films and musical compositions were produced with a boatload of private patronage or state arts subsidies, so the ability to be paid royalties for each copy made didn't really factor into their creation.
In order to quicken the rise of an inevitable new economy, it's better that people just say straight out that copyright is an untenable concept and not a moral universal. No more of this wishy-washy "Piracy should be fought, but this law goes too far."
Megaupload is also a very good way to share large files that you have created with others, without setting up your own website. An entirely legitimate and legal use.
What's the balance between the two? Was there a better way to reduce piracy? What unintended effects are present?
I have downloaded many files from Megaupload and MediaFire - always files uploaded and released by the original authors, who don't want to pay to host files of multi-megabyte (often 10's of mbegabyte or more) size. I know it's an easy target, but I fail to see why this business model is necessarily 'piracy'.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
That's already happened in Bolivia. The IMF insisted that they privatize their water supply and eventually it got to the point where no water in the country was legal to collect or drink unless it had been bought from the cartel that controlled it.
In parts of the US, it is illegal to own a water butt. States sell exclusive water catchment rights to various water companies.
I'm still too afraid to post this pseudonymously, but if they're extraditing these people I can't be much further down the list :-( I figure they already have their sights on me if they're hunting down MegaUpload's graphic designer.
Megaupload was not violating any copyright laws - they had a pretty solid dmca takedown procedure that was quite fast. Most of the 'pirated' stuff you would see that were uploaded were users, you wouldnt be able to see a few days later. They were good at taking down stuff.
But they were also the biggest. this meant that for every dmca takedown, a few went unnoticed or slowly processed. aaaaaaand fast forward to this - they shut it down and charged for piracy.
This should tell you EXACTLY what will happen when sopa passes - imagine the sheer violations of sopa law, when entire user generated content, including comments and links have to be reviewed. NO outfit on the internet will be able to do that. NO outfit. if google, microsoft, apple, rackspace, softlayer, verizon, at&t came together to do it, set up facilities covering half of texas for it and in addition and threw the echelon listening array (belongs to nato) and all its worldwide facilities at it, still they wouldnt be able to manage an effective removal of such 'infringing' stuff in acceptable time.
even china is not able to do it with a huge budget spent on surveillance farms and - mark that - 240,000 employees employed for censoring - quite a lot of them embedded as 'users' in internet cafes and whatnot, to snitch on the users even.
so it is certain that there is no way in hell any outfit on this planet will be able to NOT violate sopa. every outfit will live in a constant state of varying level if infringement as per sopa.
what does that mean ? it is a sword of Damocles, hanging over the head of EVERY internet outfit and website out there. if you go out of line in ANY way against the interests of any established private party, - whoa - a sopa complaint. MUCH more effective than suing for endless durations.
now you see why this sopa thing is useful for censorship, and why it was intended in the first place ?
these people do not seek to profit over anything. they are making sufficient profits. they know they can make even more profits if they adapted to the internet.
the problem of these people is CONTROL. internet is uncontrolled. it bothers them. they need the same kind of control they exercise over cable news channels, radios and whatnot. and all these shit are intended precisely for that duration.
these people want to control you for their own minority's profit. it is no different than dictatorship or enslavement - just the facade in front is different. they are NO longer your compatriots, they are no longer your countrymen, they are no longer your country's citizens. they are your enemies. even if you dont see them as your enemy, they DO see you as their enemy and act accordingly.
and you are playing in their home ground - as long as you keep all the game rules that allow them to control, ranging from copyright to patents, they will keep being in the advantage - for you will be playing in THEIR home.
Read radical news here
I'd love to hear how megaupload made money from piracy when uploading / downloading from the site has always been free. Only thing you'd have to pay for is if you wanted faster download speeds, irrelevant to the user generated content on the site. Megaupload couldn't exist under SOPA / PIPA laws irregardless for that reason.
Also, I am very curious as to what they (the arrested) can / will argue. A lot of lesser arguments have been shut down by courts (ex. I didn't know it was on my server), but megaupload is a little different and unique of a RIAA/MPAA victim isn't it?
If the above can get the US government to consider SOPA though, I don't like their chances considering lobbyists trying to buy a guilty verdict from the judge.
It should be pointed out that this was a business, with servers in the US - presumably with staff who had jobs. So if it turns out that this was not illegal, that's going to blow up in their face. Not everyone who is accused is actually convicted.
Help stamp out iliturcy.