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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 summary doesn't mention it, but none of those indicted or arrested were U.S. citizens or had likely even ever set foot on U.S. soil. Even if you're in another country, you had better make sure you're not violating U.S. law. Here's a full list of those foreigners who foolishly thought they weren't under U.S. jurisdiction (from the DOJ website):
Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, 37, a resident of both Hong Kong and New Zealand. Dotcom founded Megaupload Limited and is the director and sole shareholder of Vestor Limited, which has been used to hold his ownership interests in the Mega-affiliated sites.
Finn Batato, 38, a citizen and resident of Germany, who is the chief marketing officer;
Julius Bencko, 35, a citizen and resident of Slovakia, who is the graphic designer;
Sven Echternach, 39, a citizen and resident of Germany, who is the head of business development;
Mathias Ortmann, 40, a citizen of Germany and resident of both Germany and Hong Kong, who is the chief technical officer, co-founder and director;
Andrus Nomm, 32, a citizen of Estonia and resident of both Turkey and Estonia, who is a software programmer and head of the development software division;
Bram van der Kolk, aka Bramos, 29, a Dutch citizen and resident of both the Netherlands and New Zealand, who oversees programming and the underlying network structure for the Mega conspiracy websites.
Dotcom, Batato, Ortmann and van der Kolk were arrested today in Auckland, New Zealand, by New Zealand authorities, who executed provisional arrest warrants requested by the United States. Bencko, Echternach and Nomm remain at large.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Anybody surprised by this story must be new here. File Lockers like MP3.com have been shut down regularly for ages now. You can't have an online database of content that isn't secured right...
"holders including record labels and movie studios more than $500 million in lost revenue."
my ass.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It almost comes off as intentional that this occurred the day after the SOPA protests. It looks like the battles over copyright infringement are finally coming to a head. This will all get resolved one way or another.
Dick Morris is a former Clinton advisor and a regular Fox News commentator, but he actually wrote what I think is a rational, well-worded message about everything that's been happening:
---
Dear Friend,
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is just the kind of bill that could cripple Internet freedom in the name of a good cause. Everybody agrees that we need to battle online piracy of movies, books, TV shows and such. If piracy spreads, nobody will create anything because their work will be pirated as soon as it is finished.
But...this legislation, with its draconian enforcement powers, uses an atomic bomb to solve a problem best left to educated action by responsible individuals and normal litigation. The collateral damage from this bill could destroy Internet freedom.
The bill would let the Justice Department and copyright holders to get court orders against websites they accuse of enabling or encouraging copyright infringement. It could stop search engines from linking to such sites and require service providers to block access to them.
It should be called the Camel's Nose In the Tent Act (CNITA). It would criminalize the Internet and make search engines the enforcers of copyright laws. It opens the tent to federal regulation and judicial activism that could drive search engines and internet service providers into bankruptcy through excessive court judgments and liability.
There is a remedy: Public education. None of us wants to kill off artistic creation. Each of us realizes that by abusing the system to get the goodies for free, we risk eliminating the goodies. We don't litter because we don't want to ruin our environment. We don't run red lights because we don't want traffic chaos. We wear seatbelts because we want to live. Law enforcement plays a role, but the greater influence is an educated public.
Copyright infringers can't make it if we don't buy it. Consumers need to realize that we will kill the golden goose if we steal his eggs! The way to regulate the internet is to use it sensibly and wisely and not to let Congress and the Justice Department in the door.
Thanks,
Dick Morris
The timing of this move is surely intended to send a message to anyone who opposes SOPA/PIPA. And that light to the free world, the USA has made it clear "we don't need no steenkin laws"
The People expressed their opinion about SOPA/PIPA. The Government responds with a resounding, "We don't give a shit."
"Careful! We don't want to learn from this!" -Calvin & Hobbes
Looks strangely familiar.
In seriousness, why isn't this all over the news? Why just SOPA?
The very day after uncounted internet sites shut down to protest SOPA/PIPA (which had a profound effect), and some website gets shut down for piracy on the order of a half billion dollars? Darn, if I would've known, I would've had my popcorn and soda ready. Such theatre!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The $500 million figure is based on speculation by the MAFIAA. Looks like we didn't even have to wait for SOPA/PIPA. It's already here.
I also don't understand how they got the Netherlands to raid their servers...
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
...when corrupt laws don't get passed, or even do get passed.
Not as if they care, they will deal with the backlash later.
This will get worse if SOPA or anything like it passes.
I can't wait for the media industry to collapse. Maybe then content creators will realize they don't need the shit labels.
See you on Tor everybody. It is the only safe place now, but only if everyone gets in on it.
Hope the media companies love helping terrorism get even more secure, because that is all this will do as they push more and more people to encrypted networks.
Oh, wait, that won't be a problem, FBI will just get those backdoors and have control of millions of nodes for free.
Time to blackhole America. Bye.
Interesting that megaupload got nailed so soon after they tried to fight back against UMG's frivolous youtube takedown.
I smell a rat and suspect someone's trying to avoid giving megaupload an edge in their lawsuit.
There should not be "sites" to shut down; the Internet was designed to be P2P and should be P2P. Unfortunately, we failed to develop P2P networking to the same extent that we developed the web, so now we are vulnerable to this sort of thing.
Palm trees and 8
Ok. So they were able to shut this site down, internationally and affect arrests across the globe, without SOPA or PIPA. Didn't they just make our point for us? Existing laws are sufficient, why do we need more?
If they can shut down Megaupload without SOPA, then why do they need SOPA again?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Well, this SOPA Release Candidate seems pretty polished...I guess I'll downlo- oh wait.
Wouldn't it be great to have this army of people who reported on news stories and debunked claims and checked facts and stuff? They could learn to write real well and provide us news that we could use to decide on issues in a fair manner. Ideally they wouldn't totally swallow ludicrous claims like this 500 gazillion loss due to Megaupload for example. One man can dream I guess.
On one hand, these kinds of sites have made it stupidly easy to host and download all sorts of different data, legal and illegal. It's funny how the powers that be think that shutting these guys down will curb piracy when (a) there are so many ways people can get illegal data and (b) new and more anonymous ones will pop up as the older ones fall.
On the other hand, it's not a terribly huge loss on the material scheme of things. There are still plenty of other sites that people can use to host data, including wider-range services like Dropbox and Sugarsync. The other funny thing is that Megaupload et. al. did shut down links to any media that infringed on copyright policies, so it's scary to see how far these laws will go. I'm hoping that Dropbox and partners will not start telling people what can/can't be backed up.
Exactly. I think you describe where they pulled that number from. No way $500 million. Megaupload was a warez and porn locker. It's the torrent hosters who have the movies and music.
How dare people drink their tap water! After all, how are bottled water companies expected to turn a profit when people can just turn a knob on their faucet and get water on their own?
Palm trees and 8
So life can go on.
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.
If they can do this, why do they need SOPA again?
Why not 500 Trillion? They're not even trying hard enough anymore...
All those slebs supporting Mega* sites look like thugs.
No kidding. Anything endorsed by Kim Kardashian and Kanye West has to be criminally stupid.
$500M? That's like, what, one .mp3 file these days?
G.
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.
When is enough enough? How much more are WE going to take from "OUR" GOVERNMENT, and its agents, who are no more than sock puppets for the entertainment INDUSTRY?
Here are the facts:
1. Copyright is eternal
2. There is no Public Domain except some old books
3. No one is allowed to do anything with copyrighted works
4. This applies world-wide (or else...)
The Entertainment INDUSTRY can easily be put in its corner by bringing copyright terms (and all related rights) down to 20 years.
Because a dude who made 43 millions of $ with mostly illegal content got caught and his business have been taken down.
How do they calculate the loss? Every single download counts as full price retail when the item was first released I bet. Certainly not a year later when it get dumped into the bargin bin. 99% things that I have downloaded illegally, I would NEVER have paid a single penny for if unavailable for download. So the copyright holders lost nothing. I buy from the bands and movie makers I like. Most people making a living wage do that. If someone wouldn't have ever had the money to buy something, but downloaded it illegally again the copyright holder lost NOTHING. I think its funny when movie studios complain about illegal dvds being sold in china, most of those chinese could never afford a legal dvd anyway, many would have to work an entire day to earn enough money to buy a single dvd (and probably skip eating for that day). Those losses are fantasy profits!
Now lets get those p2pdns technologies to lay waste to copyright laws.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
And all those guys suing them act like thugs.
Just goes to show you should judge a book by its cover.
I would think that this would be the exact opposite of what SOPA supporters want. They've successfully shut down a pirate site *without* the extra rights that SOPA and PIPA were supposed to provide. This proves that they don't need further laws, the current ones suffice. (Though most of us would agree that even the current ones are too much)
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."
Redundant: "more than $500 million in lost revenue" - as if anyone downloading would buy their stuff instead if the site would not exist.
Duh!
Our PM, John Key, will roll over and take it up the ass from the U.S all day long in the hope he'll get a free-trade deal one day.
I sure didn't vote for the Smiling Assassin.
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
I thought there were laws protecting content distributers from being prosecuted, like why Google can't be held responsible if you email a confidential document, or if their webcrawler links to child porn; or why the phone company can't be held liable if you discuss a terrorist attack over the phone.
Megaupload isn't required to filter the content they share unless a takedown request is made; in fact, they *can't*, since a lot of it was zip-file password-encrypted.
What did megaupload actually do wrong here?
Youtube may be next. Once they started putting ads on pirated content, they became an active participant.
hoping that Dropbox and partners will not start telling people what can/can't be backed up
Oh come on—I'd be surprised if this wasn't already happening. Read the fine print.
you had me at #!
I have never received anything from Megaupload encouraging piracy. They provide a service to upload/download files, so they are not responsible of the use of it. 500M in lost revenues? Seriously? These guys? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting They "cook" all the numbers....the 500M are "legal charges" and "administration fees"....not revenue. Oh! ..let's do the following exercise:
These lawyers say they lost 500M (in the last year? ) in revenues because megaupload is sharing freely their material.
Ok. Let's keep megaupload down for a year.
If they don't earn that money back, that means they were bluffing the number...so Megaupload is online again and they pay 10 times that number to the megaupload guys as "lost revenues". I think is a good deal. Right?
The sad story is, if Megaupload guys sue back to the US feds, then the bail/fine/whatever will be pay using taxpayers money.
From a higher perspective, that means if a tool is used by some individuals to commit a crime, then the tool must be shut down. Using the same logic, all weapons in USA should be destroyed!!!! Not only they may be used to commit crimes, they also kill people, which is much more serious!!!
http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/justice-department-charges-leaders-of-megaupload-with-widespread-online-copyright-infringement This is a bit more informative vs the dozen-odd news sites I've seen so far which do nothing to explain what really tipped the hand of the feds in the case of this file locker vs any other. Reading the official allegations though, most of them seem fairly weak.
And what about the legitmate content that Megaupload was holding? No mention of that by the media... Nope, shut down, no trial, no jury, just executioner.
Isn't that nice?
That's like taking down Flickr because some of the photos are copyrighted... Of course, those photos are worth a billion dollars (wink,wink), so it's perfectly OK then to inconvenience the other 34 million people who had legitimate stuff on the site.
If any of you were hosting legitimate material on Megaupload, and you've now lost access, I suggest immediately filing class action against the government.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The scum that carried out these crimes need to be destroyed; they have destroyed so much for so long. A strategy is needed to remove the FBI once and for all!
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
Wonder what happens to those celebrities...will they be arrested too for endorsing a known pirate site? Will their labels drop them for doing the mega song? Didn't most of the artists in that song tweet links to the video and MU? And post links to them on their personal sites?
*sigh* "Slippery slope" doesn't even seem to cover this crap anymore.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
A "not responsible for user's content" clause will only take you so far, the same as this standard software license cluase. This clause does NOT stop a company from suing you if they want to recover money they've lost on a failed project:
Some variant on that text is in every license I've ever used, whether proprietary or GPL, including the stuff IBM develops internally.
Megaupload HOSTS the content the users make available for download, so it's not able to use the same escape clauses that .torrent search sites use.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
What did MegaUpload do (or not do) that Rapidshare and all the other similar hosting sites didn't do (or did do)?
Or are RapidShare and other similar sites next on the hit list?
And who defines what is the level of that 'nice' .......... a lot of the videos i checked around up till this point, were removed due to dmca claims. so, they were removing a lot of videos.
They just shut down it due to its size. period. ah, and he sponsored a few songs in usa about how piracy is not so bad compared to what the content industry was doing - probably that causes the attack on him and his assets - its ok when content industry brainwashes everyone, but if someone opposing them does the SAME thing, its a crime !
It's only good - criminals are taken to court and jail so companies can again produce goods and software and they don't have to see the widespread piracy that is going on
excuse me guy, but that stupid thinking is why we are having all of this shit in the first place - the REAL pirates have persecuted someone challenging their rule and you are clapping for it :
how music labels avoid paying artists : http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/07/13/1737224/riaa-accounting-how-labels-avoid-paying-musicians how music labels screw aspiring artists and bands to neverending debt : http://www.negativland.com/albini.html how labels avoid paying royalties to artists even if they earned the right to it : http://gizmodo.com/5417318/my-6247-royalty-statement-how-major-labels-cook-the-books-with-digital-downloads
ANY cent you pay to buy music so not to 'steal' from a big label, goes NOT to the artist - but to the pocket of an intermediary called the label and pocketed to an extent of 95%. you pay 15 bucks to an album, your artist gets a few cents, and the label gets almost entirety of 15 bucks. then they force the artist to go on concerts worldwide, to make money. it is taxing, and most artists and bands break down, and resort to drugs or excess to relieve stress. radiohead released one of their albums for FREE without a label, told people to pay however much they want, even take it for free. 80% of people who got it, did not pay. however, the rest 20% caused radiohead to make MORE money in just 4 hours than they would make in a whole year of touring if they gave the album to a record label. and that album, is still selling over the internet since a year or so now. so go figure................ in short, ANYone who supports this scheme that sucks artists dry, and screws customers up, is either a very very dumb, ignorant person, or a hapless idiot. there is no way to explain someone supporting a scheme that screws him/her over, otherwise.
Read radical news here
The United States Department of Justice also filed indictments against Western Digital and Seagate for making hard drives that are capable of holding everything from copyrighted works to child porn. "They should have some mechanism in place to make sure illegal content isn't stored on these devices," an agent representing the DOJ said in a prepared statement today.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Anonymous claims to have taken down DOJ and MPAA sites in response.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/19/2719527/anonymous-claims-doj-and-record-label-site-takedowns-in-response-to
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
like from the toilet?
I highly doubt one had to do with the other. The Feds don't casually put together a criminal case; they take their time and line up all the ducks before they pull the trigger.
so feds have taken time to line up ALL the ducks before they pull the trigger, and it JUST had CHANCED the day after the SOPA protests ............
yes, the chances of that happening is, zero. zero. not one day before, not one day after. right the day after....
if you think that this is just a coincidence, i have two bridges to sell you.
Read radical news here
US Dept of Justice and Universal Music are down. Source
"Careful! We don't want to learn from this!" -Calvin & Hobbes
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
google links your software in its indexes, and shows your links. your software, everyone else's content IS the content/knowledge google uses to show people, and sell advertising over it.
why not sue google ? for, they are definitely using the presence and name of your software, to increase their hits and sell advertising without giving you a dime.
Read radical news here
How dare people drink their tap water! After all, how are bottled water companies expected to turn a profit when people can just turn a knob on their faucet and get water on their own?
Acutally, this is pretty much what is happening with the Research Works Act working its way through Congress.
Currently, publications resulting from Federally funded research must be available to the public, but the journal industry is trying to end free access -- despite the fact that publicly funded research isn't paid for by the journals, written by the journals, or peer reviewed by them.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/78786408/Mega-Indictment It looks actually really, really, bad based on the evidence the federal prosecutors are presenting. As loud as the cry is about censorship, government being pawns of the MAFIAA, etc, it seems that MegaUpload crossed the line and brought this down on themselves.
One would think that MegaUpload could hide behind their DMCA takedown policy, but this Hollywood Reporter story -- much more informative than the ABC one -- quotes the feds
And perhaps most damning of all was their sting, quoting the Hollywood Reporter itself:
Rapidshare is from Germany and the krauts have other issues to fry as well as feeling very uncomfortable about anything that even reeks of censorship. They currently have an issue with the president having apparently tried to supress an article about an illicit loan. The loan isn't the real issue but the mere idea that the president who is supposed to guard the democracy tried to supress the press... OOPS.
Attempts have been made against Rapidshare but the german courts have better things to do, the german police have repeatedly said that they will flat out refuse to go after filesharers unless all other crimes are solved and the german politicians got other headaches then to worry about what Hollywood thinks of them.
New Zealand on the other hand is a vasal state of the US of A in all but name.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I agree with you, but as I recall, the RIAA and friends sued anyone who tried to create P2P technology. Which is why "we failed to develop P2P networking"--everyone was afraid to do it.
So, i guess that theory is out the window. You listening, Google? You are next.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Since they build vehicles that are used to transport illegal items, does that mean they are just as liable?
Even more seriously, does that mean that any ISP or hosting service now has to audit what is on their servers, even tho they had no more control over it than megaupload did?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Love the precedent. I can't wait for CHINESE law to be enforced in the US.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I doubt many will migrate since 'mega was usable by the 'average guy' that just happened to get a link that went somewhere that gave them their files like magic. Freenet does still take a bit of knowledge to setup, and in its current state, understanding what it is and isn't, and a lot of patience is paramount or they will leave and never look back..
But, its one step closer to that end... And my advice is to grab Freenet source NOW, as they will be targeted at some point as a 'circumvention' violation when SOPA goes into effect.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Forgive my squirrelly ignorance of American law, but I thought there was some kind of safe harbour law? Did they do something to void protection under such a law? Or is youtube going down next?
I managed to find this:
“Pirate websites such as megaupload.com, which obviously infringe massive quantities of movies, songs, images, and other extremely valuable copyrighted works, and directly profit from the infringing activity over which they have complete control, were never meant to be eligible to receive a DMCA safe harbor,” states the lawsuit.
I'm not sure about the legality of this, I'm not an expert in US law. Can someone please clarify?
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that the so-called "pirates" are victims of prejudicial nomenclature—a label hung on them by their enemies. Historically, the question of who is and who is not a "pirate" has been a matter of viewpoint. In fact, you could become a licensed pirate—er freebooter—by getting a letter of marque and reprisal from some needy country. "Freebooter" sounds much nicer than "pirate", doesn't it? Certainly, it';s no worse than "greedy CEO".
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
Megaporn is the collateral damage this time, next time it could be lolcats or those charming girls with a cup. The internet as I know it is one step closer to dead.
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
Found an interview. Apparently Mega was looking to go head-to-head with the big record labels, and give artists 90%. And pay them for free downloads too.
It's here.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Well, it occurs to me that there's a lot of folks storing *legal* private files there too, ( like a locker service) due to the fact that MU never deleted user's files, as well as all their bootleg collections, and probably personal important archives too, etc etc.. So does this mean that these folks have also been screwed up the rear by this action? Remember there was no notice given to the users of the service either.. legitimate or otherwise, as though they're (all millions of 'em) not deservibg of basic human decency via association? How long before they're knocking down your door without notice and seizing your comp, next? Will we all be living in fear of the secret police soon?
(repost - didn't log in!) Megaupload hosted over 8 billion unique files. Even if that figure were to include a copy of every book and magazine ever written globally (~130m), every film produced (250k), and every piece of music ever recorded (I can't get a figure for this, but 20m is surely vastly overestimating), that leaves 98% of their unique files being non-infringing. (Yes, there will be lots of non-identical duplicates, but one can be pretty sure that the majority of books/music/films will not feature at all). So we can look forward to the coming days, when Megaupload's 150million (iirc) registered users realise that they have lost their backups, and their photo collections, and businesses have lost critical data, and independent artists their distribution platform. And then people might wake up to how the USG has been bought-into to protect and police the profits of the falsely-named "creative" industry middlemen? We can pray ...
So, this is how World War III will play. Net freedom citizens of the world vs evil tyrants. But this time, America, you will fight inside your borders...
This is damning information that changes the tone and tenor of everything else.
Have a Virgin Mobile USA smartphone? Give VMRoms.com a try!
What is especially interesting here is that Megaupload was planning to go into the business of releasing original content. Many major artists supported Megaupload publicly in the video a few weeks back, and it is rumored that Swizz Beats is the CEO. This is clearly the RIAA/MPAA trying to prevent a major new competitor from getting off the ground. It also has the welcome effect of discouraging any future Youtube-like startup companies. Another interesting aspect of this is that Megaupload and Megavideo were fastidious about removing copyrighted material from their sites, much more so than their competitors. I would love to see them successfuly fight this.
- elgo
It was a surprise to that foreign millionaires resident in New Zealand were arrest for crimes in the US (when as far as I can determine, they didn't visit the US). I have to quote part of the police comments:
"Wormald says today's operation was a successful one despite a less than straightforward entry to the Dotcom Mansion. Police arrived in two marked Police helicopters. Despite our staff clearly identifying themselves Mr Dotcom retreated into the house and activated a number of electronic locking mechanisms.
While Police neutralised these locks he then further barricaded himself into a safe room within the house which officers had to cut their way into. Once they gained entry into this room they found Mr Dotcom near a firearm which had the appearance of a shortened shotgun"[1].
This cop is a pretty laid-back type of guy (in a nation where even understatement is an understatement) to the point where he described the house entry with a straight face.
[1] Stuff, Friday 20th January 2012, http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/6288082/NZ-residents-on-piracy-charges-denied-bail
Regards Sinesurfer A Nerd is someone who lives for technology, A Geek is someone who lives for technology and loves it
Actually, if you read the charges, MU is accused of knowingly harboring pirated content despite takedown requests. It'll all come out one way or another in court, one assumes... but if that accusation is correct (frankly, this wouldn't surprise me; I've heard plenty of people complain about MU being slow or difficult with DMCA requests, and your post is the first I have ever heard to the contrary) then they are toast.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
well rapid-share won when they tried the same shit with them. but as yuo said this is more abought killing a competitor and once again has nothing to do with the pirates. megaupload would quickly pull any reported file. copyright has been deformed into just that a anti compete law.
More and more I tend to agree with Hugo Chavez's view of the American government as an Economic Imperialist body. The fact that the EU can forcefully apply its laws and principles in other countires (and prosecute those who break those laws) is a sign of the strongold the American Economic Empire has on the world nations.
An equivalent situation would happen if Sharia law as applied in Iran was forced to the USA, EU or Latin America.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
That is incorrect. He is not currently charged with anything. That is a bit of confusion or disinformation that has been floating around and darn near impossible to correct. He is wanted for questioning and that questioning, technically, could take place over the phone just as well as in person. Maybe people just assume that because they are trying to extradite him that he is actually charged with something, but no, that is not the case. He is not charged with anything.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
In that Megaupload song they say it was 4% of the internet, and what does that mean exactly? 4% of all internet users used it? 4% of all traffic?
I bet their revenue will stay the same, or just fall tremendously as there are more people who will boycott the movies and music.
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
Can somebody tells me why the DoJ and the RIAA etc. do not sue ISPs for letting piracy material pass through their networks? This would be a more powerful move and at least the fight could be more interesting!
I'm a software developer and imho companies should offer good services and support instead of trying to fight piracy. This is what I did to minimize piracy:
1 - Outstanding 24hs support by phone, chat, e-mail, etc.
2 - Heavy cracking protection, I know it's impossible to make something uncrackable, but most clients will prefer to pay instead of braking a heavy protection that requires more than simply overriding a binary.
3 - Fair price. Better have a piracy ratio of 1/200 and a fair price than 1/10 and expensive software.
4 - Free versions for personal use that has limited functionality.
Nowadays internet is a dynamic thing, people put content on others' sites, US still think internet is the same it was 15 years ago.
The problem here is the companies doesn't want to make big money, they want 10 times this. And people don't want to pay for others that are becoming rich without working hard.
I'm an young entrepreneur in India. I have a good life as a software developer, and I learned to live with piracy. This won't stop me from earning money, this maybe is stopping me from getting real rich, but as opposite to americans, I don't want to be that rich. I want to earn money that I worked for, and imho, even with heavy piracy, software pays 5x what I worked for.
Sorry my poor english, I'm learning slowly because it's not a common language where I live.
I think this is a wonderful example of proactive government. Now, if we were to to simply go after every corporate entity(and please, let's start with the ones operating within America before we go crazy) we could probably have a huge impact on the climate and those crimes which more directly effect humanity.) Oh...what's that? Not going to happen? Oh...right. It's like when we attacked some small 3Rd world country who we suspected might possibly (not likely) have nuclear capability, and ignored North Korea who (metaphorically) rubbed their nuclear arsenal in our face. It's absurd, and it looks like the operators did what they could to cover their own asses, but this is happening anyway...kind of like date rape. And yeah...this is just as wrong. There are much better ways of dealing with this issue.
we all stop buying (and stealing) ALL music and movies, along with no longer watching television (most especially sports) and radio. Make your own music, read books from a lending library or used book store. Do something else with your and probably drop 40 pounds in the process. They can't put us in their prison if we completely stop funding them.
not that that is really relevant to the main topic at hand but most states do indeed have a 'buckle-up' law. If you are caught not wearing a seatbelt you will be ticketed and fined. So yeah, most people do it because of that law. Sure they dont HAVE to, they'll just keep on paying hefty fines until they end up losing their license.
More like how many will just go use yousendit or mediafire or rapidshare or filesonic or...
Actually, the real question is, how many people (especially those people routinely uploading copyrighted content) -already- use all of those other sites. And the answer is probably "most of them". [insert statement about hydra heads.]
From the article:
For instance, users received cash bonuses if they uploaded content popular enough to generate massive numbers of downloads, according to the indictment. Such content was almost always copyright protected.
I think once you start paying people to post pirated content you can no longer claim innocence or ignorance. Granted, they weren't explicitly paying for pirated content, but they were rewarding people for posting popular content, most of which is pirated. So that essentially sends the message of "Want money? Post pirated stuff!" Because people probably won't come in droves to download an indie game you developed, but they will swarm for the latest release from a popular artist.
If you're going to reward people, you need to make sure you're not rewarding, and thus encouraging, illegal activity. In my opinion, the Megaupload staff was completely in the wrong. I wouldn't be saying this if they hadn't rewarded pirates for bringing in large numbers of hits. They brought it upon themselves.
The story also says that Megaupload paid users for getting large numbers of hits with their files. And what files get large numbers of hits? Not free indie games or personally shared files, that's for sure.
They were essentially paying pirates for generating traffic. Oh, I'm sure they executed DMCA takedowns on less popular files just to show they were doing good, but I doubt they would bring the hammer down on anything that was bringing in hits and thus ad revenue. Especially since they were going so far as paying people who brought in those hits.
What I'd like to know is how automatically deleting stuff that isn't downloaded for a fixed period of time gets used as evidence of support for piracy.
Any geek even remotely familiar with basic optimization will consider this a blatantly obvious storage saving technique and it's hardly a pirate move. In other areas we call it age based caching. Even DNS and HTTP do it.
I say it's high time we stop turning voir dire into moron parties where lawyers are afraid to have geniuses on the jury.
Read the rest. At some point, it starts into the bits where the owners of the site became intimately aware of what people used their site for and exploited it something chronic. They didn't even put on the appearance of legitimacy (see: Rapidshare).
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
What I find disturbing is the negative way the media in New Zealand is portraying Kim "Dotcom" Schmitz.
NZ police acted on US request for help
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10780138
They raided him with freaking helicopters!! :
Police complete Dotcom search
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10780142
Dotcom birthday party targeted
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10780321
Dotcom's lavish life of parties and luxury
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10780514
Dotcom 'extreme' flight risk - Crown
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10780553
Dotcom case 'not open and shut'
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10781113
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.