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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.
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.
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.
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
Tell that to my ISP, who won't let me run a 'server' as part of my terms and conditions...
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.
Why not 500 Trillion? They're not even trying hard enough anymore...
$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.
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 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.
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.
Which would be fine. If it were the result of a CIVIL suit by the people who claimed to lose money and occurred AFTER they won in court.
I had files on this service and can no longer access them. This hurt more than just one guy.
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.
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
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.