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Megaupload Drops Lawsuit Against Universal Music
bs0d3 writes "Not so long ago, a legal video was taken down by repetitive DMCA requests to YouTube. In response, Megaupload filed a lawsuit against Universal Music. This past week, Megaupload was raided by U.S. authorities and forced offline, which is costing Megaupload millions of dollars in damage. Today; while employees are in U.S. custody, Megaupload has mysteriously dropped their lawsuit against Universal Music."
With the ton of information about the multi-year investigation about MegaUpload and all the evidence gathered they practically have zero possibility of winning the case. They really got it handed down on them and are most likely looking for a long time in jail.
Not only did MegaUpload not delete the actual files when sent DMCA notices (but did when sent abuse letters about illegal content like child porn), they also paid the uploaders cash in exchange to send downloaders to their site. This was almost all the times used for spreading copyright infringing material and MegaUpload was notoriously known for being good site for such use. As the internal emails show they were also fully aware of this fact. It also seems like the feds are now in possession of the top affiliates on the site which most likely will lead to more arrests for criminal copyright infringement, as they made lots of money by doing it.
Also another fact: not only did MegaUpload staff know about this activity and try to get around DMCA notices and laws, they did copyright infringement themselves. For example they used to populate their MegaVideo site by downloading and adding videos from YouTube. This was also videos created by people like you, not only mega-corps. This and much more was revealed in the arrest and their internal emails.
Message from their site:
"All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.
If this file belongs to you, please login to download it directly from your file manager."
Raided or just scared?
A link in this article goes to a rather thoughtful discussion of the MegaUpload indictment. To tell it short, although the indictment sounds bad, almost none of the alleged activities are in fact illegal. The few that are require "state of mind" which is a rather difficult thing to prove, and harder to get a jury to convict on.
Since in America we have trial by jury, if it goes to court it seems unlikely there will be able to find a jury willing to convict.
Together that seems to make the whole thing very scary.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I love how slashdot chose to classify this megaupload story as "censorship". How about putting this in the piracy section?
Because the original legal case was about censorship. That megauploads was also engaged in piracy and such is besides the point. UMG used YouTubes tools to take down a video supporting megauploads without proper due process or anything like that. It was totally about "censorship" (in the wider notion beyond just governments chilling free speech).
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Employees are not yet in US custody. They are currently being held by New Zealand authorities (in court as I type this) pending extradition hearings. The extradition is not automatic and is being contested.
This is not true. The DMCA has a few flaws.
As I posted previously..
The simple fact that a DMCA notice is submitted automatically causes content to be removed immediately and subject to lengthy proceedings regarding the rights of that content.
Various members of the RIAA have been notorious in submitting DMCA takedown letters for content that is very clearly covered by things such as fair use and sometimes even for content they don't even remotely have the rights to. But the creative individuals creating these parodies, or even original material, have limited recourse and the recourse they do have is time-consuming, difficult and sometimes expensive, not to mention it destroys their business (if the content is related to a business).
There is little argument for a business conglomerate having the power to shut down smaller competitors for a short period by simply writing a letter.... and for there to be no recourse for these smaller competitors from it happening repeatedly other than lengthy legal arguments and possibly litigation. That's absurd and anti-competitive.
But the remainder of the DMCA... well, it's not terrible, but I'm not sure it accomplishes a ton either. Going after kids on YouTube seems to be the greatest use of it and repeated studies have shown it doesn't help (and may hurt) their business model and revenues.
or with pirate bay, or with any of these other sites.
beyond that, when Geohotz and failoverflow got attacked by Sony for jailbreaking the PS3, he was accsed of the following:
Violating the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. 1201)
Violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2)(c))
Contributory copyright infringement (17 U.S.C. 501)
Violating California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act ( 502)
Breach of Contract (related to the PlayStation Network User Agreement)
Tortious interference
Misappropriation
Trespass
----
the Computer Fraud and Abuse act is far worse - its what they are using against Bradley Manning, its what they used against Thomas Drake, its basically criminalizing 'anything we dont like, when done on a computer'.
but since it has almost nothing to do with some 25 year old man-childs ability to download free copies of Transformers 8, the moronic fat assholes of the warez-o-sphere dont give a shit about it, and they wouldnt dream of writing endless tirades against the CFAA or its provisions.
Enough with the Megaupload.
Kim Schmitz is a German serial fraudster and wouldn't be allowed to open a business in Germany again. The "millions of damages" are a stately home in NZ with a ton of expensive cars, a golf course and of course Schmitz' globulous ego. This is not the fight you want to fight. If that scumbag gets sent back to prison then that's good. He knows the drill. He'll feel right at home. Only this time he will not get probation and a 100000 Euro fine for making 1.5 mil in fraud.
He's been convicted for a pump&dump racket involving his company Kimvestor and letsbuyit.com. Made a cool 1.5 mil on that. Then there was that thing with monkey.com. And with Megaupload there was that Mega Manager that was a ripoff of some other software(forgot the name), the "premium service" and other highly shady things he did from his golf-course attached villa in NZ that he wasn't allowed to purchase himself because he didn't pass a most basic character test.
there was that Mega Upload song thing that was unjustified. Copyright law still needs reform. There is the problem of US caliming jurisdiction in NZ, but frankly NZ gladly handed him over since he shouldn't have been there in the first place.
20 minutes into the future