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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.
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.
Megaupload paid to create a video promoting/defending their site and posted it on YouTube. Universal Music (who had no legal claim to the video) abused the take-down agreement they had with Google (and possibly the DMCA) to pull this video off of YouTube simply because they didn't like it. That is a cut-and-dry case of censorship if I have ever heard it.
If the information in the indictment is true then Megaupload is guilty of copyright infringement and should be held accountable for it. However, Universal Music should also be held accountable for their abuses of the law.
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.
Te MegaUpload take down, not quite carefully timed to give Congress some balls regarding SOPA, is likely to become a circus act of the most grandiose proportions.
Not only did the Feds seize a foreign company, but they did so in the face of several SCOTUS decisions that held harmless the operators of sites that might contain user uploaded content which might violate copyright, in addition to billions of files that did no such thing.
With the government forced withdrawal of Megaupload's attorney Robert Bennett, citing rather insincere claims of conflict of interest, and the Justice department seizing a Foreign company this is far from the normal pattern for these cases. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Chinese government step into the fray any day now.
When the dust clears on this battle there will be some major revelations about how much pressure the DOJ used all over the world to affect this arrest and take down. Eight countries, big and small like New Zealand were leaned on to act, for largely theatrical effect as SOPA goes down to public pressure. The timing couldn't be accidental. But the DOJ miss timed it by three days, and their case is far from certain.
I predict this will drag out for a long time.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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.
Only in the eyes of misguided fucktards like yourself Princess. The original legal case was about illegal use of the DMCA to take down material. It had nothing to do with "censorship" nor "free speech", despite what you and the tinfoil hat brigade may like to think. Why don't you leave the legal and technical discussions to the men who know what they are talking about instead of getting your pretty little head confused about such basic concepts?
BTW, shouldn't you be in the kitchen baking?
Oh see, it's funny, because it's intentionally sexist. Now, ignoring all the sexist bullshit, because it's just not worth getting into, because it's a total tangent to the real issues at matter...
Illegal use of the DMCA is considered a form of censorship in colloquial speech. I noted in my post that it wasn't about "pure" censorship, which is a government making specific speech illegal. However, it is colloquial censorship in that it is someone blocking access to someone else's content with or without legal authority.
Also, the original filing of the suit commented that it were an abuse of the DMCA, but Universal Music Group the original defendant in the case, pointed out that not only were they not actually responsible for the offending action, (it was UMG which is a subsidiary company of Universal Music Group, but not jointly-liable) but as well, it wasn't even an abuse of the DMCA, as UMG was making use of the tools that they were granted access to by contract with YouTube, that allowed UMG to bypass even the DMCA process. Thus, the whole situation was chalked up to, "YouTube granted UMG that access, and the only injured party in this abuse of tools provided was YouTube, and thus MegaUpload has no valid standing to file suit in the first place in a breach of contract between UMG and YouTube."
But getting back to the point, colloquially "censorship" is used by the general public, and in this case the slashdot categories to refer to anything where a non-first-party effects the removal of speech of another person without their consent. But you know, enforcing legal definitions of words on an informal forum such as slashdot seems like a way much better idea than using the same jargon, dialect and register as the audience of that forum.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
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
No, it isn't a first amendment violation, but it is censorship. The word and concept has never been limited to the government. Universal Studios used their power to censor what Megaupload had to say, and anytime those with power use it to silence other it is a big problem, not just when the government does so.
Schmitz' globulous ego
i prefer schmitz's globulous ego. because, schmitz's globulous ego is not buying laws to restrain MY freedoms for HIS profit. schmitz can queue up to 100 mercedes, bmws if he wants to. as long as he doesnt interfere with my freedoms for the sake of his own profit.
Read radical news here
As PJ, at Groklaw asked: what about innocent folks who have placed their files on the service? Who restores their property to them when the entire site goes down? They have property rights too, which are not currently being addressed, that I've seen.
2 weak neighbors?
No. You have a neighbor to the north which is not an imperialistic war machine.
There is a difference. We don't have to pour an insane amount of money into our military budget because we don't practice insane foreign policy just to line the pockets of the men that own the politicians.