And that has little to do with the indictment. It's way more significant what they did with the money (how and for what reasons they paid people cash rewards, how and from whom they took payments, the steps they took to move cash into and out of US banks, etc.) The "piracy" aspect is not the most serious of the charges.
You should read the indictment, and become aware of the actual charges being raised and the evidence on which those charges are based. A lot of people have already gone into protest mode without even taking the basic step of reading the actual indictment. What they did with money turns out to be far more significant than the "piracy" components. Some of the things they did would be crimes even if there was no question of the legality or the controversial nature of the business.
MegaUpload apparently needed servers in Virginia, banks in the US, Paypal, etc. Read the indictment. If you read the actual charges and understand the evidence it might change your opinion on the case.
They didn't just want to shut down the site! They wanted to prove that the operators knew that what they were doing was illegal, and that they were taking deliberate steps to hide the money! That is central to the indictment, that they knew (because they were told!) that they hosted infringing content, and that they did not comply with removing (very specific) items from a (very specific) server. There's a lot more to the indictment, which I encourage everyone to read before they take an activist position.
A central piece of evidence is the storage of a significant number of full-length feature films on a server in Virginia. There is other evidence that the accused utilized US banks for money laundering.
Read the indictment. They are accused of violating US law in the US, whether they were physically in the US or not.
By New Zealand authorities, in accordance with New Zealand laws.
For me (a mere coyote who has his own ethos and feeds on chaos), their crimes were (1.) being identifiable targets, and (2.) trading in currency instead of barter.
"It" is the beginning of a precedent whereby Sony, Universal, or Disney, when caught violating a Creative Commons license, can expect to have its assets seized, its operations shut down, and its executives arrested, jailed and charged with "piracy."
"It" is also a precedent whereby you can claim $500 million in losses that you don't have to report to shareholders, insurers, or the IRS.
This could lead to seriously awesome unintended consequences of chaos.
>They're moving onto public streets in some places.
They are, after all, civilians, and have a right to be there. They are not police officers and don't actually have any rights that you don't also have.
I'm hoping for unintended consequences that come from the fact that the *vast* majority of copyrighted work is not owned or produced by corporations, but by individuals. If a law like SOPA is a powerful weapon, it's being placed into unintended hands. If you want to suggest that individuals and small producers won't be able to wield it, I will assert that the law would fail on Equal Protection grounds.
Here is where Copyright Law is a powerful weapon: A publisher takes your copyrighted work and publishes it, claiming it as their own work, and then sues YOU for infringement. Protection from that scenario is copyright's primary function. Few people seem willing to accept that, since they really want it to be a weapon that can be used to rigidly control a distribution method.
Be creative and think of ways that this anti-consumer legislation can be twisted into unintended consequences and used against the people it is supposed to protect. Remember that even GPL and Creative Commons licenses derive from Copyright Law. Imagine someone getting a $5,000,000 fine for a GPL violation due to SOPA.
Copyright seems to be quite poorly understood, even by activists.
Think about something like Creative Commons. The author reserves all rights conferred by Copyright Law, but also expressly intends for his work to be copied and distributed freely. Copyright law is a poor weapon if one's intent is to stop distribution, but it is an excellent and powerful weapon against situations such as someone taking your copyrighted work, publishing it as his own, and then suing YOU for infringement. But that is a pro-independent-producer position, and is not often considered in this debate.
Right now it's all about the media companies and the whole upside down relationship between producers and consumers. The best thing the public could possibly do at this point is to wean themselves off of mainstream media, and start trending more toward independent producing. That's right, I'm saying you should buy a damn guitar. There should be a piano in the space where your TV is. That really good digital camera you got so cheaply should be put to use. You shouldn't be "going to the movies", you should be "making a documentary." There is no reason in this day and age to be a consumer of media, and in fact, it's irresponsible and as it turns out, destructive to democracy.
Few protestors actually say what their specific problem with the bill is. Mine comes from reading the bill (something that few seem willing or able to do!), and my objection to it is mostly due to the fact that SOPA is an anti-drug law as much as it is an internet piracy law. In the stuff about "counterfeit drugs" you will find an oblique escalation of the drug war.
You do realize that if you had FaceBook shares, it means you're an insider in a privately owned institution, and there's no place to "dump" them.... right?
I keep hoping that all this draconian copyright legislation has the following unintended consequences:
1. Creative works of independent origin become far more common, eclipsing the corpus of work that is represented by "mainstream media publishing".
2. The same draconian laws that are meant to protect corporate publishers, put an extremely powerful weapon into the hands of independent authors.
Imagine if stuff like the $5,000,000 fine provisions of a law like SOPA could be applied to enforce compliance with Creative Commons licensing terms.
Stop consuming the stuff "They" want you to consume. Everybody should be making their own stuff already, totally making "Them" irrelevant. Do it for profit, do it for fun, do it just because you can, but for goodness sake, do it. Take photos with these great cameras we have today, and publish them. Write songs, and set them to music with these awesome music making tools we have. Make your own films. Don't do it in terms of "competing with the industry." Do it *in spite* of "the industry." Make it so that there's so much media of independent origin that the media corporations have to work to compete with the public. And when someone takes your copyrighted work and publishes it as their own, use the weapon that copyright law provides. This alone could end up bringing down the media cartels.
But nobody really wants to be creative just because they can, do they?
Slashdot Mirror
And that has little to do with the indictment. It's way more significant what they did with the money (how and for what reasons they paid people cash rewards, how and from whom they took payments, the steps they took to move cash into and out of US banks, etc.) The "piracy" aspect is not the most serious of the charges.
I used to be a cryptographer, then I took a crowbar to the knee.
You should read the indictment, and become aware of the actual charges being raised and the evidence on which those charges are based. A lot of people have already gone into protest mode without even taking the basic step of reading the actual indictment. What they did with money turns out to be far more significant than the "piracy" components. Some of the things they did would be crimes even if there was no question of the legality or the controversial nature of the business.
Okay, a useful business that stands accused of institutional copyright infringement, for which there is actual evidence.
MegaUpload apparently needed servers in Virginia, banks in the US, Paypal, etc. Read the indictment. If you read the actual charges and understand the evidence it might change your opinion on the case.
They didn't just want to shut down the site! They wanted to prove that the operators knew that what they were doing was illegal, and that they were taking deliberate steps to hide the money! That is central to the indictment, that they knew (because they were told!) that they hosted infringing content, and that they did not comply with removing (very specific) items from a (very specific) server. There's a lot more to the indictment, which I encourage everyone to read before they take an activist position.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204616504577171180266957116.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories
A central piece of evidence is the storage of a significant number of full-length feature films on a server in Virginia. There is other evidence that the accused utilized US banks for money laundering.
Read the indictment. They are accused of violating US law in the US, whether they were physically in the US or not.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204616504577171180266957116.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories
"What law was MegaUpload breaking?"
The indictment is quite specific, and not a difficult read. I wonder how many of the people who are already in full protest mode have read it?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204616504577171180266957116.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories
"They were arrested in NZ."
By New Zealand authorities, in accordance with New Zealand laws.
For me (a mere coyote who has his own ethos and feeds on chaos), their crimes were (1.) being identifiable targets, and (2.) trading in currency instead of barter.
"I am absolutely pissed that the U.S. government has the audacity to do something like this."
So how do you feel about the New Zealand government, which actually did the arresting?
"It" is the beginning of a precedent whereby Sony, Universal, or Disney, when caught violating a Creative Commons license, can expect to have its assets seized, its operations shut down, and its executives arrested, jailed and charged with "piracy."
"It" is also a precedent whereby you can claim $500 million in losses that you don't have to report to shareholders, insurers, or the IRS.
This could lead to seriously awesome unintended consequences of chaos.
Did we skip ATM PIN sharing and go straight to social media passwords, or have we not gotten to that stage yet?
Is their prohibition lawful or not?
In any case, I cannot think of two cities more different than NYC vs. Tucson AZ.
>They're moving onto public streets in some places.
They are, after all, civilians, and have a right to be there. They are not police officers and don't actually have any rights that you don't also have.
I'm hoping for unintended consequences that come from the fact that the *vast* majority of copyrighted work is not owned or produced by corporations, but by individuals. If a law like SOPA is a powerful weapon, it's being placed into unintended hands. If you want to suggest that individuals and small producers won't be able to wield it, I will assert that the law would fail on Equal Protection grounds.
I still don't see very much awareness of how much of SOPA is a new drug law.
Copyright and commercial interest in copyright are and should be distinct. How aggressively will SOPA protect a Creative Commons license, for example?
Here is where Copyright Law is a powerful weapon: A publisher takes your copyrighted work and publishes it, claiming it as their own work, and then sues YOU for infringement. Protection from that scenario is copyright's primary function. Few people seem willing to accept that, since they really want it to be a weapon that can be used to rigidly control a distribution method.
Be creative and think of ways that this anti-consumer legislation can be twisted into unintended consequences and used against the people it is supposed to protect. Remember that even GPL and Creative Commons licenses derive from Copyright Law. Imagine someone getting a $5,000,000 fine for a GPL violation due to SOPA.
This++.
Copyright seems to be quite poorly understood, even by activists.
Think about something like Creative Commons. The author reserves all rights conferred by Copyright Law, but also expressly intends for his work to be copied and distributed freely. Copyright law is a poor weapon if one's intent is to stop distribution, but it is an excellent and powerful weapon against situations such as someone taking your copyrighted work, publishing it as his own, and then suing YOU for infringement. But that is a pro-independent-producer position, and is not often considered in this debate.
Right now it's all about the media companies and the whole upside down relationship between producers and consumers. The best thing the public could possibly do at this point is to wean themselves off of mainstream media, and start trending more toward independent producing. That's right, I'm saying you should buy a damn guitar. There should be a piano in the space where your TV is. That really good digital camera you got so cheaply should be put to use. You shouldn't be "going to the movies", you should be "making a documentary." There is no reason in this day and age to be a consumer of media, and in fact, it's irresponsible and as it turns out, destructive to democracy.
Few protestors actually say what their specific problem with the bill is. Mine comes from reading the bill (something that few seem willing or able to do!), and my objection to it is mostly due to the fact that SOPA is an anti-drug law as much as it is an internet piracy law. In the stuff about "counterfeit drugs" you will find an oblique escalation of the drug war.
"if I had FB shares I'd dump them. Now."
You do realize that if you had FaceBook shares, it means you're an insider in a privately owned institution, and there's no place to "dump" them.... right?
I keep hoping that all this draconian copyright legislation has the following unintended consequences:
1. Creative works of independent origin become far more common, eclipsing the corpus of work that is represented by "mainstream media publishing".
2. The same draconian laws that are meant to protect corporate publishers, put an extremely powerful weapon into the hands of independent authors.
Imagine if stuff like the $5,000,000 fine provisions of a law like SOPA could be applied to enforce compliance with Creative Commons licensing terms.
Stop consuming the stuff "They" want you to consume. Everybody should be making their own stuff already, totally making "Them" irrelevant. Do it for profit, do it for fun, do it just because you can, but for goodness sake, do it. Take photos with these great cameras we have today, and publish them. Write songs, and set them to music with these awesome music making tools we have. Make your own films. Don't do it in terms of "competing with the industry." Do it *in spite* of "the industry." Make it so that there's so much media of independent origin that the media corporations have to work to compete with the public. And when someone takes your copyrighted work and publishes it as their own, use the weapon that copyright law provides. This alone could end up bringing down the media cartels.
But nobody really wants to be creative just because they can, do they?
It's already a drug law masquerading as an anti-piracy law. It's shocking how few people who are protesting seem to have actually read the bill.