Megaupload.com Gets Hit By Mega Piracy Indictment

johname · Jan 19, 2012

Four of MegaUpload's operators have been arrested for copyright infringement. Site offline. Interesting timing of this.

Code:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2012/01/file-sharing-megaupload-shut-down-for-piracy-by-feds.html

alien51 · Jan 21, 2012

Archangel said:
They're back:

http://news.yahoo.com/megaupload-ba...5kIHRyaWFscwRwdANzdG9yeXBhZ2UEdGVzdAM-;_ylv=3

I am more surprised they kept their balls running the whole thing on the .COM extension.

And what? They were running servers located in Virginia, U.S.A. ???

I think they believe their legal case is strong, since Megaupload as a file-distribution service does serve legit purposes like a Xerox machine or a kitchen knife that could also be used to commit murder. But will you charge the knife manufacturer of murder?

I guess litigation would boil down as to how convincing they are in removing copyright content, because i see tons of copyright content on YouTube and the Feds don't seem to have any issue with YouTube.

Archangel said:
lol And be sure to read this. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...n-recognizes-digital-piracy-religion-kopimism

I find it interesting that the Google Ads in that article closely resemble the actual content. They appear like title headlines in the same font color as the content text.

And Google doesn't seem to have any issue with it.

Dave_Z · Jan 21, 2012

Probably not needed, but I figured I'd toss these here in case some people "complain" how the U.S. can supposedly enforce its laws overseas, get people to extradite, etc.

USAM 9-15.000 International Extradition and Related Matters

Generally under United States law (18 U.S.C. § 3184), extradition may be granted only pursuant to a treaty.

...

However, every such country requires an offer of reciprocity when extradition is accorded in the absence of a treaty.

U.S. extradites Panama's ex-leader Noriega to France - USATODAY.com

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega arrived in France on Tuesday to face money laundering charges after being extradited from the United States.

Alleged Spouse Killer and Producer Awaits Extradition to Mexico - Hispanically Speaking News

“Survivor” producer and alleged wife killer, Bruce Beresford-Redman will be extradited to Mexico to face charges but the actual date of the extradition is pending.

You can bet the other sites will watch and learn from this to at least lessen the risk of it happening to them as well.

alien51 · Jan 21, 2012

I suppose if you're running a business like Megaupload, you probably have figured all of these situations out already.

Based on the charge sheet i've read in the news, the Feds were complaining that Megaupload is too slow to remove copyright material when asked. Which is the basis for what they contend as a behavior tantamount to supporting piracy.

It's probably more interesting to see how they ended up being charged with money laundering. Maybe they'll get nailed on that charge instead.

Archangel · Jan 21, 2012

This analogy doesn't quite work. The site serves an illegal purpose and knowingly allows its users to violate laws & helps them in the deed. Ya can't blame a manufacturer for what someone does with a knife. It's not in their hands. It's in those of the seller. if they knew it was being sold for committing a crime, then yes, they could get in trouble. Megaupload only exist to break laws. And they assist others in law-breaking. They have no chance at getting off.

alien51 said:
I think they believe their legal case is strong, since Megaupload as a file-distribution service does serve legit purposes like a Xerox machine or a kitchen knife that could also be used to commit murder. But will you charge the knife manufacturer of murder?

enlytend · Jan 21, 2012

Based on the charge sheet i've read in the news, the Feds were complaining that Megaupload is too slow to remove copyright material when asked. Which is the basis for what they contend as a behavior tantamount to supporting piracy.

From what I saw somewhere in that document, they have evidence of the principals of the company talking about obtaining pirated files for people. That's not looking good for them. Without that kind of evidence, they might have been able to point to their policies and documented instances where they removed material and claim they tried their best to do the right thing..

The fact that they're up and running on an IP points out how useless a dns based approach is for controlling this sort of thing. "We don't need no steenkin' domains."

Kate · Jan 21, 2012

Archangel said:
They're back:

http://news.yahoo.com/megaupload-ba...5kIHRyaWFscwRwdANzdG9yeXBhZ2UEdGVzdAM-;_ylv=3

It's a fake.

silentg · Jan 21, 2012

Mashable author was stupid to post that IP without checking it.

Archangel · Jan 21, 2012

I didn't bother to check the link itself, as I don't use the site. I have to question it, though. ppl think the site is back simply because of a random posting on a domain-less IP? That doesn't make sense.

sdsinc said:
It's a fake.

johname · Jan 21, 2012

Check out the MegaU Dude's Mansion.

Code:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/21/kim-dotcom-megaupload-arrest_n_1220491.html?ncid=webmail1

"Officers broke the locks and Dotcom barricaded himself into a safe room which officers had to cut their way through to gain access."

"Dotcom leased the property after being blocked from buying it last year by the government after failing to meet a "good character" test for migrants, although he was granted residency in 2010"

New Zealand government knew he was a bad guy, or they didnt like his new name: Kim Dotcom

Reported he made 42 mil in 2010 alone

alien51 · Jan 21, 2012

Archangel said:
Megaupload only exist to break laws.

I think that's a very SOPA-like view. From what i've read in CNN, there were a lot of legit Megaupload users who are outraged that they could no longer access their personal non-copyright files.

Granting there were a lot of pirates in there, technically you cannot say Megaupload "only" exists to break laws. Because their cloud service infrastructure looks exactly the same as Microsoft SkyDrive.

---------- Post added at 02:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:23 PM ----------

enlytend said:
From what I saw somewhere in that document, they have evidence of the principals of the company talking about obtaining pirated files for people. That's not looking good for them. Without that kind of evidence, they might have been able to point to their policies and documented instances where they removed material and claim they tried their best to do the right thing..

That's exactly the kind of "infringing" evidence i'm talking about.

Megaupload in itself, is just like any other cloud service out there. You must specifically pinpoint what element makes them criminally liable, while YouTube is not.

Archangel · Jan 21, 2012

There may be many legit users but sure over 90% download or share copyrighted items. Saying it 'only' exists for law-breaking was a generalization. Only the vast majority is law-breaking. There are 2 or 3 legit users for the site, I'm pretty sure.

alien51 said:
I think that's a very SOPA-like view. From what i've read in CNN, there were a lot of legit Megaupload users who are outraged that they could no longer access their personal non-copyright files.

Granting there were a lot of pirates in there, technically you cannot say Megaupload "only" exists to break laws. Because their cloud service infrastructure looks exactly the same as Microsoft SkyDrive.

alien51 · Jan 22, 2012

Archangel said:
There may be many legit users but sure over 90% download or share copyrighted items. Saying it 'only' exists for law-breaking was a generalization. Only the vast majority is law-breaking. There are 2 or 3 legit users for the site, I'm pretty sure.

This is what makes it complicated.

What is the percentage threshold that will make a cloud-sharing service a criminal copyright infringer? You say 90%. So if we bring it down to say 80%, then that should be safe then.

What makes people Anti-SOPA, is because evenif you trim that number down to 10-20% illegal, the entire cloud service will get shutdown-- along with the 80-90% legit users. SOPA doesn't discriminate numbers.

And it's very difficult to base your regulation on a numbers game. Evenif you set a threshold of 50%, the wisecracks will test the limit up to 48% illegal.

In the latest news update, Megaupload says they will challenge the Feds in court and they are seeking the return of their servers.

Archangel · Jan 22, 2012

Utopia would be nice but a land of fallibility is more interesting. The numbers, though, don't mean much. With the ideology that a crime is a crime: If I directly assisted 1 person to commit murder--even if I worked with 100,000,000 other people who I never swayed--people would still ride my ass for that lone murder. And let's be perfectly honest: Surely, at least 100-thousand counts of infringement had been done from megaupload's website. Whether that's 90% of its business or 1%, it's still a lot. And once person alone can bring the bad things to light. Just ask Lars Ulrich. So yeah, 100k infringements really isn't something that can be ignored.

alien51 said:
This is what makes it complicated.

What is the percentage threshold that will make a cloud-sharing service a criminal copyright infringer? You say 90%. So if we bring it down to say 80%, then that should be safe then.

What makes people Anti-SOPA, is because evenif you trim that number down to 10-20% illegal, the entire cloud service will get shutdown-- along with the 80-90% legit users. SOPA doesn't discriminate numbers.

And it's very difficult to base your regulation on a numbers game. Evenif you set a threshold of 50%, the wisecracks will test the limit up to 48% illegal.

In the latest news update, Megaupload says they will challenge the Feds in court and they are seeking the return of their servers.

enlytend · Jan 22, 2012

I'm sure there were quite a few legit users that got burned by this. Megaupload went to great lengths to try to "look" legit and trustworthy. Celeb endorsements (someone in the entertainment industry wouldn't promote a file piracy site, would they?) And a tool to supposedly help you find infringing content on the site and file a complaint (which allegedly was useless and/or totally ignored.)

Doesn't matter how much illegal content their *customers* uploaded - they would have been covered under current law by "safe harbor" provisions ... as long as they took action when notified of wrongdoing. The charges in the document go way beyond that.

Of course they're going to challenge it. What have they got to lose?

Dave_Z · Jan 22, 2012

enlytend said:
What have they got to lose?

Bragging rights.

alien51 · Jan 23, 2012

Everything gets muddled together simply because these guys were busted by the Feds.

But the question remains: Is the business model legit?

Look at this link: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkL5PEUIa80"]Wind Chill part 1 - YouTube[/ame]
A full-length Hollywood movie uploaded and shared on YouTube and remains accessible since 2008. This is not the only full-length stolen video on YouTube.

To rephrase the question: What should Megaupload have done to avoid getting busted in the first place?

Eliminate illegal content? That's impossible.

Reduce illegal content? By how much? 80%? 87%? 93%?

If having minimal illegal content is still unacceptable, then they should shutdown the entire cloud technology.

Archangel · Jan 23, 2012

They could have scanned all uploaed material for copyrights. That's not an easy task but it's still something they could have done.

Youtube's been through its legal stuff. Ad it's all coming back to them soon.

alien51 said:
To rephrase the question: What should Megaupload have done to avoid getting busted in the first place?

Eliminate illegal content? That's impossible.

Reduce illegal content? By how much? 80%? 87%? 93%?

enlytend · Jan 23, 2012

Apparently this made other file sharing services nervous. Filesonic just shut down their file sharing service. So did uploaded.to ( not sure if this is global or US only.)

alien51 · Jan 23, 2012

More details in the rap sheet of this Megaupload guy Mr. DotCom, are now coming out in the news:

http://news.yahoo.com/megaupload-owner-found-hiding-safe-room-sawed-off-215619099.html

So it appears he does have a predisposition to being criminal-minded, based on past history.

Pun intended: They said he plans to legally change his name again to "Kim DotPro". lol

But then again, even Al Capone ran a legit business himself.

Yes, i can confirm that Filesonic got spooked. I tried to download a porn flick a while ago and a message says file sharing features are disabled. But Uploading.COM is still operating normally.

I remember in the past when the Feds shutdown Napster, i thought it was the end of file sharing as we know it.

But to quote what Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park: "File Sharing will find a way".

Domainace · Jan 23, 2012

Here are some pics of Mr. Dotcom chumming with Bruce Willis. Odd, considering he is accused of stealing Bruce's property.
https://picasaweb.google.com/112764836840664936763/France2000

Megaupload.com Gets Hit By Mega Piracy Indictment

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