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Megaupload file-sharing site shut down, founders charged

jamesrage

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Just in case anyone is wondering why megaupload is not working.


BBC News - Megaupload file-sharing site shut down
Megaupload, one of the internet's largest file-sharing sites, has been shut down by officials in the US.
The site's founders have been charged with violating piracy laws.
Federal prosecutors have accused it of costing copyright holders more than $500m (£320m) in lost revenue. The firm says it was diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material.
Investigators denied a link to recent protests against proposed piracy laws, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The US Justice Department said that Megaupload's two co-founders Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz, and Mathias Ortmann were arrested in Auckland, New Zealand along with two other employees of the business at the request of US officials. It added that three other defendants were still at large.
"This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States and directly targets the misuse of a public content storage and distribution site to commit and facilitate intellectual property crime," said a statement posted on its website.
 
Just in case anyone is wondering why megaupload is not working.


BBC News - Megaupload file-sharing site shut down
Megaupload, one of the internet's largest file-sharing sites, has been shut down by officials in the US.
The site's founders have been charged with violating piracy laws.
Federal prosecutors have accused it of costing copyright holders more than $500m (£320m) in lost revenue. The firm says it was diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material.
Investigators denied a link to recent protests against proposed piracy laws, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The US Justice Department said that Megaupload's two co-founders Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz, and Mathias Ortmann were arrested in Auckland, New Zealand along with two other employees of the business at the request of US officials. It added that three other defendants were still at large.
"This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States and directly targets the misuse of a public content storage and distribution site to commit and facilitate intellectual property crime," said a statement posted on its website.

It's pretty much impossible to police the entirety of megaupload.
Some use it for pirating works under copyright, others don't.
 
How funny this happens a day after Megaupload was one of the sites participating in the blackout protest.

If they've been complying with any legal requests to take down and stop copyrighted material found to be shared through their site, I don't see what the issue is. Megaupload doesn't market itself as a place to violate copyright, can be used in ways that don't voilate copy right ,and confirm with requests to take down files that are found to be copywritten. Expecting any file sharing site to monitor every file it uploads for the copyrighted nature of it is unrealistic, and if the simple existance of copyrighted things being on the site is means for a massive criminal charge then all file sharing sites....from Megaupload to something like Photobucket...should likely shut down to be legally safe.
 
How funny this happens a day after Megaupload was one of the sites participating in the blackout protest.

If they've been complying with any legal requests to take down and stop copyrighted material found to be shared through their site, I don't see what the issue is. Megaupload doesn't market itself as a place to violate copyright, can be used in ways that don't voilate copy right ,and confirm with requests to take down files that are found to be copywritten. Expecting any file sharing site to monitor every file it uploads for the copyrighted nature of it is unrealistic, and if the simple existance of copyrighted things being on the site is means for a massive criminal charge then all file sharing sites....from Megaupload to something like Photobucket...should likely shut down to be legally safe.

I read a bit more of the story.
Prosecutors say that they were paying third parties to promote links to copy written material on megaupload's website.
I dunno if that's true.

Megaupload isn't in the position to defend themselves at the moment.
 
How funny this happens a day after Megaupload was one of the sites participating in the blackout protest.

If they've been complying with any legal requests to take down and stop copyrighted material found to be shared through their site, I don't see what the issue is. Megaupload doesn't market itself as a place to violate copyright, can be used in ways that don't voilate copy right ,and confirm with requests to take down files that are found to be copywritten. Expecting any file sharing site to monitor every file it uploads for the copyrighted nature of it is unrealistic, and if the simple existance of copyrighted things being on the site is means for a massive criminal charge then all file sharing sites....from Megaupload to something like Photobucket...should likely shut down to be legally safe.

They also take down files which violate copyright law.
 
And like I said...if it comes out that they weren't complying with requests to take down copyrighted things, or were somehow actively promoting people to use it for copyrighted materials, or something of the sort then I don't have a huge issue with this. If its simply that the site is used by people to upload copyrighted things, despite megaupload not promoting that and taking appropriate action when discovered, then I would have an issue.
 
How funny this happens a day after Megaupload was one of the sites participating in the blackout protest.

If they've been complying with any legal requests to take down and stop copyrighted material found to be shared through their site, I don't see what the issue is. Megaupload doesn't market itself as a place to violate copyright, can be used in ways that don't voilate copy right ,and confirm with requests to take down files that are found to be copywritten. Expecting any file sharing site to monitor every file it uploads for the copyrighted nature of it is unrealistic, and if the simple existance of copyrighted things being on the site is means for a massive criminal charge then all file sharing sites....from Megaupload to something like Photobucket...should likely shut down to be legally safe.

Here is the meat of the charge though:

"The conspirators allegedly paid users whom they specifically knew uploaded infringing content and publicised their links to users throughout the world," a statement said.
"By actively supporting the use of third-party linking sites to publicise infringing content, the conspirators did not need to publicise such content on the Megaupload site.
"Instead, the indictment alleges that the conspirators manipulated the perception of content available on their servers by not providing a public search function on the Megaupload site and by not including popular infringing content on the publicly available lists of top content downloaded by its users."

It's a he said/she said situation now, but if what the government is saying is at all accurate, then they could very well be guilty of piracy.
 
I read a bit more of the story.
Prosecutors say that they were paying third parties to promote links to copy written material on megaupload's website.
I dunno if that's true.

Megaupload isn't in the position to defend themselves at the moment.

Wrestling message board I read has a section that you can only access with permissions, that has literally thousands of links to copywritten wrestling, boxing, MMA and similar content all on Mega and a few similar sites, and almost entirely from 2 people. Now it could just be a couple guys with a whole lot of time on their hands...but more likely not.
 
I love the last part...

"Because they didn't give users of their site easy access to things that were copyright infringing, they are violating the law"

:)

I know its not literally what's being said, but it kind of reads that way and just made me sort of laugh.
 
By this same logic, we should clearly shut down Toyota because drug dealers use cars to move drugs around, despite any other legitimate uses they may have.
 
They also take down files which violate copyright law.

Close, but not quite. They respond to complaints by taking down those files. They do not take down files without a complaint first.
 
Wrestling message board I read has a section that you can only access with permissions, that has literally thousands of links to copywritten wrestling, boxing, MMA and similar content all on Mega and a few similar sites, and almost entirely from 2 people. Now it could just be a couple guys with a whole lot of time on their hands...but more likely not.

I know of a site like that, though I don't know necessarily if it would be two guys with time on their hand. I know the site charges a monthly fee for access to their additional material and streaming, which I imagine could pay for people taking the time to do the uploading.
 
Close, but not quite. They respond to complaints by taking down those files. They do not take down files without a complaint first.

So, they comply exactly with the rules outlined in the DMCA? How exactly is that a problem?
 
I love the last part...

"Because they didn't give users of their site easy access to things that were copyright infringing, they are violating the law"

:)

I know its not literally what's being said, but it kind of reads that way and just made me sort of laugh.

That is not at all what it is, though I agree that it does kinda sound like it. They make it hard for people to find the copywritten material without a link is the allegation.
 
I know of a site like that, though I don't know necessarily if it would be two guys with time on their hand. I know the site charges a monthly fee for access to their additional material and streaming, which I imagine could pay for people taking the time to do the uploading.

In this case there is no extra charge. Unless the site is paying the guys to do this to promote site traffic, the guys putting up all the files are not getting paid for it.
 
So, they comply exactly with the rules outlined in the DMCA? How exactly is that a problem?

If you read the article(funny idea), you will see what the charges are. Just something to do.
 
Wrestling message board I read has a section that you can only access with permissions, that has literally thousands of links to copywritten wrestling, boxing, MMA and similar content all on Mega and a few similar sites, and almost entirely from 2 people. Now it could just be a couple guys with a whole lot of time on their hands...but more likely not.

Also, wrestling is a wonderful example of a sector that would likely be better helped by likely spending the time and energy they spend on fighting piracy to instead research and initiate new business models that take into effect the current content era that we live in and viewer expectations regarding the value of their product. I doubt many people would honestly prefer to watch a grainy, choppy feed on a 19" SD monitor over a nice HD feed coming through on their 42" LCD in the comfort of their living room....but the latter experience isn't worth the $50 bucks more than the former. Not to mention when you have 104+ shows a year live and free, and that's just counting the two big live shows of the main company and not side shows/shows from other companies, the incentive and desire to spend that $50 twelve times a year in this economy is also lowered.

This does not justify pirates at all, however I think it is more an indictment of the inability to grasp customer trends and the realities of the modern distribution age on the part of aging companies.
 
Wrestling message board I read has a section that you can only access with permissions, that has literally thousands of links to copywritten wrestling, boxing, MMA and similar content all on Mega and a few similar sites, and almost entirely from 2 people. Now it could just be a couple guys with a whole lot of time on their hands...but more likely not.

I'm not sure what you're getting at, but most of these large server groups have small employee bases.
Policing the content of millions of people, on a daily basis, is quite literally impossible.
 
And like I said...if it comes out that they weren't complying with requests to take down copyrighted things, or were somehow actively promoting people to use it for copyrighted materials,\

... copyright INFRINGING.

Sorry, this has just been irking me for too long [in case I sound snarky] - copyright INFRINGING - if I make a work, copyright it, share it freely, I am sharing copyrighted work, but broke no law - same with many other works. It is only illegal if permission wasn't given [or if it doesn't fit into any exceptions regarding permissionless use that may exist in laws].
 
I think what he's getting at is the following...

That Megaupload pays some people on 3rd party sites specifically to upload illegal content onto the Megaupload site and to provide links to that content on those 3rd party sites. This then drives traffic to megaupload and hopefully encourages people to pay for their subscription service to be able to download all the content, while at the same time allowing megaupload not to have to advertise said illegal content on their site directly or make it easily accessible.

By paying the 3rd party people to upload and advertise it on the 3rd party sites, it essentially makes it to where megaupload (if the payments weren't discovered) could claim that they weren't promoting the use of their site for illegal content because they weren't advertising it or providing easy ways for people to find it.

Lets put this a different way (Based just off the charge).

Lets say you have a shop that sells stuff that useful for doing drugs, but those items themselves aren't illegal. They are sold as art pieces or tobacco pipes or other sort of things. This shop can't go out and go "Hey, come by our pipes, its great for smoking pot!" because they'd actively be promoting that their stores items are to be used for illegal activities.

However, to get around this, they go to a few drug dealers and go "Look, we'll pay you all $X amount of dollars a month. What we want you to do is use the area around our store as the location to do your transactions so that the people will then be likely to come in here and buy the supplies they need".

Essentially, using this 3rd party to attract the customers to their store to use them for illicite purposes.

Not a perfect analogy but that's kind of what they seem to be alleging in this case...right redress?
 
Also, wrestling is a wonderful example of a sector that would likely be better helped by likely spending the time and energy they spend on fighting piracy to instead research and initiate new business models that take into effect the current content era that we live in and viewer expectations regarding the value of their product. I doubt many people would honestly prefer to watch a grainy, choppy feed on a 19" SD monitor over a nice HD feed coming through on their 42" LCD in the comfort of their living room....but the latter experience isn't worth the $50 bucks more than the former. Not to mention when you have 104+ shows a year live and free, and that's just counting the two big live shows of the main company and not side shows/shows from other companies, the incentive and desire to spend that $50 twelve times a year in this economy is also lowered.

This does not justify pirates at all, however I think it is more an indictment of the inability to grasp customer trends and the realities of the modern distribution age on the part of aging companies.

April though. Word is WWE network subscribers will get some of the PPVs on the network instead of having to pay for the PPV.

Getting offtopic tho~
 
I think what he's getting at is the following...

That Megaupload pays some people on 3rd party sites specifically to upload illegal content onto the Megaupload site and to provide links to that content on those 3rd party sites. This then drives traffic to megaupload and hopefully encourages people to pay for their subscription service to be able to download all the content, while at the same time allowing megaupload not to have to advertise said illegal content on their site directly or make it easily accessible.

By paying the 3rd party people to upload and advertise it on the 3rd party sites, it essentially makes it to where megaupload (if the payments weren't discovered) could claim that they weren't promoting the use of their site for illegal content because they weren't advertising it or providing easy ways for people to find it.

Lets put this a different way (Based just off the charge).

Lets say you have a shop that sells stuff that useful for doing drugs, but those items themselves aren't illegal. They are sold as art pieces or tobacco pipes or other sort of things. This shop can't go out and go "Hey, come by our pipes, its great for smoking pot!" because they'd actively be promoting that their stores items are to be used for illegal activities.

However, to get around this, they go to a few drug dealers and go "Look, we'll pay you all $X amount of dollars a month. What we want you to do is use the area around our store as the location to do your transactions so that the people will then be likely to come in here and buy the supplies they need".

Essentially, using this 3rd party to attract the customers to their store to use them for illicite purposes.

Not a perfect analogy but that's kind of what they seem to be alleging in this case...right redress?

Yeah, I don't much like the anology, but the description at the beginning is how I understand the charges.

Let's say that Mega(assuming the charges are accurate) is paying people to upload and promote copywritten material. One of those guys came here, would use either the Basement or Tavern(to avoid search engines, making it hard for the owners of the copywrites to find), make posts with direct links to the megaupload file pages(so megaupload doesn't have to be searchable, again making it hard for those owning the copywrite to police it). People from here would go to Megaupload, and potentially be enticed to pay the fee for download ability. Now it probably won't happen here as we do not get enough traffic. The site I see it at has over 3 times as many people online as we have. We just would not provide enough traffic.

In some ways it is pretty clever and highlights the problem with trying to police copywrite law. The tactics employed by the pirates constantly changes and adapts.
 
Wrestling entertainment has sucked massively since the demise of WCW, never been a fan of WWE.

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