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Web 3.0 begins: Megaupload shut down, founder charged with piracy

Started by Pedro_Bear, January 19, 2012, 08:35:45 PM

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Pedro_Bear



Federal prosecutors in Virginia have just closed Megaupload.com, and the indictment accuses the company of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content.

This is extraordinary given the size of the company involved, and quite possibly the template for future action against public filesharing sites irrespective of PIPA/SOPA or ACTA actually getting passed into law.

Megaupload actually had a very responsive Report Button for illegal content, and files reported that way were checked and suspended within the hour if the report was true. The claim for copyright was one-page more complicated, requiring the copyright holder or agent to identify themselves as such, but even so, I can't imagine that there was any more delay in the actual file removal.


So... Web 3.0 All User Content Indictable On Suspicion Of Piracy, or just a heavy-handed folly move by yank copyright holders, doomed to be thrown out of court?

Ja'moke

You messed it up, it's supposed to be "Megaupload shutdown, owner arrested."

But yeah, it's a sad loss. This comment on Twitter made me chuckle: "I propose we observe 72 minutes of silence in memory of our dearly departed friend, Megaupload."

Zero Gravitas

That's bananas!

Even though they were at any given point hosting the totality of all digitised media, they did a very good performance of complying with the law, most of time you'd have to check at least three links to find a copy of Black in the Saddle II.

Shocking.

Small Man Big Horse

Does anyone think they'll now come after the users of the site?

It'll certainly be very interesting to see how Rapidshare, Fileserve and the rest respond. And because I'm something of a coward, I'll be staying away from downloading anything dodgy that way for a while...

Pedro_Bear




Ahh, shit, no, no, no, it should read: "Megaupload shutdown, Dotcom arrested". Dammit!

Turns out it's not even a US-based company, although I'm assuming that at least some servers were physically located in Virginia for the shutdown to have originated there.

The founder, Kim Dotcom, was arrested in New Zeland on behalf of the yanks, and isn't even a US citizen.

Hopefully, it'll bomb in court. How it even got as far as pulling the plug on the website is curious, though. It's hinted that Dotcom's a multi-millionaire, so it's not like he can't afford to fight charges, let alone the extraordinary procedures involved. It's almost as if they were expecting SOPA to pass unchallenged, and then thought "fuck it, we'll do it anyway"?

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Pedro_Bear on January 19, 2012, 08:35:45 PM
...This is extraordinary given the size of the company involved, and quite possibly the template for future action against public filesharing sites irrespective of PIPA/SOPA or ACTA actually getting passed into law...

Personally, I think the timing is surprising. If the US can close a site and arrest people over piracy allegations using existing legal recourse, why is SOPA or something similar also needed?

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on January 19, 2012, 08:58:14 PM
Does anyone think they'll now come after the users of the site?...

I doubt it (please note, this does not constitute legal advice) and if they do, it would be probably those who have uploaded material for download.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Pedro_Bear on January 19, 2012, 09:21:16 PM... It's hinted that Dotcom's a multi-millionaire, so it's not like he can't afford to fight charges, let alone the extraordinary procedures involved. It's almost as if they were expecting SOPA to pass unchallenged, and then thought "fuck it, we'll do it anyway"?

Kasseem Dean is the CEO, supposedly - they'll have money to fight it and have celebrity support.

I accept the terms of the

Quote from: Ignatius_S on January 19, 2012, 09:21:49 PM
Personally, I think the timing is surprising. If the US can close a site and arrest people over piracy allegations using existing legal recourse, why is SOPA or something similar also needed?
Cases and extradition are resource-hungry. Writing an e-mail is nearly free.

Meanwhile, we've just said yes to the US's request to extradite the British student who ran TV Shack, a site that only linked to content.

BlodwynPig

Extradition! Jesus christ, and we thought the Bush administration was bad.

Neomod

I see the Met helped out, but then again so did the Canadian Mounted Police.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/justice-department-charges-leaders-of-megaupload-with-widespread-online-copyright-infringement

Oh and I guess Rapidshare etc will make sure none of their servers are now based in the states.

Zero Gravitas

I love the fact that it's called 'The Mega Conspiracy' but looking at Kim "Dotcom" Schmitz's previous business practices[nb]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Schmitz#Insider_trading_and_embezzlement[/nb] and the charges of money laundering noted in that document this seems like less of a cut and dry copyright infringement case.

Pedro_Bear



Ahh, well then, that probably explains some of it.

Although it doesn't quite tally with taking Megaupload off-line, does it? That's what we'd expect to see in the weeks following successful PIPA/SOPA/ACTA legislation: high-profile swoop takedowns of key sites. If it's just a matter of good ol' business theft from within the company, they wouldn't neccessarily close the whole company down?

I recon they jumped the gun with this. They could have been overly-confident of SOPA passing, and then spent too much time and money planning the global arrests that in the event they just ploughed ahead.

The TVShack guy was unfortunate enough to be poor and British; we might as well open a US court in London for all we fight extraditions of average citizens, save on plane fuel. Dotcom has a pocketfull of passports and a fat wallet, though.

Irrespective of which, I guess I'm not going to get at a 320kbps OST to [content redacted on advice of CaB solicitor] ripping, track by track. Don't they appreciate how inconvenient this is? Literally minutes of my precious time that I'm wasting online will be even more wasted.

biggytitbo

The war begins here.


But this battle is surely going to fail. To shut down file hosting sites because someone uploads illegal content to it is, if logically applied, an order to shut down the entire functionality of the internet to upload files at all, in any form.


Which is madness.

BlodwynPig

Collapse of society began a few years ago. I would say around the fall of the Berlin Wall. We've all become part of one big cunt conspiracy. More paranoid, more aggressive, more greedy.

Manifesto 62.

biggytitbo

Am I correct in saying its significantly more difficult to detect individal users downloading pirated content in http traffic than it is via torrents and file sharing?


Still, I don't think they're going to get very far on this one, since the transfer of files, be it upload or download is the web. Unless they shut the whole thing down, the only reasonable thing they can do is enforce better notification systems.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: I accept the terms of the on January 19, 2012, 09:34:03 PM
Cases and extradition are resource-hungry. Writing an e-mail is nearly free....

Which is rather different to the case that co-sponsors of SOPA have consistently been making - the bill is needed in order to stop piracy. The story supporters have been spinning is that there isn't sufficient legal recourse currently, so to have a highly high-profile case that seems to indicate otherwise to the casual observer, seems to indicate surprising timing.

Quote from: I accept the terms of the on January 19, 2012, 09:34:03 PM
...Meanwhile, we've just said yes to the US's request to extradite the British student who ran TV Shack, a site that only linked to content.

And the mirror site when the first one was taken down, which probably wasn't the best idea in hindsight.

thisaintnopicnic

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/apnewsbreak-workers-indicted-at-one-of-worlds-largest-file-sharing-sites-megauploadcom/2012/01/19/gIQAJPIRBQ_story.html

Quote
The indictment was returned in the Eastern District of Virginia, which claimed jurisdiction in part because some of the alleged pirated materials were hosted on leased servers in Ashburn, Va.

I'd say there is more to this than copyright infringement. The Feds have alleged that Dotcom made $42 million from the site in 2010, and while that is very possibly an over-estimate, I don't doubt that the site owners were making Megabucks. One of the highest traffic networks on the web (including Megavideo and Megaporn) serving millions of ads per day, plus the option for users to pay subscription fees. The sites that make the most money will get shut down first.


Dusty Gozongas

#18
There's some fucking wild layzor firing going down right now.

mpaa.com, justice.gov & universalmusic.com  all dead at the mo.


http://vimeo.com/31100268


Howj Begg

http://gizmodo.com/5877679

Anonymous Goes on Megaupload Revenge Spree: DoJ, RIAA, MPAA, and Universal Music All Offline

Zero Gravitas

The department of justice? Oh that's great news isn't it?

Even if it's just a temporary DOS attack, it's still a perfect demonstration of the need for mechanisms of control and monitoring to be inserted into the infrastructure of the internet.

Dusty Gozongas

I disagree.  It's their job to be scared of the public, not the other way round and they need to be reminded of that.

Zero Gravitas

Quote from: Dusty Gozongas on January 19, 2012, 11:19:07 PM
I disagree.  It's their job to be scared of the public, not the other way round and they need to be reminded of that.



I doubt that's the way it'll be spun.

Dusty Gozongas

#23
As long as we have our internets, both sides of the argument can be digested.

Meanwhile... the largest number of anons on irc I've ever seen. You certainly can't argue that interest and participation in ops is on the wane. It appears that the message is getting out there.

Pedro_Bear

From the FBI Press Release linked above:

>The indictment charges the defendants with conspiring to launder money by paying users through the sites' uploader reward program and paying companies to host the infringing content.

Right then, the money laundering element is not directed at Dotcom per se, more a legal challenge to the way the reward scheme operated. Although it is almost definitely a tax dodge, could it be construed as laundering? I guess we'll find out.

>blah blah selectively complied with their obligations to remove copyrighted materials from their servers and deliberately misrepresented to copyright holders that they had removed infringing content blah blah

This is bollocks: they are blatantly claiming that the immediate suspension of content prior to later removal following confirmation of illegality (an action which benefits the complainee) constitutes conspiracy to keep the content live. This is nasty legal wrangling, branding a sensible, functioning report system which was extremely effective at removing illegal content from being accessed by all but the most determined and even then for a short window of opportunity as criminal deception.

>In addition, by actively supporting the use of third-party linking sites to publicize infringing content, the conspirators did not need to publicize 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.

Essentially, this part and the rest is a legal challenge to the whole concept of locker sites and the way users, uhh, use them.


Fuck.



This really is a test case for Web 2.0. YouTube and Blip must be shitting themselves, ditto Wikipedia. And if it comes right down to it, imagehosting sites are in the exact same position, ditto text-archives. CaB's search function is still "broken" I assume? A legal indication of guilt, apparently. Oh fuck: what is the legal status of amateur radio stations for the casting site?

So some servers in America hosted part of the site - how does that give a US court not only jurisdiction to shut the entire site down, but also have the owner arrested in New Zealand?

Because the United States already runs the world and they've had enough pretending it isn't the case.

Dusty Gozongas

megavideo.bz claiming to be a new incarnation although that has yet to be confirmed. I'd treat it with caution but it's a nice big grinning "Nyerrr" if it's legit.

Uncle TechTip

What was the reward scheme, because I was not aware of it until I read the indictment. Paying people to upload popular content seems a bit off. Any situation where money is exchanged for content is not justifiable in my view.

Dusty Gozongas

Currently not very coordinated... firing in all directions... but amazingly, fbi.gov has been brought down. That takes some firepower! Seems the hivemind is very angry indeed.

Pedro_Bear

Quote from: Uncle TechTip on January 20, 2012, 12:56:00 AM
What was the reward scheme, because I was not aware of it until I read the indictment.

It was mostly to earn Premium membership for free, or extend Premium accounts. I think Rapidshare originally started the concept.




Right then. We're compiling a list of SOPA/PIPA corporate sponsors elsewhere, and it's fucking massive already. While temporarily overloading a few servers with junk data is fun, it ain't going to change anything. Not like a co-ordinated boycott of selected PR-sensitive companies on that list might. Microsoft, EA and Sony Computer Entertainment have already withdrawn their support after being called out about it by consumers, so there's hope for any of them. What the flying fuck is the Fender Musical Instrument Company doing endorsing any of this, for example? There are some weird names on this list, and I recon we should start with them first when we're through compiling and checking.

Christ knows what anyone can do about ACTA, but we'll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.