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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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biggytitbo

QuoteYouTube 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?


All those things are just different front ends to functionality that is inherent to the Internet itself. Unless they really do insert controls into the very infrastructure of the net, taking down individual sites will have no long term effect on what they claim to be trying to stop.

HappyTree

States want to control the people. The people don't want to be controlled. The only way to successfully control the people is to convince them that they are not being controlled. They got greedy.

biggytitbo

The difference between this and previous attempts to control and monopolise knowledge is that this time they're not in possession of all the keys to power. If this does turn into a fully fledged war between the state as corporate proxy and the internet as tool of the people then we do have lots of effective ways of fighting back.


The worry is that if the war escalates than we are likely to face many more pieces of stupid, bad, malign legislation and then the subsequent counter attacks which will have the collective effect of crippling the Internet for everyone.


With no side able to claim any meaningful victory, we might be entering a kind of 'cold war' period of the web.

Jamie Oliver is fat

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 may be wrong, but isn't downloading copyrighted stuff not actually illegal in the UK? Only uploading is, I think.

Quote from: biggytitbo on January 19, 2012, 10:31:06 PM
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?

I think it's probably just as easy technically, it will come down to how the data is stored and then provided. Ultimately, a torrent or an HTTP download will both record the IP address of the downloader/uploader, though there are various ways of making it hard/impossible to identify yourself, but in my experience, it renders really fast broadband connections a waste of money if you use VPNs and public Proxys

Jamie Oliver is fat

QuoteJust a few weeks ago, MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom told TorrentFreak that his Mega ventures have nothing to worry about, as they operate within the rules of the law.

"Mega has nothing to fear. Our business is legitimate and protected by the DMCA and similar laws around the world. We work with the best lawyers and play by the rules.

"We take our legal obligations seriously. Mega's war chest is full and we have strong supporters backing us," Dotcom said.

QuoteThe authorities seized approximately $50 million in assets, which appears to include Kim Dotcom's treasured collection of several dozen cars, as detailed below.




jutl

Quote from: Neil on January 20, 2012, 10:04:22 AM
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/why-the-feds-smashed-megaupload.ars

Good article.  Predator statue, indeed.

If the quotes from internal emails in that article are real then this would seem to have been an entirely legitimate takedown.


BlodwynPig

Quote from: jutl on January 20, 2012, 10:15:56 AM
If the quotes from internal emails in that article are real then this would seem to have been an entirely legitimate takedown.

You mean "CEO""GUILTY""MAFIA""STONED"

Neil

I guess so, jutl, yes. The statement about being able to afford more takedown requests is particularly damning, and makes it clear they expanded by knowingly serving piracy.

jutl

Quote from: Neil on January 20, 2012, 10:24:58 AM
I guess so, jutl, yes. The statement about being able to afford more takedown requests is particularly damning, and makes it clear they expanded by knowingly serving piracy.

Yup... and it does mean that this can't really be seen as any kind of new extension of 'control of the internet', unless you consider the 13 year old DMCA to be new. Personally I'm surprised they made so much money. Their bandwidth bill must have been huge and I'd always assumed few people would actually sign up for an account.

Neil

Fifty quid from the CaB annual sales went into buying another two years of hosting for the CaB Radio shows, and some of my Chris Morris captures.


Uncle TechTip

Quote from: jutl on January 20, 2012, 10:28:32 AM
Personally I'm surprised they made so much money. Their bandwidth bill must have been huge and I'd always assumed few people would actually sign up for an account.

I know many more people who paid for a rapidshare account rather than megaupload. So if the numbers for mega here are true then Rapidshare must be making squillions. However they always seem a bit more diligent over takedowns.

It's a sad day really, I bet there's a load of excellent vinyl rips from music blogs which have all just disappeared into the ether. All from discs which have no commercial value and will never be re-promoted by their record company.

jutl

Quote from: Uncle TechTip on January 20, 2012, 10:56:29 AMIt's a sad day really, I bet there's a load of excellent vinyl rips from music blogs which have all just disappeared into the ether. All from discs which have no commercial value and will never be re-promoted by their record company.

That is a real problem, but the way to deal with it is genuine copyright reform, not ignoring the useless aspects of the old law.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: jutl on January 20, 2012, 11:05:37 AM
That is a real problem, but the way to deal with it is genuine copyright reform, not ignoring the useless aspects of the old law.

That reminds me, I meant to post in another thread that in the American Supreme Court, there's just been a ruling that work in the public domain can be copyrighted again:

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120119public
http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2012/january-/law-makers-legitimately-brought-public-domain-works-into-copyright-us-court-rules/

HappyTree

"This criminal case, more than two years in development, shows that law enforcement can take strong action..."

jutl

Quote from: Ignatius_S on January 20, 2012, 11:10:35 AM
That reminds me, I meant to post in another thread that in the American Supreme Court, there's just been a ruling that work in the public domain can be copyrighted again:

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2012/120119public
http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2012/january-/law-makers-legitimately-brought-public-domain-works-into-copyright-us-court-rules/

It's not so much that works in the public domain can be copyright again, it's that works which gained protection as a result of one-off international copyright harmonisation should actually be protected. There are sound reasons why an author's local copyright regime should determine protection duration, and this is a way of achieving that. Ideally the copyright regime should be sane and apply globally.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: jutl on January 20, 2012, 11:59:58 AM
It's not so much that works in the public domain can be copyright again, it's that works which gained protection as a result of one-off international copyright harmonisation should actually be protected. There are sound reasons why an author's local copyright regime should determine protection duration, and this is a way of achieving that. Ideally the copyright regime should be sane and apply globally.

In some cases, the reason why work was in the American public domain certainly can't be said to be fair – e.g. when the work was produced there was no agreement with the artist's country or sound recording copyright – with others, it's more debatable.  A major reason why the agreement was first reached was the American creative industries argued that a quid pro quo arrangement was needed in order to protect their commercial interests. As you say, there are excellent reasons why the author's local copyright regime should influence protection duration, but there was inevitably a lot of horse trading.

The legal challenge was being argued on the claim that once something enters the public domain, it can't later be removed from it. The Supreme Court has obviously ruled otherwise. The precedent has been set and the US government has been reported as saying that Congress is perfectly able to remove work from the public domain, so arguably this will extend further than the 1994 law.

jutl

Quote from: Ignatius_S on January 20, 2012, 01:09:53 PMThe legal challenge was being argued on the claim that once something enters the public domain, it can't later be removed from it.

Exactly, and as you acknowledge in your first sentence, that's an unreasonably broad basis of argument.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: jutl on January 20, 2012, 01:24:12 PM
Exactly, and as you acknowledge in your first sentence, that's an unreasonably broad basis of argument.

Quote from: jutl on January 20, 2012, 01:24:12 PM
Exactly, and as you acknowledge in your first sentence, that's an unreasonably broad basis of argument.

Well, there was a little more to do with it, such as an argument that Congress had improperly extended its remit over copyright, but the main argument would be overly dogmatic and sweeping to the vast majority of people, I'm sure.

Personally, what I think would have been (and still would be) more constructive is examining and discussing what is the public domain, how it should be best protected, how it can be altered etc. There are plenty of grey areas at the moment (this has particularly affected old-time radio, which I'm keenly interested in) and it seems when there has been an impact of the public domain, it's the removal of work – usually because of fear and legal uncertainty – with OTR it's often through personality and trademark rights, which I believe do not actually remove shows from the public domain.


thugler

Isn't this completely pointless and just another show case. There's loads of sites like this, several are far better in fact. They aren't going to stop them all, so why bother? If one of these sites is not hosted in the us they are going to be fine right?

Mega upload was just a poor mans rapidshare, which I would've though was far larger.

jutl

Quote from: thugler on January 20, 2012, 04:04:47 PM
Isn't this completely pointless and just another show case. There's loads of sites like this, several are far better in fact. They aren't going to stop them all, so why bother?

Why bother enforcing any law unless you can catch all that break it?

QuoteIf one of these sites is not hosted in the us they are going to be fine right?

Probably not... even if SOPA/PIPA go unimplemented, the drill established in TPB/Wikileaks operations has been pretty effective in killing non-US sites that break US law.

Dusty Gozongas

Quote from: jutl on January 20, 2012, 04:14:26 PMProbably not... even if SOPA/PIPA go unimplemented, the drill established in TPB/Wikileaks operations has been pretty effective in killing non-US sites that break US law.

The pendulum swings this way and that. When all's said and done, the scatter-gun reaction has been interestingly strong and I wonder what would be unleashed if SOPA/PIPA (under whatever sexy acronym) were to go ahead. It's obvious that with every "TPB/Wikileaks operation" support for responsive action is growing.

biggytitbo

There are so many of these sites because all they are is a front end for a remote hard drive. They can make a big deal of shutting down individual sites, but it will make absolutely no discernible difference in piracy levels.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Theyre wasting their time arent they? Its a new culture, time to just embrace it rather than swimming against the tide. They could still make a shitload of money.

Still Not George

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on January 20, 2012, 06:42:37 PM
Theyre wasting their time arent they? Its a new culture, time to just embrace it rather than swimming against the tide. They could still make a shitload of money.
They're used to making all the money. People like that don't give up their rackets easily.

biggytitbo

If they stopped trying to use the law to protect their busted business models and actually embraced it they really could make a lot of money. Give the customers the product they want, in the format they want, via the method they want and at a decent price and people will pay.


I think we'll look back on this in a few decades, when the big media companies have finally been forced to see sense,  as a total and utter waste of everyone's time.

jutl

Quote from: biggytitbo on January 20, 2012, 06:49:08 PM
If they stopped trying to use the law to protect their busted business models and actually embraced it they really could make a lot of money. Give the customers the product they want, in the format they want, via the method they want and at a decent price and people will pay.

While I agree that that's what they need to do, the present law doesn't prevent that in any way, and something very like the present law will still be needed to pursue those who wont even pay a 'decent price'.

Zetetic

Quote from: jutl on January 20, 2012, 04:14:26 PM
Probably not... even if SOPA/PIPA go unimplemented, the drill established in TPB/Wikileaks operations has been pretty effective in killing non-US sites that break US law.
Has it? TPB's managed to keep going fine in my experience.

Wikileaks has suffered more, but that's basically nothing to do with web access and much more to do with funding; and even that's really only problematic because of various dubious costs that could mostly be avoided. (Edit: That's not the only problem with the organisation, but the problem remains the shower of bickering cunts rather than any kind technical measures against their internet presence.)

I don't see that this takedown says much about anything related to the future of the Internet. It was a trivial target, intended to turn a significant profit from copyright infringement, hosted in and operated from the United States and close allies. Oh, and they tried to use it to clean dirty money. There are lessons to take from this, but only if you intend to profit from money laundering and naturally rely on luck rather than precautions. I can't see anything wrong with jutl's reading of the situation.