Megaupload Shut Down, Employees Indicted

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ljbade said:
I've used rapidshare and megaupload plenty of times to transfer legitimate files around.

Interesting thing is that megaupload was not even run from the US... Company was registered in Hong Kong, run buy some Dutch living in New Zealand. Damn scary to think that the US have enough financial leverage on the world to arrest people in any country for whatever crime they see fit
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This. Megaupload was by FAR the easiest way to send huge chunks of photos, videos, etc to family members and friends. Attachment limits on email are a pain and facebook resizes them.
 
Mungojerrie said:
More horrifying is that the MPAA and the RIAA have so much influence.
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Horrifying but not much of a surprise. This is to be expected in an Inverted Totalitarian Kleptocracy such as the U.S.

If this was a country where the "representatives" within an ostensibly Representative Republic actually represented "we, the people" rather than big money corporate interests, this type of thing probably wouldn't happen. But we don't live in a functioning representative republic in any positive sense of that term. The federal police work for the interests of corporate power. Just like the bought and paid for politicians.

We either need to simply get used to it or join an aggressive social movement committed to changing things via peaceful direct action and civil disobedience campaigns.
 
beto said:
Horrifying but not much of a surprise. This is to be expected in an Inverted Totalitarian Kleptocracy such as the U.S.

If this was a country where the "representatives" within an ostensibly Representative Republic actually represented "we, the people" rather than big money corporate interests, this type of thing probably wouldn't happen. But we don't live in a functioning representative republic in any positive sense of that term. The federal police work for the interests of corporate power. Just like the bought and paid for politicians.

We either need to simply get used to it or join an aggressive social movement committed to changing things via peaceful direct action and civil disobedience campaigns.
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depressing :(
 
Mungojerrie said:
depressing :(
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It is a bit depressing to find out that the country you love and thought was a "democracy" actually isn't. I understand that. But it is also encouraging to really realize and understand what is actually happening around you and why. The truth does actually set you free. It gives you the knowledge and the ability to be truly hopeful and act in ways that can make a difference.

Most Americans have no idea. You can tell they don't because they are bound up in the sham of "elections" and arguing over which "better" (to their mind) candidate to vote for - a fools errand. It is a never ending death spiral where things get worse and worse for average people and yet they can't understand or figure it out.
 
beto said:
It is a bit depressing to find out that the country you love and thought was a "democracy" actually isn't. I understand that. But it is also encouraging to really realize and understand what is actually happening around you and why. The truth does actually set you free. It gives you the knowledge and the ability to be truly hopeful and act in ways that can make a difference.

Most Americans have no idea. You can tell they don't because they are bound up in the sham of "elections" and arguing over which "better" (to their mind) candidate to vote for - a fools errand. It is a never ending death spiral where things get worse and worse for average people and yet they can't understand or figure it out.
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I've been aware of this for a long time, but megavideo was my friend! :(
 
_PixelNinja said:
Regarding the dollars figures -- the following article pertains to SOPA and PIPA but it explains were all these companies and lobbies get their big numbers declared as their loss in revenue:

How Copyright Industries Con Congress
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Fascinating read. Like they say you can make statistics say what ever you want them to say,

The truth from that article:
Total loss to Hollywood from piracy = ~$500 million
Total loss to US economy = $0
 
As a side note, I think we could make a couple million selling the Statue of Liberty since we don't need it anymore.
 
ComputerBox34 said:
Anoynomous strikes back: http://gizmodo.com/5877679/anonymous-kills-department-of-justice-site-in-megaupload-revenge-strike
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Honestly? I really don't think Anon doing this is the best response. Not with SOPA/PIPA and whatever else the Gov't has up their collective sleeves (and corp. $$$$ in their pockets).

This could be just the thing for the supporters of these bills to go "see, see! We told you, we're here to protect you from the horrible, heinous monster hackers attacking at will."

Just my opinion. I get why they're going after the sites, I do. But it could backlash against all of us.

Now, the "Feds" shutting down Mega and Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz, and three other executives were arrested Thursday in New Zealand at the request of U.S. officials. Two other defendants are at large. What other 2 defendants?

What about Swizz Beatz who's the CEO? Why is he not named in the indictment? If it's a Hong Kong based company ... I guess we don't have an extradition agreement with China? but we do with NZ? I honestly didn't know we did.

This is far crazier than the U.K. case where they're extraditing him here.

So ok I'm sure Mega (and other sites) have stuff they shouldn't. I've had friends send me things via Mega and Rapidshare in the past and it was all legit, no piracy, bootlegs, nothing like that. Things like personal photos (decent ones, nothing nasty), a couple big site proposals when a friend had a fansite, things like that.

Time for anyone who has any kind of site for uploads/downloads to make sure they don't have ANY presence in the U.S., not servers, not nothing. But will that stop our gov't seeing as how many are "owned" by MPAA/RIAA? I don't at all like where any of this is heading. Being a bit older and having been a history buff, was an earlier than anyone I know adopter of having a home computer and internet (dial up of course) and just observing how much things have changed in this country, I've got to say I'm more than a little worried about the future of the internet as a whole.

Will the artists in the YT Mega video (and I did find the history of that interesting) step up to the plate and defend the company they sang and said they use and love?
 
Maybe... but considering that they have taken down Megaupload, they don't seem to need much to do whatever they want anyway.
 
braamer said:
Illegal immigrants cost us billions, but this administration has decided to turn a blind eye to that issue.
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Ummm...what? Obama has set records for deportation of illegal immigrants. I'm no fan of Obama, but that doesn't mean that I am OK with lies and distortions over his record. I'm also curious as to your assertion that illegal immigrants cost us billions. They aren't eligible for food stamps or welfare. They don't get tax refunds, and their contributions to Social Security don't accrue to them either. Frankly, I don't understand why you interjected anything to do with Obama and immigration into this discussion anyway. Seems utterly removed from any kind of relevance.
 
Jaerb4 said:
Megaupload had a record of failing to take down reported material or lying about it having been removed. On top of that, the branches Megavideo and Porn were literally 99% illegal material. If it's a bank where only illegal activity takes place, then you look into it.
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So you say. Where's the substantiation of your claims?
 
The Ox said:
So you say. Where's the substantiation of your claims?
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Read the indictment?

Like the Arstechnica article points out, the people defending Megaupload should realize that to them it has nothing to do with fair use or freedom of speech since they accused all of their competitors of doing the same thing, before this even happened. If those other sites had gone down first, Megaupload would've been a proponent of it.

Again, look at the indictment. Their whole business was built around tiptoeing a line and doing just enough to claim plausible deniability, and then charge a subscription fee to people for unlimited access to the pirated material that may or may not be removed.
 
I've breezed through the actual Indictment - thing is 72 pages long! They're going back to 2005 and appear to have a lot of emails, etc. along with the FBI d/l copyright materials. There's 6 pages of property subject to forfeiture alone in the indictment. They did "tiptoe" around the line, but some of the internal emails are damning; i.e. they not only knew but were asking for specific files. And the paying people to upload? oh boy, that's got to be asking for trouble. I was totally unaware of this "rewards" program. Then again, I never paid Mega a penny and I never uploaded or d/l anything (movie, etc.) from them.
 
Jaerb4 said:
Read the indictment?

Like the Arstechnica article points out, the people defending Megaupload should realize that to them it has nothing to do with fair use or freedom of speech since they accused all of their competitors of doing the same thing, before this even happened. If those other sites had gone down first, Megaupload would've been a proponent of it.

Again, look at the indictment. Their whole business was built around tiptoeing a line and doing just enough to claim plausible deniability, and then charge a subscription fee to people for unlimited access to the pirated material that may or may not be removed.
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They had A LOT of legitimate content. Heck, they had a music video from numerous artists singing about them. They took down copyrighted content after receiving a DMCA notice (even the indictment says that), but copyright owners were upset that somebody could just go and upload it again and the server didn't automatically block the new upload/link being generated.

A lot of custom Android ROMs from XDA-Developers were hosted on Megaupload as an example of content now missing that will probably affect people visiting this site.
 
Ualdayan said:
They had A LOT of legitimate content. Heck, they had a music video from numerous artists singing about them. They took down copyrighted content after receiving a DMCA notice (even the indictment says that), but copyright owners were upset that somebody could just go and upload it again and the server didn't automatically block the new upload/link being generated.

A lot of custom Android ROMs from XDA-Developers were hosted on Megaupload as an example of content now missing that will probably affect people visiting this site.
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Reading comprehension. I swear to god...

Megaupload employees apparently knew how the site was being used. When making payments through its “uploader rewards” program, employees sometimes looked through the material in those accounts first. "10+ Full popular DVD rips (split files), a few small porn movies, some software with keygenerators (warez)," said one of these notes. (The DMCA does not provide a "safe harbor" to sites who have actual knowledge of infringing material and do nothing about it.)

In a 2008 chat, one employee noted that "we have a funny business... modern days [sic] pirates :)," to which the reply was, "we're not pirates, we're just providing shipping servies [sic] to pirates :)."

Employees send each other e-mails saying things like, “can u pls get me some links to the series called ‘Seinfeld’ from MU [Megaupload]," since some employees did have access to a private internal search engine.

Employees even allegedly uploaded content themselves, such as a BBC Earth episode uploaded in 2008.

Other messages appear to indicate that employees knew how important copyrighted content was to their business. Content owners had a specific number of takedown requests they could make each day; in 2009, for instance, Time Warner was allowed to use the abuse tool to remove 2,500 links per day. When the company requested an increase, one employee suggested that "we can afford to be cooperative at current growth levels"— implying that if growth had not been so robust, takedowns should be limited. Kim Dotcom approved an increase to 5,000 takedowns a day.

Employees also had access to analytics. One report showed that a specific linking site had “produce[d] 164,214 visits to Megaupload for a download of the copyrighted CD/DVD burning software package Nero Suite 10. The software package had the suggested retail price of $99.” The government's conclusion: Megaupload knew what was happening and did little to stop it.
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You have a pawn shop that sells both legal and illegal firearms, and claims ignorance of the illegal firearms so they can't be held accountable for selling them. Then you have a tape recording of them talking about all the illegal guns they're selling and how it's helping their business. What should the response be?
 
ljbade said:
Fascinating read. Like they say you can make statistics say what ever you want them to say,

The truth from that article:
Total loss to Hollywood from piracy = ~$500 million
Total loss to US economy = $0
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Actually, their loss is the 20% of those 500millions, since from what the article said only 20% of the people who pirated would have otherwise bought the actual item.

So 100million US$ and 0 :p
 
ditzilla said:
I've breezed through the actual Indictment - thing is 72 pages long! They're going back to 2005 and appear to have a lot of emails, etc. along with the FBI d/l copyright materials. There's 6 pages of property subject to forfeiture alone in the indictment. They did "tiptoe" around the line, but some of the internal emails are damning; i.e. they not only knew but were asking for specific files. And the paying people to upload? oh boy, that's got to be asking for trouble. I was totally unaware of this "rewards" program. Then again, I never paid Mega a penny and I never uploaded or d/l anything (movie, etc.) from them.
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That is pretty damning. But what about the places that don't partake in that kind of blatant tiptoeing? Can't you host a hosting site that doesn't care about what you upload so long as it gets the ad clicks? Ofc, if they receive a letter to take something down they do so. But what if it's encrypted and/or mislabeled? It's just hard to fathom why a site would have to go through loops to rid itself of illegally hosted copyright material on the intarwebs, it's pretty difficult to do that unless you've got people actively downloading those files and viewing them. I'm not exactly an internoob and I've never heard of anyone even downloading movies/games/music or anything copyrighted off Mega anyway. Maybe that's just me? If those internal emails are correct though it would seem they were targeting revenue thru hosting illegal material, but what about those that don't? Just weird.
 
The Ox said:
I'm also curious as to your assertion that illegal immigrants cost us billions. They aren't eligible for food stamps or welfare. They don't get tax refunds, and their contributions to Social Security don't accrue to them either.
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Off topic, sorry guys.

Just so we can get you back on the right track.

Believe it or not, illegals get incarcerated and we pay the jail bill and deportation costs....if that ever happens.

Here in Illinois an illegal mother can have a child in any hospital and the state pays for the child birth. Not only that, but the child of illegal immigrants gets healthcare until its 18 years old and the mother is covered while caring for the child until a certain amount of time.

Speaking of hospital bills, a hospital cannot turn anyone away when in need and illegals DO get sick.

Although there is probably many more ways illegals cost us money, these examples should suffice in order to reach a billion or 2 mark.

I highly doubt they contribute to SS either. Very few do with fake papers.

Back on topic and my wine.
 
I really want to know how they come upo with these numbers. The riaa sued a lady millions for 6 songs these morons are saying they lost 500 million in lost revinue well last time i checked music artist are still millionaires movie starts still have millions record producers have there millions. I havent seen a movie theater shut down in ages think last one was a drive in theater in my area was in the mid 90's we still have 4 theaters with 13+ screens and a few more with 2-3 screens. I think ive got 3 best buys 4 fye stores within a 20 mile radius of me 4 walmarts 8-10 mom and pop music shops. these people arent missing any money they just every dam penny they can get and spit out retarded numbers in lost revinue so it will get headline news. I beleive that if hollywood would stop being so dam jewish and help lower the cost of a movie ticket there may not be less pirating but people would be more apt to actually go see the movie. My last movie was the last resident evil was me and abourt 5 friends
so you figure $13 a person so thats $78 for tickets and some plastic 3d glasses that your not even suppost to keep but ive them back
say we shared 2 large popcorns theres another $20 bucks
I drink alot and so do my firned so 6 large sodas $48
we each got a candy or 2 or maybe some nachos say another $30
So hollywood would you rather spend $175to go have a night at the movies or buy the pirated copy for 5 bucks and spend 20 at the corner store and have fun at home with your friends
 
Revdarian said:
Actually, their loss is the 20% of those 500millions, since from what the article said only 20% of the people who pirated would have otherwise bought the actual item.

So 100million US$ and 0 :p
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I actually think 20% is a pretty high estimate.

Probably more like 5%.
 
Sucks, I used Mega to share home videos, pictures and other stuff with family in Germany. Oh well, another service down, maybe I should adopt Dropbox.
 
Saw this on Reddit. Good summary of the events leading up to this.



"Early 2011" - "The FBI contacted New Zealand Police in early 2011 with a request to assist with their investigation into the Mega Conspiracy." said Detective Inspector Grant Wormald of OFCANZ
28-OCT-2011 - MegaUpload labelled a 'rogue' site by MPAA.
09-DEC-2011 - MegaUpload releases a music video with RIAA artists endorsing MegaUpload.
10-DEC-2011 - UMG doesn't like the video. Has it removed from YouTube.
12-DEC-2011 - MegaUpload files suit against UMG on the grounds that UMG cannot remove the content as MegaUpload holds the copyright, not UMG.
16-DEC-2011 - UMG says "So what? We can take down whatever we want!" and "You can't touch us. This isn't DMCA. We didn't take it down because of copyright. We took it down because we can."
21-DEC-2011 - MegaUpload labelled a "rogue" site by the USTR.
28-DEC-2011 - MegaUpload wants an explaination from UMG.
19-JAN-2012 - MegaUpload shut down by Feds
20-JAN-2012 - New Zealand arrests in US led global copyright infringement investigation of Megaupload.com and related sites.
Here is the indictment.
 
I just don't know what to say anymore.. This copyright bullshit is just going way too far and is way too abused. It pisses me off to hear what they're getting away with. I wish nothing but hell to these companies.

I just hope that all their shit is going to somehow backfire at some point. I really think the artists need to revolt against them somehow. Without the artists, these companies would be dead. It's time for artist's to take their art back, and actually own it. Instead of being treated like a product.
 
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