[UPDATE] Feds Take Down Megaupload

[GiantRaven]

I find it absolutely hilarious that a bunch of people are complaining that megaupload could be used legally whilst the overwhelming majority of people talking about actually using it were using it for piracy purposes.

 

[Sandytimeman]

Hmmm went to the megaupload IP malware bytes blocked the site from loading? Is it really malicious site? or is MALware in on the Megaupload conspiracy?

 

[JoaoJatoba]

I find it absolutely hilarious that a bunch of people are complaining that megaupload could be used legally whilst the overwhelming majority of people talking about actually using it were using it for piracy purposes.

The subject is more complex than it seems. The matter of Liability of Internet Service Providers is a nasty one. See, Megaupload provides a service that is used partially to perpetrate copyright infringement acts...

The liability for copyright infringement rests on three theories- direct, vicarious and contributory infringement. Direct infringement occurs when a person violates any exclusive right of the copyright owner. Vicarious liability arises when a person fails to prevent infringement when he can and has a right to do so and is directly benefited by such infringement. These two theories are based on the strict liability principle and a person will be liable without any regard to his mental state or intention. Contributory liability arises when a person participates in the act of direct infringement and has knowledge of the infringing activity. The question arises as to which standard should be applied in order to fix the responsibility of service providers. http://www.legalservicesindia.com/articles/isp_in_us.htm

U.S. Courts impose liability on the service providers depending upon the degree of control and knowledge of the infringing activity. The questions are, first, did megaupload know about the copyright infringements and, knowing, had it substantially participated on the act? Second, megaupload had the power and right to take control, and did it DIRECTLY profit from the infringement act?

The profit from Megaupload comes from the Premium Accounts, so direct profit is out of the table. And it has the right and power to take control (Terms of User of Megaupload), so whenever a complaint was made the URL was taken down, thus safeguarding the site from Substantial participation. The acknowledgement of illegal acts it's a grey area, cause despite of the files names, one must access the files to make sure of its content, so you could say the provider didn't know until a complaint is issued.

I shall read more of the Indictment for further information...

Anyway, MegaUpload carried a huge amount of non-infringing content, and all content has now been seized, leaving "legal" users without their data. (http://torrentfreak.com/feds-please-return-my-personal-files-megaupload-120120/)

 

[Primus1985]

Man this is whats wrong with this country. Now I'll admit, Ive downloaded more than a few movies and watched a good chunk of TV shows on Mega sites, but to try and bust them like their running a crack house or something is just nonsense.

First off, TV shows only generate revenue through ads, which anyone that goes to a file sharing site will tell you ads come at you everytime you click something. Second, when you can go to a Kiosk at 7-11 and get a movie that took I dont know 20 million(conservative) to make and only pay $1 for it, I really dont see the need to harass sites like the Mega's.


I swear to God, Buddha, and whoever else I can think of if a Republican is elected Im outta here, the country will go right in the crapper and turn into a police state. Im gonna move to Tokyo.

 

[maddog015]

I swear to God, Buddha, and whoever else I can think of if a Republican is elected Im outta here, the country will go right in the crapper and turn into a police state. Im gonna move to Tokyo.

I think it's going to turn into a police state no matter who's in office.

OT: So, they shutdown Megaupload, but what about all the other cloud/file sharing services? Those are perfectly legit?

 

[Awexsome]

I swear to God, Buddha, and whoever else I can think of if a Republican is elected Im outta here, the country will go right in the crapper and turn into a police state. Im gonna move to Tokyo.

I think it's going to turn into a police state no matter who's in office.

OT: So, they shutdown Megaupload, but what about all the other cloud/file sharing services? Those are perfectly legit?

So long as they aren't charged with the stuff Megaupload was, yes.

The thing that Mega did to itself was promoting and benefiting off the piracy. The charges aren't just for copyright infringement but money laundering, conspiracy, and racketeering.

 

[Beliyal]

LAND OF THE FREE!

HOME OF THE BRAVE!!!


Aren't you just so proud of your country Americans?

I think this version is more appropriate:


(Note: I actually like Jason's later work, such as in Black Knight, more than Roger's. I also thought he did a good job with Shadow, but... everyone else there is just terrible. And I'm pretty sure half of them aren't even pseudo-American. So it's even more appropriate, actually.)

Sadly, this one is currently the most appropriate:


I think all this about Megaupload is currently under too much attention (mostly because of SOPA, they chose the worst time to do this (or deliberately chose it to showcase how SOPA could "improve"... whatever?)) and I don't really know what's true and what's not anymore. There's a lot of assumptions and charges and anti-SOPA sentiments, but we won't really know anything for certain until there's a proper investigation (of Megaupload case specifically).

However, I don't think this is a good sign.

 

[Sandytimeman]

Hey umm actually would like to point out that...that link to megauploads. It installs Anon's DDOS program on your comp unless you have a good malware blocker. XD Just...uhh thought you might want to know.

 

[silversnake4133]

Hmm, yeah I can see why we should be ashamed of ourselves. Why would we ever think about stealing from these poor, innocent people?


Man, these entertainment corporations pretty much steal from the original creators of the content anyway, and now that the Internet has become such a powerful tool of the people, they're all up in arms about how they're losing money? Huh, the world we live in today.

 

[Wintermoot]

just HOW does the US have jurisdiction outside their country?
as far as I know the internet has no leader/owner meaning nobody has jurisdiction on it (except for admins).
it,s like the Dutch government catching Texans for owning weapons.

 

[TomLikesGuitar]

According to reports, charges have been laid against seven Megaupload employees - four of which

four of whom* lol

But seriously, how do they get away with this? Megaupload is nowhere near the worst offender.

 

[TheDooD]

snip

It's true they don't want people make massive money of the net. Hell there's so many highly skilled guys that if they would team up would completely dominate in their field of expertise. These old rich crocs don't want the little man to come up and gain their own wealth, so they'll try anything and everything to keep them down.

 

[sindremaster]

... I just think it's awesome there's actually a site called Megaporn.

 

[silversnake4133]

snip

It's true they don't want people make massive money of the net. Hell there's so many highly skilled guys that if they would team up would completely dominate in their field of expertise. These old rich crocs don't want the little man to come up and gain their own wealth, so they'll try anything and everything to keep them down.

Exactly. It makes me wonder if those Congressmen have ever seen the movie "War Games".

 

[Mechanix]

Megaupload taken down? That's a shame.

Megavideo? Oh well.

Megapix? Didn't use it anyway.

Megabox? Meh, could be worse.

Megaporn? GRAB YOUR PITCHFORKS MEN, WE'RE GOING TO WASHINGTON!

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

The USA is a godamn bully and I'm ashamed to be an American. Look at the list of people arrested, none of them were US citizens and the site wasn't hosted on US soil.

Today I'm going to strike my one teensy tiny futile action against big content. I will not ever listen to Pandora again because the music companies make money off of each song they play. I was a subscriber in the past and I would be again in the future but not anymore.

I will not purchase any DVDs or Blu Rays as gifts anymore except used so the media companies don't get a dime. I will not see a single movie in the theater this year, unless the production company is not a member of the MPAA AND the movie is not rated by the MPAA.

Not that I spent a lot on this stuff before but it wasn't 0. Now it will be.

 

[shiajun]

Damn, they're slow.

I thought law enforcement agencies had "street smarts". Guess not.

Hmmm, well I think people are overlooking the important bit here in their interest to make this into a piracy/copyrights case... on both sides of the fence of copyrights issues.

One of the charges brought here is money laundering. There aren't any details here as to what was being done exactly, but that's probably why there are actually arrests being made despite what it's being dressed up as. Chances are some kind of money trail was found which went back to the "mega" family of digital services, now we're seeing a bust, and people both politicians and those interested in copyrights are trying to make this into something it's not.

See, for money laundering to be involved in connection to these charges it's likely we're not dealing with your typical first world piracy where no money is being made off the media by the pirates and the concerns are entirely about lost sales.

While pure speculation on my part, I'd imagine what happened was that the specific guys who got busted were charging money for copyrighted material at least out of the pubic eye, with this being covered as part of the megaupload business... specifically so criminals with stolen money could spend a ton of it through Megaupload as a filter and were then given the majority of that money (sans a fee) back in order to "clean it" as far as the trail goes. Basically trying to use the crimes of cash for content pirates, as a cover for a bigger crime, assuming nobody was going to actually go after Megaupload since they hadn't done so already.... it's impossible to say yet, but if we ever find out the details it's probably going to be something along these lines. I'm no expert on money laundering so I can't tell you how it would work exactly... but going by the charges, there is obviously something going on there.


Given that the CEO was not busted it seems likely this was something going on within his organization, not nessicarly involving him or what he was already getting attention for. It not being an actual "copyright bust" despites what the industry might want to believe means that he's not really on the radar since all contreversy aside, he never did anything that they feel they can prosecute him for.

Or in short (as I said to begin with) it's a money laundering case, and legally speaking there probably won't be anything more to it than that. The other charges are just dressing, when someone gets arrested IRL every possible charge that can be remotely associated with what someone did is usually thrown at them. In the end a lot of that is going to be thrown out, and probably wouldn't work anyway, but given one good charge the rest of the stuff sounds good and helps set high bails to keep someone in custody. That's a big deal especially in a money laundering case because the people that do that usually have tons of money and the authorities want an unreachable bail because if these guys can get out of custody there is a decent chance they are going to flee somewhere without an extradition treaty. You can't freeze hidden assets and that's what this kind of crime usually comes down to, they probably got caught on one trail, but a decent money laundering operation probably had a lot of money going through it with the guy(s) running it stashing a cut from each transaction.

Thank you! It took several pages of posts, but I finally got to someone who also sees that the other charges are quite more severe than copyright infringement and are more likely the cause of this mess. However, I still have a very uneasy feeling of the United States seizing assests in other countries, run by people who aren't US citizens. Since the press releases don't seem to mention other police agencies involved in the raid it seems like an extreme violation of international law. Also, I'm still wondering what happens with the money lost by all those users who paid for a legitimate use of the service that was essentially obliterated due to some unsavory use by some of its employees. I'm also sure that this took court orders, and why removing such a provision with SOPA is not a good idea.

EDIT: some mixed info I'm getting. While Megaupload was based in Hong Kong, where the servers in the US or not? If in the US, maybe the jurisdiction is in place, but still iffy. If not....WTF? Also, the data on the servers is not all illegal and at the moment people don't have access to their rightful property. Is that even legal in the US?