[UPDATE] Feds Take Down Megaupload

[maninahat]

Haha! Yes! Finally some god damn consequences against those who actually deserve it in this whole piracy thing. Stop going after freaking google and youtube and go after sites like this!

Your joking right? If they can set precedent laws with this youtube could well be next with all the anime and music content on there...

No slippery slope bullshit that was actually a threat with SOPA. This is a single takedown of a single site giving blatant disregard for piracy laws and, with this new revelation, was actually encouraging it and giving out benefits to their users for doing it.

There is a distinct difference between MegaUpload's objective and Youtube's. Youtube actually gives a fuck about enforcing piracy laws. Megaupload encouraged breaking it.

Can you stop your corporate bullshitting?

Its obvious that this is a reaction of Megauploads fight against SOPA, not to mention that they planned a new model of down loading music, that would have evaded the big companys and actually got most profits to the singer, instead of the usual rather small slice they get.

Megaupload, just like youtube, always deleted illegal content, every upload, that was found and reported, was taken down. Claiming that the reward system would just have been used by pirates is just dumb as hell, there was a ton of free games, videos, gamemods, pictures and music on those servers, actually a good way for some young and upstarting musician to get viewmoney from youtube aswell as downloadmoney from megaupload.

So instead of puking out Fox News, you should maybe use your head for more than just wearing a hat.

You'd be fooling yourself if you thought Megaupload does a good job of preventing illegal content. Though you'll find lots of copywrite breaching material uploaded onto youtube, youtube makes far more effort to take that stuff down, whereas megaupload tends to act only if something is reported (and one can hardly expect pirates to be doing any reporting in the first place).

And no, I don't see how it is "obvious" that this is tied to SOPA, beyond the timing. The guy you're wailing on is not some corporate shill. He just dislikes piracy, like honest people should.

 

[Dastardly]

OP: So the U.S. is playing international bully for the music and movie industry again. Wonderful.

In fairness, nearly every interaction I've witnessed with the Mega- sites has been people getting hold of protected content. In fact, I can't think of a single example that I've seen of someone using it legitimately. So, I'm not losing any sleep over Megaupload.

What I don't like is that they're choosing this moment to test the waters. They're picking an easy target, one that a lot of people could agree sort of "deserves it," and they're striking right when the most people are watching. If this sticks, it will make them bolder.

 

[Beryl77]

Haha! Yes! Finally some god damn consequences against those who actually deserve it in this whole piracy thing. Stop going after freaking google and youtube and go after sites like this!

What about the millions that used these sites for perfectly legal means? The type of people that far outweighed the pirates?

It could be said that megaupload should have thought of that themselves, before they allowed all the illegal stuff to incriminate their business.

People use postal service for crime! Close it all down!
Criminals use cars to escape from crimesceense, or kill other people with them! Destroy all the cars and sue the car manufacturers for not taking better care!
Terrorists use planes to terrorize people! Blow up all the airplanes and imprison everyone who works for the airlines!
Do I have to go on?

This is NEVER an excuse for something like this. Megaupload was never intendet for piracy. They delete illegal files, just like Youtube for example. But do you have any idea of the amount of data that people upload there daily? NO ONE has the manpower to check every. single. file.

Also, could you give me the source for your claim that they "allowed" it to happen?

 

[Hugga_Bear]

What's the point of trying to legalize a massive takedown like this if they're going to do it anyway? I mean, why even bother with the pretense of legitimacy at this point?

Plan A failed, this is plan B. Also known as "fuck legality, do it anyway".
Anon have made their response (and are still making it). Various groups are quick to throw their support behind them and there are rumours of something darker stirring in the deeps.

They really shouldn't have done that.

Seriously though this could escalate. A fool move, whoever chose now to do this is a bleeding moron, half the damned internet is up in arms over SOPA and just as they start beating it back you choose to try and carry its policies through anyway? Can you say "bad move"?
Not to even mention the damned indictments. All they've done is give support to their opposition, Anons had a plan for this in the works for some time, they enact it now and everyone jumps behind them. Whatever I feel (and I back Anonymous on this one) it's a fucking fool move on the side of the government.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

Megaupload's side projects, Megavideo, Megapix, Megabox, and yes, even Megaporn have all been taken down as well.

 

[XMark]

Just to clarify, the mega upload employees live in New Zealand?
Just another example of The American Government's Cultural imperialism; they have to impose their national laws on the rest of the world.

Haven't you heard? The US can go and take any country's citizen that they want and we just have to bend over and take it. Look up Marc Emery.

 

[Callate]

Um, I'm pretty sure we already did this loop of the circuit with VCRs. And the courts said, "You don't get to destroy a technology just because it can be used illegally when it has perfectly legitimate uses." Do you think this is going to turn out differently?

I wish the Feds would stop thinking they're all Elliot Ness...

 

[Laser Priest]

SO IT BEGINS.

But yeah, if any of you would like to lead a violent revolution, I will gladly provide you with legions of the undead.

 

[LZeroK]

Accusations =/= Proof.


Just throwing that out there.

Exactly, but it seems like we have someone to think otherwise.

I'm not going to say who... *cough*Awexsome*cough*

 

[gyroscopeboy]

After yesterday I get the feeling this is going to get messy real fast. You have to consider just how much stuff on there WASN'T illegal and they just locked it all down in the blink of an eye. Plenty of people are not going to be happy with this.

Yep. To get at some suspected pirates, they shut down an entire site that's chock full of people using it for perfectly legal means.

Fucking unreal.

And I'm willing to be a good chunk of people downloading those suspected copyright infringing material were doing so because it wasn't available in their region. Quite a bit of people use Megavideo to watch TV shows/movies that aren't available in their country.

I actually watched the whole first season of Archer on there because it wasn't out in Australia!

 

[Hitchmeister]

To the people who keep asking, "If they can do this, why do they need SOPA?" They had to convince a grand jury to go along with this travesty. With SOPA, that little detail gets thrown out and they can do it lots more. SOPA lets them shut down sites, and if that's inconvenient, break the whole internet, just anytime anyone claims a copyright they hold has been infringed. Proof of owning the copyright and/or any infringement comes later.

Oh and, "Well they wouldn't actually run wild with the abuse of power SOPA would grant them, so people needn't get so upset." Yeah, right.

 

[samsonguy920]

This little quote just makes me shake my head.

"The fact is that the vast majority of Mega's Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay. If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch."

It's the same as Clinton saying he tried marijuana but didn't inhale, or a girl being almost pregnant. You don't erase the illegality by being mostly legitimate. If that was true none of the mafia gangs would have ever been touched by the Feds.
If you can't police your own house, someone else will with worse consequences. Trying to act like you were mostly legit doesn't cut the cake. You are either all legit, or you are not.

My university backup.....my programs source code backups....gone.... I suppose it's a good thing i have 2 other back up locations but i feel sorry for any people who don't.

Anyone else think the "Justice" department are only doing this to show that even without SOPA, they can still take sites down?

Sucks to be you, then, using a third party site for important backups. Cloud filing has its benefits, but it would cost you about the same amount in the long run to get a flash drive or an external HD for further backup.
And, yes, the Justice Department can always do this, legitimately. SOPA would have taken away all that annoying bullshit like search warrants and due process.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I've said it before, but as the above guy touches on, so much piracy is TV and movies that just aren't available.

You can go 'first world problems' at me, and say we're being overprivileged, and that's a fair comment.

However, my point is, if the big corps pulled their finger out and stuck everything on itunes, DRM free, on the day of release, for a reasonable price, there's a huge percentage of people who are currently pirating that would happily pay.

Piracy isn't always about the money, sometimes it's the only way to get access to viewing content, until you can go out and buy the box set maybe 6 months later, and fans WILL buy it.

I remember going into HMV about 15 years ago, and seeing 'imported' CDs at vastly inflated prices, stuff just not available in the UK. There's no excuse for that now we're a connected world thru the internet, but the big business guys STILL want to lock down countries and set seperate prices and release dates.

If you've got avid fans of say, Disney movies, and you've decided the UK doesn't get, say, Toy Story 4 for six months after the US release, sure it's 'illegal', but can you really blame them for heading off to the torrents to see what they want to see? Knowing that they'll be in the cinema to watch it again, and then they'll be buying the blu ray special edition?

I maintain that the corps aren't even desperate for cash so much as they're desperate for CONTROL. They want it to be the 80s again, and a world where people had to come to them, pay exactly what was demanded for what was offered, when they wanted to offer it, and no-one had any other options.

It's not the 80s any more.

Evolve or die.

 

[maninahat]

snip

People use postal service for crime! Close it all down!
Criminals use cars to escape from crimesceense, or kill other people with them! Destroy all the cars and sue the car manufacturers for not taking better care!
Terrorists use planes to terrorize people! Blow up all the airplanes and imprison everyone who works for the airlines!
Do I have to go on?

This is NEVER an excuse for something like this. Megaupload was never intendet for piracy. They delete illegal files, just like Youtube for example. But do you have any idea of the amount of data that people upload there daily? NO ONE has the manpower to check every. single. file.

Also, could you give me the source for your claim that they "allowed" it to happen?

"Allow" probably isn't the correct term. Concede, maybe? As in they did a poor job of preventing pirated files (the site is festooned with them). Of course it is very difficult to stop pirating, but it seems to me that if you are going to start a file sharing webservice, or a video service like youtube, policing is a responsibility you have to accept, along with the consequences for failing to live up to that big responsibility. Youtube is in the same boat, and often regularly criticised for failing to prevent copywrited material. Though I don't know if they are likely to be accused of "money laundering" anytime soon.

meanwhile, it is the feds responsibility to prevent crimes. The only plausible way they can do that with megaupload is to stop the site entirely. We blame them for basically punishing the many perfectly innocent users along with the pirates, but it seems to me that there is very little recourse for the situation. They have to act, because the owners of megaupload failed to, and they only really have one choice. Either they leave the website open and allow everything to continue, or they stop the website all together. This isn't the same as get-away drivers, whom the FBI have the luxury of going after on an individual basis. Online piracy, by its very nature, involves many more culprits and is far harder to control. The FBI's tactic is similar to closing a sorting office, in response to a mass anthrax mail dump: the only way to stop those letters is to hold down the entire office until the problem is dealt with. Likewise, if there is a suspected terrorist loose in an airport, they would ground all the planes and inconvenience every passenger if they have to.

If the feds allow a service to continue, knowing full well that there are individuals hidden in that business committing serious crimes, then the feds have to take responsibility for their inaction, and suffer the consequences if bad things happen as a result. There is some nuance to the examples you gave, and to this particular situation as well.

 

[mikeybuthge]

Oooh, plot twist. This is just like a soap opera for nerds.

Or do you mean a SOPA opera for nerds.... sorry, couldn't help but post a bad joke

 

[Irridium]

Haha! Yes! Finally some god damn consequences against those who actually deserve it in this whole piracy thing. Stop going after freaking google and youtube and go after sites like this!

What about the millions that used these sites for perfectly legal means? The type of people that far outweighed the pirates?

It could be said that megaupload should have thought of that themselves, before they allowed all the illegal stuff to incriminate their business.

It could also be said that doing this would be literally impossible. And if Mediafire is to be believed, they do a pretty good job of that since apparently an overwhelming amount of traffic is for perfectly legal means.

Of course, that raises the question of who to trust. An internet site who has made quite the profit off this and very well may be lying since we have no proof.

Then again, where's the proof that they were infringing anything? What files were up? We can't check now because the site is down. All we know is that someone seems to have accused Mediafire of copyright infringement and quite a bit of other things, and unless some actual evidence surfaces soon, it seems like just an accusation was enough to get it taken down.

Which I'm pretty sure goes against precedent of needing proof to convict people of crimes.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

What about the millions that used these sites for perfectly legal means? The type of people that far outweighed the pirates?

Do you have any statistics to support that statement?

 

[maninahat]

Haha! Yes! Finally some god damn consequences against those who actually deserve it in this whole piracy thing. Stop going after freaking google and youtube and go after sites like this!

What about the millions that used these sites for perfectly legal means? The type of people that far outweighed the pirates?

It could be said that megaupload should have thought of that themselves, before they allowed all the illegal stuff to incriminate their business.

It could also be said that doing this would be literally impossible. And if Mediafire is to be believed, they do a pretty good job of that since apparently an overwhelming amount of traffic is for perfectly legal means.

Of course, that raises the question of who to trust. An internet site who has made quite the profit off this and very well may be lying since we have no proof.

Then again, where's the proof that they were infringing anything? What files were up? We can't check now because the site is down. All we know is that someone seems to have accused Mediafire of copyright infringement and quite a bit of other things, and unless some actual evidence surfaces soon, it seems like just an accusation was enough to get it taken down.

Which I'm pretty sure goes against precedent of needing proof to convict people of crimes.

I presume the feds thought to actually collect proof from the site before closing it down. The feds won't move to arrest someone unless they are, without a doubt, able to send the guys down with what they have. We can't check, but they would have. It would be very costly for the feds to arrest someone and close down their business, only with a spurious accusation.

EDIT: and as for preventing the infringing uploads. Yes, it is exceptionally difficult for services to prevent it from happening, and that is accepted to some degree (as long as the business appears to be doing everything it can). Apparently Megaupload failed to meet that standard, along with committing various other crimes. Even if it is impossible to stop piracy, that doesn't exhonerate the webservers. They still have to accept the responsibility for not preventing the piracy, and the consequences that come with it. That is the unfortunate burden of running such a business.

 

[Doom-Slayer]

They should probably find a different site then. One that wasn't so friendly to illegal copyrighted content.

They arent. They remove all copyrighted material that is reported to them. What more do you expect them to do? Manually open up files and check whats in them?..oh because that would totally work with millions upon millions of files.

What..should filesharing websites be automatically illegal because theres the POTENTIAL for copyrighted content to be stored on them? Nonsense...every single website in existence would be shut down if that were the case.

 

[Unhappy Crow]

Megaporn? Never heard of that site. But I do know Megaupload for years.