[UPDATE] Feds Take Down Megaupload

[Sylveria]

Makes me wonder - if the FBI spent as much time and effort in tracking terrorists as they did in tracking internet pirates maybe 9/11 wouldn't have happened. . .

What I also find hilarious is the fact that in retaliation Anonymous shut down the websites for the FBI, US Justice Department, Universal Music, and the Recording Industry Association of America.

They're trying to police the internet and they can't even protect themselves. . .

There's no big corporate lobbyists paying them to investigate real threats though.

 

[idodo35]

they took out megaporn?

 

[wintercoat]

Taking down a file sharing site used by millions to stop a handful of pirates is like firebombing a country to kill a few terrorists...oh wait, this is just par for the course for the U.S. government, carry on.

 

[Frostbite3789]

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.

And all the music and music videos and clips from shows on youtube aren't a blatant disregard of these same laws?

And they give so many fucks they don't take most of the videos infringing on copyright down. Not to mention youtube hosts Lets Plays. Which show copyrighted material. And youtube is making ad revenue off all of this. Using the same terms, how is that any different?

 

[Me55enger]

While reading this, there has just been a news broadcast from BBC radio 2 on this topic.

Just a theory: perhaps the Yanks werwe sitting on this information and waiting to make th emove should SOPA lose support, so to remind reople that it is, of course, a necessity.

Total bullshit, of course. Just a theory.

 

[Frostbite3789]

Snip

Exactly. The internet store front scares the shit out of them. You only have to look as far as Valve/Steam to see it works. They've made an entire fleet of golden yachts full of cash, worth of money.

But like you said, they don't want money. They want the control. They can't control online storefronts, meanwhile they can control what is released in a brick and mortar store. That shelf space costs money, and stores want to carry what people will for sure buy. Meanwhile digital space costs next to nothing.

So anybody can put anything up for sale. Bands might start to think, 'Why do I need a record label?' when they can put stuff online for sale themselves for dirt cheap. So instead of adapting or finding a way to co-exist, which is the financially intelligent decision, they're going to fight. The entertainment industry has chosen the path of most resistance and are intent on killing the internet, or they're going to damn die trying.

And the government is more than willing to please them, because who funds these campaigns?

On another note, what scares me most about SOPA is probably the utter lack of media attention. I've yet to see it on any news source on TV. Or on the radio. Because the media is all part of these huge conglomerates, which are the ones pushing SOPA. So they don't want to inform people of it. The media is no longer the watchdog of the government. And that's frightening.

 

[chaostheory]

Does anyone else feel that people are overreacting to the copyright charges when they are quite minor compared to the money laundering charges? Honestly the copyright charges feel like a throw in with the money laundering charges, like something to get rid of for plea deals, not the other way around. Also taking down the offending business is pretty much standard operating procedure for money laundering cases.

I'm pretty sure that if the department of justice responds to the outrage they will just tell everyone that the site was taken down for money laundering not for copyright infringement.

 

[madster11]

Hold on a second.

Did they just fuck with our Porn?
Because i'm pretty sure they just did.

If anyone needs me, i'll just be over here in this air sealed, 1km underground bunker.


Inb4 massive lawsuits brought against the US Government for damages from people all over the world.
I might start them, considering i used the site to backup some files to go with my physical backups, which got deleted when my USB stick failed. They were drafts of my book.
If it sold 1mil copies and i got 10% of each sale, that's roughly $2000000usd in damages.
I'll expect the money in my account by the end of next week, thanks.

 

[Strazdas]

"racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement."

wait what? racketeering? were they beating up music producers to give them illegal copies? money laundering? how exactly? i call bull. reminds me when stormtroppers in US just randomly confiscate servers because someone though it could have copyright material. turns out it didn't, but they didn't return the servers anyway. so pretty much they stole the servers.

 

[MattAn24]

Am I the only one who fucking LOVES that this happened? Good riddance. We need less of these illegal upload sites. If you've got video to upload, WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUTUBE THERE FOR?

 

[Exterminas]

Why does the fact that somebody from the music buisness is behind the site suprise anyone?

Granted, my first bet would have been one of the big names from the porn industry.

But these people aren't stupid. They know that their money is running through the drain of piracy. And while they all just love banging on how much they want the Feds to ban piracy, they know it isn't going to happen anytime soon.

So the more sensible thing is to simply chip in yourself and host the sites that make a profit of "stealing" your own products. That way you can even sue your own customers for "pirating" your stuff.

 

[1337mokro]

Let me get this straight.

Some of the employees were arrested in New Zealand, who all have different Nationalities, for crimes committed against American Copyright Holders, whilst they themselves are based in Hong Kong.

Can International law be violated any more? What the fuck is going on here. Grow a fucking back bone people and get your citizens back. I don't want to get sued by some american dickwad because I infringed some law in his country that's perfectly legal in the one I live.

Am I the only one who fucking LOVES that this happened? Good riddance. We need less of these illegal upload sites. If you've got video to upload, WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUTUBE THERE FOR?

Youtube heavily censors it's video and will take down anything with the slightest possible copyright infringement. I had permission to use music from the guys that made the song, a good friend of mine who is a DJ, and it STILL got taken down and they never replied to my complaints.

Giving youtube a monopoly on videosharing is probably the stupidest thing you can do. That´s why I thank god other video sharing sites exist.

(not to mention that little clause in Universal and Youtube´s contract that says Universal can take down every goddamn video it so pleases)

 

[MattAn24]

Hello America. Fix your Government.

Regards, rest of the world.

Hello, Japan, UK, Russia, Italy, Greece, Australia, and various others. Please fix your respective Goverments as well.

Regards, Canada I guess...

Ah, but you see, unlike the US, those countries tend to have relatively little power outside of their own borders. Compare that to the US that seems to believe anywhere on earth is "US jurisdiction".

It's possible to step too far. But equally bad is not stepping at all.

Woah there Confucius, think about it. When you go too far, it's really hard to go back. When you've gone nowhere, it's pretty easy to get going.

Point is that no, it's not equally bad. Going too far is always worse, especially in these cases. Once you get that boulder rolling, it's not gonna stop.

That still reads like, "Do nothing because it's too dangerous" to me. So long as the moves they make are good ones I'll support them like this and write and protest about the ones that aren't like SOPA.

Then you're reading it wrong. It means that you should be fucking careful before you do anything drastic, because drastic measures have a way of escalating and getting out of hand. Doing nothing never gets out of hand, and it gives you an excellent opportunity to think about what you should actually do and how you should it before you get started on doing it. Get what I'm sayin' bro?

It's not drastic though. If you think it is fine. It's a company receiving due punishment for breaking and conspiring to break the law. The thing that probably hurts them worse is the conspiracy part more than just hosting files.

Break what law? What's the point of even having independence and democratic rule if the US is gonna impose their own laws on you anyway? You don't think that's drastic??? We might as well just remove our own parliaments and just let the US tell us what to do and what is right and wrong. A country that still enforces the death penalty is going to be the moral and judicial compass of the world...

The fact that the whole site, and all affiliated sites, get torn down like that even BEFORE anyone has been sentenced to anything at all? And the complete disregard for the millions of users who used that service to host their completely legitimate files? Screw them? You're nuts, sorry.

So how do we target PIRATES, then, hm? HM? Well? Gonna answer me? WELL!? Make it a fucking good reason!

If there's no real country that has "rules or guidelines" for the internet and how things are shared, how IS stuff meant to work.

We're clearly not going to ask Sweden, because they have no fucking idea, because apparently EVERYTHING is free. Sorry, but things cost money. You're fined/jailed for stealing an actual product from a store, what makes it any different on the internet? You're stealing content and spreading it around. What's the fucking point in releasing anything then?

I can't wait to see the drastic result to this. Releases just stop, nothing else for anyone ever. Thanks a fucking lot. Douchebags.

 

[MattAn24]

Why does the fact that somebody from the music buisness is behind the site suprise anyone?

Granted, my first bet would have been one of the big names from the porn industry.

But these people aren't stupid. They know that their money is running through the drain of piracy. And while they all just love banging on how much they want the Feds to ban piracy, they know it isn't going to happen anytime soon.

So the more sensible thing is to simply chip in yourself and host the sites that make a profit of "stealing" your own products. That way you can even sue your own customers for "pirating" your stuff.

Holy shit. This. Who knows if he hasn't already tried to sue some of his own customers?

 

[Rainforce]

On another note, what scares me most about SOPA is probably the utter lack of media attention. I've yet to see it on any news source on TV. Or on the radio. Because the media is all part of these huge conglomerates, which are the ones pushing SOPA. So they don't want to inform people of it. The media is no longer the watchdog of the government. And that's frightening.

I live in germany, and we got the wikiblackout/sopa-pipa thing on pretty much every major channel on the 18th. Even our green party blacked their site.
Same for probably every other country on this planet. Still nothing in the US? Well... you live on a sinking ship, I'm afraid.

on topic: this is all very interesting indeed, and I cannot imagine how the entertainment industry could ever win against the...let's say"the united power of the internet", because for that you would need something BIGGER than the internet. and that doesn't exist on this planet anymore. We have millions of people connected that can exchange information instantly and onthefly, from all over the world, so a mere country can not stop this network.

 

[MattAn24]

So how do we target PIRATES, then, hm? HM? Well? Gonna answer me? WELL!? Make it a fucking good reason!

If there's no real country that has "rules or guidelines" for the internet and how things are shared, how IS stuff meant to work.

We're clearly not going to ask Sweden, because they have no fucking idea, because apparently EVERYTHING is free. Sorry, but things cost money. You're fined/jailed for stealing an actual product from a store, what makes it any different on the internet? You're stealing content and spreading it around. What's the fucking point in releasing anything then?

I can't wait to see the drastic result to this. Releases just stop, nothing else for anyone ever. Thanks a fucking lot. Douchebags.

Thats some attitude XD

You know, since youre so eager too draw comparisons you should at least learn what would be the right way:

First: The internet is not a separate word, its a medium. We need to keep this in mind, since there are laws for this world and those apply to the internet to!

Second: So, if youd try to regulate file sharing on the internet that wouldnt be like making laws for a lawless place. Its more like banning the selling of empty CDs, because they are mainly used to copy music.

Third: If you want to draw the comparison with stealing:
The internet equivalent of stealing in a shop would be to go to a internet shop, like amazon or steam maybe, and take stuff without paying for it. Sharing files is sharing something that you already got, noone can actually proove that you stole it at that point and as you may know, its right for the defendant when theres nothing proven.

And that's some major wrong you're typing there. Let's start with the most wrong, your third point. Just because you've bought something, doesn't give you ANY excuse to share it with others. You bought *your* copy of a product. Others need to buy their damn own.
Second point? Bullshit. If Anonymous is allowed to legally go around defacing websites, maliciously attacking them, (saying they're doing it in the name of free speech is absurd, they're illegally accessing someone elses property. Using real world law, that's breaking and entering. Which is against the law.

Also, just discovered this little thing about "Kim Dotcom".. "Kim Dotcom gained notoriety as a computer criminal convicted of credit card fraud, hacking, insider trading and embezzlement."

WHY IS HE AN ENTREPRENEUR!? How the fuck is he the one previously linked as co-founder of MegaUpload, etc? That's insane. No wonder the FBI went after it. Not to mention the ars technica article, which goes, in detail, about the shit employees were doing.

Anonymous doing *anything* isn't helping. All they do is have temper tantrums and fuck with people's shit, where they shouldn't be.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/why-the-feds-smashed-megaupload.ars

Read it, you might learn something.