And there goes my premium account.
Looks like the FBI are taking action on file hosts, shame they destroyed an entire business of which some of the population used the service legitimately. Very upset by this move.
Yes, this is rather big news and sends a message to many of the other file storage websites. Charges have been laid as well against Megaupload's staff – 4 of which have been arrested in Auckland, NZ.
(Edit: added additional links)
1. News/Analysis:
U.S. Shuts Down MegaUpload, Charges Kim Dotcom, 6 Others With Piracy – Forbes
Feds Shut Down Megaupload.com File-Sharing Website Time (via Associated Press)
Popular file-sharing site Megaupload.com shut down; founder, others indicted on piracy charges – Washington Post
Why the feds smashed Megaupload – ars
[Web doc] Megaupload & Vestor Ltd Indictment – Scribd
2. Effect:
Anonymous goes nuclear; everybody loses? – CNET
"Anonymous" is on a hacking spree to revenge the death of MegaUpload – Reddit
Federal websites back online after Anonymous attack – CNN
U.S. shuts Megaupload.com, hackers retaliate – Reuters
3. Discussion:
Some comments on Slashdot:
Slashdot.org discussion
Main Reddit thread:
Feds shut down Megaupload
And there goes my premium account.
... and mine. This is wrong!!!!! Americans getting their noses into everything.
Dotcom, a resident of both Hong Kong and New Zealand, and a dual citizen of Finland and Germany, made more than $42 million from the conspiracy in 2010 alone, according to the indictment.
Too many 'and' in that sentence, but... wow, $42 Million a year.
I'm not sure on what basis they have charged these people. As far as I know Megaupload complies with the law (i.e responds to DCMA takedowns by removing infringing material).
|IIIII Germanotta IIIII| writes...
Nooooooo. Now what should i use?
WUpload
FileShare
MediaFire
R
Hotfile
DepositFile
ZShare
SoundCloud
...
Youtube
Its a sad day for the Internet.
Damn it, damn it to hell >:| Megaupload was one of the best ones! It would often max out my connection, and that was using their free service! Time to start looking at usenet.
I'm not sure on what basis they have charged these people. As far as I know Megaupload complies with the law (i.e responds to DCMA takedowns by removing infringing material).
Going by a response on /. by a software creator (So he says), MU was the *SLOWEST* in responding to DCMA notices.
I also wonder what precident this sets for all the other sites (such as Rapidshare)?
Based in European countries where the USA has not got this kind of jurisdiction ?.
Apparently, a large portion of MU was hosted in USA, hence why one of the warrants was issued in Virginia, where one of its server farms was located.
Sounds like they were stupid and put themselves in a position for the US to have any kind of jurisdiction.
Police executed provisional arrest warrants at the United States' request, and other agencies – including the Organised and Financial Crime Agency, Crown Law and the Office of the Solicitor General provided "substantial and critical assistance", the statement says.
The four face charges of engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and criminal copyright infringement.
"The fact is that the vast majority of Mega's Internet traffic is legitimate"
Seriously? Usually it's the narcs who go all Pinocchio in the wake of door kicking.
And there goes my premium account.
i haven't Premium for some time and was gonna re-new it too, oh well :(
other's will take its place i bet
Please someone tell me this does not affect Megaporn?
LOL, Just for you, does not seem to be responding.
The four face charges of engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and criminal copyright infringement.
But luckily not conspiring to commit criminal money copyright laundering.
Damn it, damn it to hell >:| Megaupload was one of the best ones! It would often max out my connection, and that was using their free service!
Same here. Sad to see them go, was my favourite free upload service.
So they shut down one... And now the pirates will just move onto the next, do they really think they're making some sort of progress here?
i'm on platinum and love it...megaupload was one of the best one, in one of asian communities using it alot
these guys need to have new business model catch up with 21st century. now HDD is cheap and most people able to download full dvd.
conspiring to commit money laundering
seems like a trumped up charge money laundering is taking it way to far
LOL, Just for you, does not seem to be responding.
Waaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!
Just for me ay, wasn't loaded from a boomark? ;)
WUpload
FileShare
MediaF
Rapidshare
Hotfile
ZShare
SoundCloud
And how long before those go?
Youtube
And the rest of them if SOPA happens, but in the mean time, just hope that some sensibility happens.
So they shut down one... And now the pirates will just move onto the next, do they really think they're making some sort of progress here?
just move the servers off from the U.S to a country where they have no power in
Interesting development. I suspect the owners of Rapidshare, Mediafire etc etc to soon be announcing that they have just gone on emergency extended leave to a non-extradition country.
I guess the US has to make an example of someone. But as pointed out many times by others in this thread, everyone will just move onto something else.....
people will continue to go to the cinemas and buy movies.music etc, if people around the world do feel so strongly about the movie studios, musics etc doing this, people should have the guts and not buy movies, or support actors,musicians and make them celebrities.
Those companies rely on the general public to make money, and its the general public which obligates by buying their products even after they shut down the sites.
That's why you don't pay to download illegal stuff. If you are going to download it do it for free all the stuff is available through torrents, you just have to be a bit more patient!
Just for me ay, wasn't loaded from a boomark? ;)
You may very well think that, i could not possibly comment. :)
Megaupload "real" CEO Kim Schmitz "dotcom" arrested.
http://theflea.co.nz/index.p
^ This is how you piss off law enforcement. Tell people how RICH you are by using the proceeds of crime to live your lavish lifestyle.
"Megaupload ... made an estimated $175 million in proceeds"
http://abcnews.go.c
Video about "Kim Schmitz", CEO of MegaUpload and his playboy lifestyle
http://www.3news.co
^ This "kim" guy seems like an as*! Speeding over 200miles/hr, running over people/golf lawns in his ferraris, lambos, mercs? His number plate reads "GOD"... This guy got all of this on proceeds of crime and he was flaunting it.
Looks like the law finally caught up with him and his party lifestyle.
btw I think I know why megaupload was taken down. They are the WORST offenders, along with Hotfile when it comes to taking down pirated content. Often times you have to wait WEEKS to take down pirated stuff, when companies like Rapidshare, Youtube take them download within 24 hours.
Little wonder why megaupload was shutdown by the feds and I hear Hotfile is being sued and most likely will be taken down by the feds too.
"Megaupload boasted "more than 150 million registered users, 50 million daily visitors and accounting for four percent of the total traffic on the Internet" – DOJ
I wonder what 50 million people were downloading every day? Perhaps Linux and other free stuff.. right? 50 million users per day, means 50 million video, software, apps, other content that people decided it was better to leech, rather than pay for it.
Megaupload was a major pirate site, they had a reward system where uploads were being paid like $30 per 1000 downloads, so prety much, the more warez you upload and promoted, the more money you made being a pirater. Some pirates were making over $10,000/mo uploading movies, apps, etc.
Sounds like they were stupid and put themselves in a position for the US to have any kind of jurisdiction.
On the Internet the US has jurisdiction everywhere. Even if your IP and servers are not in the US They can block any web address and make it impossible for you to do legitimate business online.
Also you can never go to a country that has extraditition treaties with the US. Even your own.
retaliatory ddos attacks have taken down the us department of justice website
Not just that, but also the Universal Music Group, RIAA and Motion Picture Association of America.
All they have done is kicked the nest. Now the Bee's will move to another nest and start all over again. Next they'll be trying to shut 4chan down.
Can anyone clarify the basis of the racketeering and money-laundering charges? I don't understand them.
This article says the arrested employees face up to 55 years apiece in prison. Scary stuff.
Hotfile wasn't completely shut down but obviously had a scare and clamped down on pirated content
everyone went to Filesonic and fileserve and now oron, filejungle
If they close down, others will open
If you had the infrastructure set up, you could almost have an endless cycle of opening a filessharing website, reaping the profits until you get threatened with closure, closing down and opening another one and guess what, each time you do that, you don't have to honour premium accounts from the previous one
You just cannot stop piracy, too many smart people out there
One thing closes, 20 open in their place.
Remember when everyone thought Napster closing was the end of pirated music ?
Remember when everyone thought Napster closing was the end of pirated music ?
They said that with AudioGalaxy.
Can anyone clarify the basis of the racketeering and money-laundering charges? I don't understand them.
I'm going to have a punt and say it is the usual beat up by the agencies laying the charges. Like when Limewire were sued for 75 trillion dollars.
The money laundering is probably counting the money from illegal uploads as profits of crime and when that money goes into their legal side it is being "laundered"
After learning more about the way the real owner of MegaUpload flashed off his cash, and the slow nature of removing copyrighted content, I'm at least a bit less surprised that they took it down.
Hopefully they don't start pursuing the people who have paid accounts. I used mine legit but the blind nature of the DoJ suggests they'll go after anyone.
I feel bad for all the people who used the service legitimately and had paid for an account. Do they lose all their money?
I have to say, I'm moderately excited with the "internet war" that this will create.
Just like that, MPAA, RIAA, DoJ, UMG down.
#OpMegaupload trending.
Megaupload was a major pirate site, they had a reward system where uploads were being paid like $30 per 1000 downloads, so prety much, the more warez you upload and promoted, the more money you made being a pirater. Some pirates were making over $10,000/mo uploading movies, apps, etc.
Has anyone thought that the intention of this was to encourage creators to upload their own content and profit from it?
I'm pretty sure accounts that received consistent DMCA take down requests were canned.
Just host your servers in sweden. :P
I'm pretty sure Sweden have a extradition treaty with the USA.
Has anyone thought that the intention of this was to encourage creators to upload their own content and profit from it?
Then why did they have "rules and regulations" for that? For example if you had 1,000 downloads of files under 300mb, you didn't earn jack, but if your downloads were over 300mbs you earned more credits.. Maybe they were thinking better content means bigger file sizes? or perhaps the real reason is that most DVDrips, blurray rips, games are over 300mbs and they didn't want to pay uploads $30 for 1000 downloads of Winzip trial edition?
I'm pretty sure accounts that received consistent DMCA take down requests were canned.
Nope. From my many sources, Megaupload were the worst offenders. They did this for so long, and I'm sure this pi**ed off the big content makers, enough that they got someone in congress/feds to sort it out.
Do they lose all their money?
Yes. I'd say that 95% of their members bought memberships there for warez.
I feel bad for all the people who used the service legitimately and had paid for an account. Do they lose all their money?
yes they do
a bunch of uploading .ch (sweden)
Don't you mean Swiss? Sweden is .se (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
That doesn't seem fair at all:(
Fair? Most who bought subscriptions there did so because they didn't want to PAY for legit content. How many movies, apps, games have you leeched from Megaupload?
I got it because legit hip hop artists upload mixtapes to Megaupload.
Stuff that they own and share.
Most who bought subscriptions there did so because they didn't want to PAY for legit content
I was referring to all the people who paid for an account but used it legitimately. It seems they too have lost all their money.
I'm pretty sure Sweden have a extradition treaty with the USA.
Wasn't that why Assange had to fight so hard not to be taken there for trial on those trumped-up rape charges? Almost as soon as he landed there, he would have been whicked off to the US for a trial on conspiracy and espionage.
Too bad I used it a bunch of times to email large items [like photos] to people.
Which is the best of the new bunch, in terms of speed?
Twitter has commenced manually removing #OpMegaload from its trending tags.
RT @AnonOpsSweden Twitter has manually removed #opmegaupload #oppayback from trends and appears to be actively ripping out anything related.
@bnoirhomme: 400 tweets/min for the hashtag #OPMegaUpload http://gigatweeer.com/ and apparently it's just the beginning.
Twitter has commenced manually removing #OpMegaload from its trending tags.
Seems stupid to censor discussion, not as if twitter is hosting any illegal materials directly.
You just cannot stop piracy, too many smart people out there
You can stop piracy.... or at least put a huge dent in it.
You do it by making the paid product as good as the pirated one..... something the stupid US media companies just can't get their heads around.
You do it by making the paid product as good as the pirated one..... something the stupid US media companies just can't get their heads around.
Or you follow the Asian way of doing things. Indian movies make profits because they're easily accessible to the public. Making something cheap and easy to obtain and you make money through sheer volume of sales.
Read more
From that link:
The charges carry up to 20 years' imprisonment.
To put thing in perspective:
Doctor that killed Michael Jackson : 4 years
Link to a Michael Jackson Video (under SOPA) : 5 years
Store a stack of Michael Jackson Videos (megaupload) : 20 years
@AnonymousPress http://justice.gov oops! http://fbi.gov you're lagging bad! ohai patent office... #OpMegaUpload
these guys need to have new business model catch up with 21st century. now HDD is cheap and most people able to download full dvd.
Catch up with 21st century? Download full dvd? LOL. it's BD all the way my friend.
Phew! Used to have a megaupload premium account. Hope Filesonic remains unscathed in the long run...
I'm pretty sure Sweden have a extradition treaty with the USA.
I'm not sure they have a charge of criminal copyright infringement though – and something needs to be illegal in both jurisdictions for an extradition to occur.
I'm not sure they have a charge of criminal copyright infringement though
In most countries, Carrier is not responsible for Content.... opening up that can of worms is a huge mess waiting to happen.
just found this
Within minutes of the site being shut down, and DOJ releasing its statement, Anonymous sprang into action and started taking down a ton of sites — including websites for the DOJ, the US Copyright Office, Universal Music, the RIAA, the MPAA and a bunch of other sites.
Anonymous launches largest attack ever, crippling government and music industry sites. Hacktivists with the collective Anonymous are waging an attack on the website for the White House after successfully breaking the sites for the Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, RIAA and Motion Picture Association of America.
Many members of Congress have just changed their stance on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, the raid on Megaupload Thursday proved that the feds don’t need SOPA or its sister legislation, PIPA, in order to pose a blow to the Web.
just found this
Found it where ? What is different to what has already been found ?
btw – story has made it onto ABC.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2
My Premium Account is gone too!!! ARGHHHHHHH!! So pissed!! FS, WU, RS, DF, MS etc – they're all next!! It's just a matter of time. IDIOCY doesn't cease to amaze me.!!
I liked Megaupload purely because it was one of the fastest file sharing sites. It sucks because people on sites like XDA Developers had premium accounts in-order to upload their own custom firmware.
Found it where ? What is different to what has already been found ?
btw – story has made it onto ABC.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/
Same story mate
http://anonops.blogspot.com/
It's actually quite interesting how far they're willing to go, even though they must be hurting thousands upon thousands of legitimate American Business's who relied on this company.
I guess that's what you get for not lobbying governments!
I was referring to all the people who paid for an account but used it legitimately. It seems they too have lost all their money.
Yes, both of them have.
Do you folks pay for those sites using a credit-card/paypal account in your real name?
Or use a disposable pre-paid account in false name? Or your grandmother's credit card?
The Feds are going to get a nice database of names and addresses from this.
I used my real card for a Usenet server account. Now wondering if that was wise.
I liked Megaupload purely because it was one of the fastest file sharing sites.
+100000000000000
same here that why i always used it, out the rest of sites ive used megaupload were so fast it was the king of file sharing.
liked Megaupload purely because it was one of the fastest file sharing sites.
- Fastest site
- Easy interface
- No annoying ads
- Clean UI
Fastest site
Easy interface
No annoying ads
Clean UI
thats why i love megaupload...this is a sad day see megaupload die. R.I.P Megaupload
Here we have the US telling the rest of the world what they can and cant do. And it will get worse as they continue their decline.
Sadly its the movie industry that are the real pirates. They need to catch up with the real world otherwise they will go down the path just as Kodak has done.
Vale free speech in the US
I'm following Anonymous' twitter. wmg.com is down now
Edit: Funny thing is, even the movie companies have pirates within them.
One of the people who was involved in the running of MegaUpload, Kasseem Dean, who is also an American rap artist, Agent and DJ (And the boyfriend of Alicia Keys) has not been arrested yet the people who worked below him were.
This just screams retaliatory action on part of the RIAA,MPAA, FBI and DOJ a day after the widespread SOPA protests by big name sites they go and show that they don't need SOPA or PIPA to take this action anyway.
What's more it paints a scary picture since 4 of the people were arrested in NZ as well, with laws which were partly developed by the US Government on their behalf.
Even more concerning is the fact that in leaked letters from the Spanish ambassador, the US threatened Spain by stating they will add them to a trade black list if they don't adopt SOPA style laws.
Kasseem Dean, who is also an American rap artist, Agent and DJ (And the boyfriend of Alicia Keys) has not been arrested
If they did it would be in the news for a long long time, and that's exactly what they want to avoid.
If i was running one of these companies I would start making myself a celeb...
It feels great being able to follow something like this. I just wish our news outlets weren't so slow in picking up these stories.
It's actually quite interesting how far they're willing to go, even though they must be hurting thousands upon thousands of legitimate American Business's who relied on this company.
Without doubt, Megaupload claimed to be 4% of all internet traffic.
It is simply insane that the USA think they should be allowed to flick a button and switch off 4% of the internet, without taking the matter through a court.
I think they actually tried taking the matter to court several times, and lost every case, but apparently that doesn't matter.
I just wish our news outlets weren't so slow in picking up these stories.
Well – seems news.com.au and abc.net.au picked it up pretty quick.
Well – seems news.com.au and abc.net.au picked it up pretty quick.
Yeah. I actually picked this up via theage.com.au at about 9 this morning.
Keep a tab on Neowin:
http://www.neowin.net/news/a
They seem to be the most accurate atm.
The Feds are going to get a nice database of names and addresses from this.
Perhaps people who made substantial money off the service should be kindda worried, as for those who basically used the service, it will costs them more money and trouble to go after them that is if according to law they can which I doubt
Perhaps people who made substantial money off the service
I thought Megaupload removed the "Credits" system for downloads years ago.
Ah well, I had a premium account but for downloading purposes.
Looks like I better delete my account in WBB.
it will costs them more money and trouble to go after them
Probably not, they'll probably sue each user $2 million or something ridiculous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch
Alternatives will always pop up but I feel for those that paid for their account.
They seem to be the most accurate atm.
LOL.
Update 8: Anonymous just dumped the database of the Utah Chiefs of Police association website with personal details and logins. We won't link this for obvious reasons. USDOJ.gov is down, too.
i have lifetime account with megaupload...Damn
Feel sorry for you brother, us account holders can unite.
Well, at least Anonymous are representing the masses.
One of the people who was involved in the running of MegaUpload, Kasseem Dean, who is also an American rap artist, Agent and DJ (And the boyfriend of Alicia Keys) has not been arrested yet the people who worked below him were.
Maybe you should read first before posting crap. The CEO job was handed to him months prior to megaupload being shutdown. E.g. the real CEO "Kim Schmitz" probably knew something was up, so gave up his CEO title to Swizz Beatz.. as a way of sidetracking the investigations. Too bad the feds already knew who the kingpin is.
i should have brought 2 years instead of lifetime even tho using it alot...got it on 2010.
MU really took off in the last few years – only hosters used FileSonic and Wupload to profit from uploads – a lifetime MU membership is understandable.
Man this is quite sad....Megaupload was by far the best host out there. I would go as far as to say Free User Megaupload is better and faster than PREMIUM Oron.
Feel sorry for the Lifetime members.
And as was mentioned before....hope Megaporn is still alive and kicking.
Megaupload did a deal earlier this month for 50% – 60% off subscriptions.
Was that a last grasp for money or just a coincidence?
Hell hath no fury like anonymous members who've lost their porn.
I would be worried about what the police chiefs had stashed behind their logins on the website :)
I sense new material on 4chan in the next few days :)
Can we get SOPA through now, I'm actually now for seperating america from the rest of the world, and letting it's technology side totally die...
Can we get SOPA through now, I'm actually now for seperating america from the rest of the world, and letting it's technology side totally die...
Ummmm... why? SOPA affects everyone not just the US citizens
Can we get SOPA through now, I'm actually now for seperating america from the rest of the world
This may explain why the US is the Internet.
So I wonder how this is going to affect their case with Universal over their MegaSong and the Youtube pull?
Maybe you should read first before posting crap. The CEO job was handed to him months prior to megaupload being shutdown. E.g. the real CEO "Kim Schmitz" probably knew something was up, so gave up his CEO title to Swizz Beatz.. as a way of sidetracking the investigations. Too bad the feds already knew who the kingpin is.
Maybe you should do some reading as well. Although he was given the CEO position months prior to this, he has still been involved for some time before hand as well.
Not to mention the feds didn't just take Kim Schmitz they took a number of others including a graphic designer.
Maybe you should do some reading as well.
What you are both missing is the fundamental law of the US.
Guilty until proven wealthy.
Guilty until proven wealthy.
Figured it goes without saying.
Either way makes me incredibly glad i no longer work for the popular File Sharing site ran from Fortitude Valley here in Brissy.
As someone who uses it to share legitimate material, this is very disappointing. There are other alternatives, but the inconvenience will be irritating.
Looks like the law finally caught up with him and his party lifestyle.
Since when was having an extravagant lifestyle illegal?
oh dear now we are going to have a 10 page thread for every website that gets closed
No – just huge, mega sized, very popular websites.
When you have that much money, why wouldn't you spend it on what you like? There is nothing wrong with the way he is living his life.
Psi-Tau Equus Bellator writes...
When it is funded from illegal activities?
So you too believe in guilt as the default ?
So I assume you expect them to take Youtube, iCloud, Dropbox, IMGUr etc all down too ?
oh dear now we are going to have a 10 page thread for every website that gets closed
Megaupload was not a small website, it represented some 4% of all internet traffic and was the 154th most visited website in Australia. Whilst 154th might not sound like much, it exceeded many other popular sites like SourceForge, Dropbox, Digg and even mainstream sites such as the SBS website.
When you have that much money, why wouldn't you spend it on what you like? There is nothing wrong with the way he is living his life.
I agree, it is rather frustrating that the mainstream news websites seem to focus on reporting about his extravagant lifestyle, trying to incite the "poor me" emotion.
I don't care how rich someone is, or how they spend their money – Megaupload was a legitimate business that was terminated without due process and that is all that should matter.
What was wrong with megaupload?
Got some legitimate files from there so why did they shut it down?
Big brother flexing its biceps?
Just ridiculous censorship nowadays...
Woke up today and friend told me and I thought it was a joke and laughed it off... they are really gone :(
The intention is not to send these guys to jail either, the intention is just to shut their service down, take them out of the loop and prevent them from 'moving it' during the 'lengthy' investigation, seize their funds and make their life difficult.
They will probably get off most if not all charges, they are quite extravagant, but in the meantime, the service is dead and will find it hard to rise up from the Ashes.
Once it is over, they will think twice about starting up the same business again.
Sad that the FBI has the power to cripple a business like this.
Wasn't that why Assange had to fight so hard not to be taken there for trial on those trumped-up rape charges? Almost as soon as he landed there, he would have been whicked off to the US for a trial on conspiracy and espionage.
The brits or Aussies are far more likely to send him off on such "charges". Indeed both nations have sent or abandoned their citizens to US jails for information and copyright crimes (even when not a crime in either the UK or Australia).
Julians got himself into this mess through living the pop star lifestyle while bedding multiple impressionable and sexually inexperienced or naive young women while telling them all they were the only one. The only real question is is he a criminal or just an asshole.
Megaupload was a legitimate business
As much as I love Megaupload (I think at least a third of my movie / TV series and ½ of my porn is from MU).
I am loathed to say I cannot consider Megaupload a legit business.
Take away copyright material, would MU still thrive?
I think other sides will start looking to move to country where they dont cooperate with the US.
I just read the article and it said funding crimes... WOW that is a bit of a leap isnt it?
Huh. Thought there might be a stern shaking-of-the-big-stick page that comes up if you try to go to the Megupload homepage, but all that I get is a time-out.
So when the DoJ "takes down" a website, do they simply remove it from the DNS reference tables?
In fact, is that how they have jurisdiction of any kind, because these are typically housed on servers in the US?
Julians got himself into this mess through living the pop star lifestyle while bedding multiple impressionable and sexually inexperienced or naive young women while telling them all they were the only one.
Not a crime, if it was, a shitload of us would be guilty. (not the pop star bit)
The only real question is is he a criminal or just an asshole.
He has certainly been painted as an asshole criminal... but not sure what he has actually done that was illegal.
Still find it conspiracy like they nuke them just before the juicy discovery stuff in their trial with Universal.
Oh dearlord i hope um well im not mentioning the site, but if it gets taken down ill cry :(. i never used mega upload. but from what i here in here photbuckets gone oh dear lord,i have pics on their for profile avatara, ahh and here's me thinking it sucks live in amereica ahhh what do i do lol. :)
Take away copyright material, would MU still thrive?
Would Bigpond, iiNet, Internode ?
Same question isn't it.
Got some legitimate files from there so why did they shut it down?
Big brother flexing its biceps?
Just ridiculous censorship nowadays...
Totally agree. The yanks aren't content with waging war on half the world now they want to control the internet.
Every one of the many files I have downloaded from MU was legitimate, what a waste.
|IIIII Germanotta IIIII| writes...
Nooooooo. Now what should i use?
Don't say any torrant names or file hosts they could be watching lo. if you mention it it will vanish. man i need make private torrant up, so people can join in joke joke, no seriously im joking ahh dam.
Would Bigpond, iiNet, Internode ?
I think the elephant in the room with all of this is if you took off *all* the illegal activity from the Internet, you'd just outright kill the internet.
Hay will internode be charged too they mirror stuff on their sites. um i didn't say anything im shutting my mouth lade dah da dha. ah man and i was in stage building pc up, what's point my 1 terrabyte drives useless now, my internet usages usless too ahhh. i wanna move mars.
Oh bugger, we used Megaupload to share files in my community group, like meeting minutes, reports, etc.
Haven't read the whole of this thread, but looks like some retaliation:
http://yro.slashdot.org/stor
Would Bigpond, iiNet, Internode ?
Same question isn't it.
But there is a whole lot more to having access (services those companies you stated provide) to the internet than just copyright material.
There is online shopping, gaming, social networking, porn (pay), blogging, youtube (non-copyright material) etc.
MU provides only one real service which was always on borrowed time.
I do understand what you mean, take away torrented /filehosted – porn / music / videos, you do have much less activity from those ISPs.
MU provides only one real service which was always on borrowed time.
500gig a month from Bigpond – do you really really honestly think that the average person can use 500GB in a month ?
I do understand what you mean,
Pretty much that 90% of MU's might have been questionable, but 90% of Bigpond's usage is also questionable.
This is a huge blow to the freedom of the internet. Megaupload is the 52nd most visited site in the world. If they can do this without SOPA just think what will happen to our internet when those laws get passed.
Thankfully, Anonymous haven’t made a gaff like they usually do and got it right this time.
http://www.youtube.com/
Dropbox is the alternative?
Nah...use Oron and Fileserve and earn some money from the community members.
500gig a month from Bigpond – do you really really honestly think that the average person can use 500GB in a month ?
Oh I don't know, when BattleField3 came out it was a 22GB download IIRC, and after a couple of stuffups and PC crashes it had to be downloaded again, with a couple of users in the house downlaoding software through normal legal channels, streaming HD tv (like Vimeo) etc, it wouldn't be hard to crack a couple of hundred GB completely legally.
Anyone know if Megamanager still works? Im assuming it doesnt but have to wait until I get back home to check.
it wouldn't be hard to crack a couple of hundred GB completely legally.
You are stretching a long long rubber band there dood :)
Megaupload was such a great service. Hosted some rare shows that I can find especially Asian Dramas. Used for many years and was decent. Now its gone...need to find another place for it but the catch is...
You need to use CAPTCHAS...
Unless you got premium account which who knows if the Feds will go for the rest of the file hosting/serving sites.
At least we still have mediafire........for now. x_x
They could be next...along with fileserve, 4shared, filesonic etc
This could be the start of a war on those sites.
You need to use CAPTCHAS...
That's exactly what I was thinking, and reading through this thread people didn't pick up on this. The biggest reason MegaUpload was preferable to me is NO CAPTCHA!
Sounds like they were stupid and put themselves in a position for the US to have any kind of jurisdiction.
Exactly right. Anyone that runs a site with potentially copyrighted material would be nuts to host/register it anywhere the Americans can interfere with it.
That's exactly what I was thinking, and reading through this thread people didn't pick up on this. The biggest reason MegaUpload was preferable to me is NO CAPTCHA!
Yea it was the best site which you wait the shortest time without CAPTCHA....no other site gives that minimum waiting time...
Speed was also decent even for people without accounts. Can also resume...
Best of all it works with Jdownloader very well.
OMG now its the era of CAPTCHAs....no thanks :(
500gig a month from Bigpond – do you really really honestly think that the average person can use 500GB in a month ?
I buy NFL game pass and sometimes NBA GAME PASS I can watch up to 20 games streamed in Hd per week and each game is up to 2 hours long. I buy all my pc games digitally which can be easily in the 20gb each and all my music and movies( in HD) come from iTunes. I can blast through any allowance legally ;)
host/register it anywhere the Americans can interfere with it.
Registered in Hong Kong
Registrar in Canada
Hosted in US (Carpathia Hosting)
I can blast through and allowance legally ;)
I could as well, by downloading the WoW client a few hundred times.... however, let's be real here :)
the end of file hosting sites?
Seems so ... Dropbox, iCloud, Photobucket, IMgur, Youtube, Facebook ... anything that hosts any user contributed music, photos or video is fair game now.
The new domain name has already been published... Under the .bz
Read this as well.
Will MegaManager etc work?
moving to Cloud?
What do you think Cloud is?
It is just a fancy name for a user contributed file hosting service... nothing more nothing less.
moving to Cloud?
LOL! Apart from the fact the 'Cloud' is nothing more than a marketing term, it still has to be hosted on a physical server with a physical connection.
Places where you can run a server that are untouchable with the bandwidth megaupload would require are few and very very far between.
if the rest of the sites follow suit then I guess the only option for people who watch TV series/shows online is vpn+netflix, unless of course you want to wait and pay triple for the content to become available in Australia
why didnt they hit rapidshare? they do something different than MU?
They take down links immediately whilst MU takes their time within a designated time frame.
They take down links immediately whilst MU takes their time within a designated time frame.
What was strange was that file linking sites generally reported MU links to be down while mirrored links to FS,RS,HF were all still alive.
if the rest of the sites follow suit then I guess the only option for people who watch TV series/shows online is vpn+netflix, unless of course you want to wait and pay triple for the content to become available in Australia
Well, there's always Torrents. Torrent tracker servers do not require anywhere near the bandwidth required by something like megaupload, can work relatively remotely and are very quick to set up. Furthermore, they don't actually store the files making the 'service' liability contentious as it is.
I am a member of a private tracker torrents service for Television shows only. Have been a member of this service for 8 years and they have survived everything thrown at them.
http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-shut-down-120119/
Data centers in the Netherlands, Canada and Washington housing MegaUpload’s equipment were raided. In an apparent reference to the latter location, a source has just informed TorrentFreak that the FBI are currently detaining everyone at the ISP Cogent Communications’ headquarters in Washington DC, in connection with a Mega-related search warrant.
wow detaining everyone at cogent really? wow just wow.. that will end well i would not want a grumpy internet backbone sysadmin coming after me
Whoever bought the special on here would be really distress
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/60862
Yup that was me.
4 year account gone within a month.
why didnt they hit rapidshare? they do something different than MU?
Well I think megaupload was the biggest wasn't it? It will send shockwaves with these guys, paranoid they might be next, and they probably will be.
i should have brought 2 years instead of lifetime even tho using it alot...got it on 2010.
best to pay month to month, that way you don't loose much in return :)
The brits or Aussies are far more likely to send him off on such "charges".
Yep, Drink or Die comes to mind immediately (no I've never been part of 'the scene').
I don't care how rich someone is, or how they spend their money – Megaupload was a legitimate business that was terminated without due process and that is all that should matter.
Sums up the whole incident very well, and because due process has failed the MAFIAA have thrown a tantrum (like the spoiled brats they are IMVHO) and decided to take them down anyway.
If this isn't a call to arms for the net then I don't know my right from my left.
Disclaimer: Not a participant in copyright infringement nor Megaupload account holder but am beyond disgusted at the power and childish abandon of it's use by the MAFIAA
Given the sordid history of copyright, I dare to call upon the scrapping of it (and sacrifice what little material I have made to the public domain in the process? gladly) as it's core purpose To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts is long since dead when it's abused for the profit of a dying business model (adapt or die, no just die I say) and similar conglomerates (big pharma, Monsanto and all the rest).
Quote is from wikipedia: https://secure.wikimedia.org/
Starting point for further reading on the history of copyright: http://questioncopyright.org/promise
2011 was a big year for Anonymous, I'd expect 2012 to be even bigger (assuming Europes Financial Crises doesn't get in first).
Another Disclaimer: I am not a member of Anonymous nor support all their alleged actions.
They take down links immediately whilst MU takes their time within a designated time frame.
You sure about that?
http://www.reddit.com/r/tech
why didnt they hit rapidshare? they do something different than MU?
Rapidshare aren't poking the bear the way MU are with their case against Universal for illegal takedown requests.
Rapidshare aren't poking the bear the way MU are with their case against Universal for illegal takedown requests.
And getting counter-sued by a rapper.
Megaupload is the 52nd most visited site in the world.
How can they be this AND account for 4% of internet traffic as mentioned earlier?
Do we go above 200% nowadays? :)
http://www.reddit.com/r/tec
Fair enough, but what I said was found on one of the forums.
And tbh I always saw RS links down before MU.
Fell sorry for those that bought the xmas/new year deal with megaupload. Myself with megaupload since 2004 with lifetime premium and now no more download. All my personal storage is gone aswell :(
Cheers,
This is a sad day for the internet.
They will start with these companies(Filesharing)once that is done they will move onto anything they want.
They already control what you see and hear on mainstream news,tv/Papers etc.
It wont be that many years until the WWW is like it is in China now.
How can they be this AND account for 4% of internet traffic as mentioned earlier?
Do we go above 200% nowadays? :)
Simple traffic (measured in bytes) != visits (measured in hits)
"an estimated $500 million in harm to copyright holders"? Sure. As if everyone who downloaded a shared copy would have paid full price? No way. This inflated rhetoric is like when the narcs bust a pot farm and quote the "street value" based on rolling joints and selling them one by one. Next time there's a forest fire, let's estimate the value of the trees as if their wood had been made into furniture and sold at retail, OK?
RIP Sweet Prince.
My lifetime premium account is gone along with the few gb's of personal data backed up. Oh Great. -_-
My only question is, if everything in the next few months goes MU's way, and charged are dropped or something, is there any chance of their site returning, and our premium accounts? Or should people like me be moving to another filehost/usenet/back to torrents?
i have lifetime account with megaupload...Damn
I has just expired at the end of the "lifetime" – Megaupload's lifetime that is.
Nothing sinister about that ;-)
RIP Megaupload :-(
"The government takes down Megaupload? 15 minutes later Anonymous takes down government & record label sites," a group affiliated with "Anonymous" wrote on its Twitter account.
In retaliation, hackers aligned with the global cyber-collective known as Anonymous took down the websites of the US Department of Justice and Universal Music Group.
At least they are fighting back.
if everything in the next few months goes MU's way, and charged are dropped or something, is there any chance of their site returning, and our premium accounts?
It's unlikely any service provider will touch them now, given that they have also detained and made life very difficult for employees of the company that provided them the hosting services.
I wouldnt be jumping ship just yet. Im sure they will open another site (as they have already done). I would still wait a week or two.
Or should people like me be moving to another filehost/usenet/back to torrents?
people like to keep "usenet" a secret
I'm sad to see Megaupload go and I'm aghast at the reasoning behind it but I'm not sad to see Kim Schmitz get what he deserves.
He's been nothing but a scammer, con artist, and thief for the past fifteen years. Good riddance.
I wouldnt be jumping ship just yet. Im sure they will open another site (as they have already done). I would still wait a week or two.
already opened another site? care to link ?
care to link ?
Might be questionable to link on WP.
However, it is in the .bz TLD ... and has the same first part as one of the main names it used to have.
http://m.smh.com.au/it-pro/s
Anonymous brings down the USA....
Woooooot...
Don't go to the .bz domain. Reported as malware.
I heard it just makes you DDOS one of the sites they are trying to take down.
i hope filesonic isnt next. next best one.
also members anonymous are gonna get arrested sooner or later.
also these hackers are gonna get arrested sooner or later.
There are over 5000 users involved in this. Will be quite a list to dig through.
also members anonymous are gonna get arrested sooner or later.
That's like saying members of the KKK are going to get arrested sooner or later.
Sure they are, then they will be replaced with more members.
This is what modern war looks like, Anon are literally freedom fighters!
Because Thepiratebay is going to be shut down any day now.
thepiratebay is very different from mega and they have had to change their business practices significantly to stay afloat.
Mega requires huge bandwidth, huge storage.
The thing is, some of the streaming services are becoming so good now that all that money you spent paying for premium memberships on megaupload, fileserve, filesonic, etc can be put to a legit use.
The content makers NEED to realize this. Legal music sites are now just as easy to use as pirating websites (be it torrents, .nbz sites, or http file sharing) and in some cases easier.
The movie/TV industry needs something like that. Pay for your downloads and download it nice n fast. Easy.
Yes there is netflix, webflix, hulu plus, amazon prime (altho this last one seems to be very difficult to get in AU) etc and that has a place too – that is streaming.
BTW interesting article here comparing Netflix to Hulu:
http://www.tested.com/n
ALL sites that carry 'files' will be targetted with time. Inevitable.
Now, read this post where a company demands a private downloader 'pay' – in some way to offset legal action, you decide – hoax, or not:-
http://www.austech.info/gene
http://m.smh.com.au/it-pro/
Anonymous brings down the USA....
nice nice, so internet strikes back, but I don't think it will gain anything....it will back to usual business eventually
Mega upload sucks especially if your obligations are towards paying them for service.
Not the point, far from it. ALL things and brands suck to at least someone.
FileSonic, DepositFiles, FileServe, TurboBit,MediaFire,
are ones i use constantly use, i just hope these don't go down if they do *********
http://www.austech.info/gen
Pretty funny letter to Kevin there. Firstly Willow has no jurisdiction over 'Kevin' under USC 17 and secondly damages awarded in any US Court are not recoverable in Australia under the Foreign Judgments Act
Sitting here for a minute, I've been using MU for like 6 years... they survived through heaps and didnt implement any stupid systems like RS did.
Pretty funny letter to Kevin there. Firstly Willow has no jurisdiction over 'Kevin' under USC 17 and secondly damages awarded in any US Court are not recoverable in Australia under the Foreign Judgments Act
Well, I assume as part of Willow's settlement against some of the sites they obtained their database and just spammed it with the threat.
If I got one of those I would just reply...
"Hi, very sorry to inform you, but ^ian^ passed away last week in a boating accident. We have kept his email open to inform friends of his unfortunate fate as he was pretty well liked on internet forums and a lot of people have been emailing inquiring of his whereabouts. Sorry we cannot help you with this issue."
The content makers NEED to realize this. Legal music sites are now just as easy to use as pirating websites (be it torrents, .nbz sites, or http file sharing) and in some cases easier.
The movie/TV industry needs something like that. Pay for your downloads and download it nice n fast. Easy.
Of course and they realise this I am sure.
It is just that there is more money in the old system than the new system for the time being.
Same with broadcast TV, it is still huge with huge budgets and big profits but I stopped watching, at least live, years ago. Now I use *cough* "video on demand" or PVR it and watch it without commercials days or weeks later.
Most people still watch live and this will take quite a few years to change.
It is just that there is more money in the old system than the new system for the time being.
Not only is there more money, their entire industry is based around various levels along the way. A change to the delivery system means a massive loss of revenue for these organisations... lots of appendages they will have to divest.
"Hi, very sorry to inform you, but ^ian^ passed away last week in a boating accident. We have kept his email open to inform friends of his unfortunate fate as he was pretty well liked on internet forums and a lot of people have been emailing inquiring of his whereabouts. Sorry we cannot help you with this issue."
heh. good one. I would probably reply with
How much for your daughter?
Kev
All those personal details and download/upload records that can be passed amongst copyright police, worrying times ahead for account holders who used the service for illegally acquiring/sharing intellectual property.
All those personal details that can be passed amongst copyright police, worrying times ahead for account holders.
Same as those who host full videos on Youtube, same as those who seed torrents, same as those who google ____ + mp3 + mediafire.
What i liked about MU more then any other filesharing host or usenet was the community based forums and the fact that you could easily obtain rare things that are not likely to ever be aired on TV or be made available on DVD in the near future
I wouldn't trust any alternative MU site at all at this stage.
That'd be wise.
However being that the US government, all their prosecutors, their military and their content creation companies are stupid, the MegaUpload domain is probably all that has been shut down.
i havent tried logging in with premium yet though
I'd say it was totally fake, just tried using a regular MU file link with the IP instead of megaupload.com and didnt work lol
Many of these scumbags treat their free users like trash, making them read unreadable capture codes, and endless waiting
Accounts with a multi hoster provider (not gonna mention here lol but we all know them) fixes that issue
Same as those who host full videos on Youtube, same as those who seed torrents, same as those who google ____ + mp3 + mediafire.
Fake name, anonymous email, VPN/proxy... prepaid credit card
Makes it harder :)
I'd say it was totally fake, just tried using a regular MU file link with the IP instead of megaupload.com and didnt work lol
Of course it didn't, most of their servers were seized so all of the content on them is not accessible at all.
Of course it didn't, most of their servers were seized so all of the content on them is not accessible at all.
I'd say it was fake too, looks dodgy as.
If all servers are seized, what is the point of trying to keep a broken service online.
Can someone explain to me why MegaUpload was a better method than using torrents with private sites? I honestly would like to know why so many people were using these filesharing services.
MegaUpload was a better method than using torrents with private sites
Leeching. Not having to share while sending. Not being dependent on seeds to get decent speeds. Not worrying about trackers (until now lol).
For legitimate purposes: Easily being able to share files through emails. Much better service than file hosting alternatives.
Hmm.
I'm actually reading the indictment against Mega Upload, and originally thought it was pathetic, constantly referring to them as the "Mega Conspiracy" and making what I assume were baseless claims, but when you get to page 30 they start putting quotes from emails in there.
Firstly- I think the FBI should explain HOW they got ahold of these emails, I would hope they didn't break any laws to do it :)
But secondly- the emails paint a pretty bad picture of Megaupload, they indicate that people working there passed copyrighted materials around to one another, and pretty much point blank knew it was going on.
It's a fact that various cloud or upload websites will have substantial copyright infringement going on, but I assumed Megaupload didn't really encourage it, these emails tell otherwise.
I have always seen piracy as a service problem, but can agree that people 'profiteering' from piracy is not right at all, unless it is "indirect" and not the intention of their service (Youtube for example)
I still do however think it was insane for the US to flick the switch on Megaupload without due process, they didn't take the matter to court and win, even if it's blatantly obvious what they are doing.
Indictment:
Can someone explain to me why MegaUpload was a better method than using torrents with private sites?
MegaUpload (and other sites like it) allowed for sharing of files 'instantly'.
I use a similar service for work – for distributable of software I write, so that other members of the company have easy access.
Doing that via Torrent would be a pain in the butt.
Leeching. Not having to share while sending. Not being dependent on seeds to get decent speeds.
That's why I mentioned private sites which are known for maximum performance. With so many torrent sites moving to non-ratio systems, it seems like all the negatives are gone.
Once you start paying for a premium filesharing account, isn't it just easier to pay for a seedbox instead?
The scene seems to have always been against making money from piracy. Now the ability to make money has bitten them in the arse.
For legitimate purposes: Easily being able to share files through emails. Much better service than file hosting alternatives.
Isn't this a case where Dropbox really excels at?
MegaUpload seemed popular when sharing with people you don't know or trust. If you do know and trust them, thats where Dropbox filled the void.
I use a similar service for work – for distributable of software I write, so that other members of the company have easy access.
That seems like a very unusual way to do things. Dropbox or even Git seems more appropriate.
Big deal... still a million ways to pirate shit...
You can't take piracy down any more then you can take down the whole media industry down.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/78786408/Mega-Indictment
Holy wowzers at the list of items they want to seize !
The FBI should bust down Microsoft there is a hidden "Copy and Paste" function that allows you to copy ANY material on a PC.
One of the huge reasons we have piracy today.
I demand the US government to stand up and fight against Microsoft and their evil tools of Piracy.
The FBI should bust down Microsoft there is a hidden "Copy and Paste" function that allows you to copy ANY material on a PC.
Well i am sure that is hidden in SOPA somewhere.
I still do however think it was insane for the US to flick the switch on Megaupload without due process, they didn't take the matter to court and win, even if it's blatantly obvious what they are doing.
I guess it is being approached in the same sort of way organised crime might be if it involved, say, a shipping company – all operations cease while the matter is being officially dealt with. The fact it is on the Internet is irrelevant really as the US Gov is claiming Mega to be an organised crime organisation. I suppose the only reason they aren't using the RICO act is because these guys appear to have done a lot of stuff themselves rather than ordering workers to do it.
It will be interesting to find out how they got a hold of the internal proof needed to say they were involved in piracy themselves and were searching the Megaupload file system for pirated material for personal use.
Still, would this mean the end of Megaupload as a service? The indictment seems to be squarely targeting Megaupload but the only allegations I see that are really damning are the personal ones – the rest are mostly wild assumptions like 72 minutes of free video is an incentive to pay for pirated movies (major stretch to prove that one I imagine). Surely it has been accepted up until this point that Megaupload would have had pirated materials on their servers, so what is this indictment bringing that's new to the table as evidence against Megaupload itself?
Could end up being an awful lot of energy wasted in convicting a few (albeit high profile) guys on proliferating piracy – big deal. I don't see why that means MU goes down or should be down now.
I signed up for a premium account a month ago and never got round to using it.
Sad how the majority of people used Megaupload to d/l pirated shit
MU even complied with DMCA requests
and this is how they got treated
which filesharing site is next do you think?
it's slow as hell on my connection – though i do use telstra DNS servers, maybe they're following suit and trying to stop users from getting onto Rapidcrap?
Sad how the majority of people used Megaupload to d/l pirated shit
MU even complied with DMCA requests
They did, but it has been reported by artists and software coders on various blogs, MU.com was the SLOWEST in acting.
Holy wowzers at the list of items they want to seize !
They're gonna profit good from resale thats for sure ;)
You're definitely right
I downloaded a 30mb pdf file of a paper I'd put on Rapidcrap months ago and it was as slow as hell, 40kb/s took 20 minutes to d/l the whole file. Occasionally it would drop out.
Rapidcrap has to go.
Still, would this mean the end of Megaupload as a service? The indictment seems to be squarely targeting Megaupload but the only allegations I see that are really damning are the personal ones
Read the Indictment, they are going for the the following domain names: Megastuff.co; Megaworld.com;Megaclicks.co; Megastuff.info; Megaclicks.org; Megaworld.mobi;Megastuff.org; Megaclick.us; Mageclick.com; HDmegaporn.com;Megavkdeo.com; Megaupload.com; Megaupload.org; Megarotic.com;Megaclick.com; Megavideo.com; Megavideoclips.com; Megaporn.com
(Courtesy of Microsoft windows Copyright Infringement tool, "Copy/Paste"), $175 Million Buckeroo's, and all their Bank Accounts too.
They did, but it has been reported by artists and software coders on various blogs, MU.com was the SLOWEST in acting.
Also, based on the indictment, they were only removing the URL pointers being submitted as a violation – not the files themselves. They apparently had a MD5 hash check process on all uploads and if the file was already in the MU system it would simply create a new URL for you and link to the existing file. So when a request was put in to take down a file, all MU was doing was killing the URL submitted as in violation while any other URL still pointing to that file the copyright holder wasn't aware of remained.
No idea if that is within the laws but I guess one could argue MU was playing with fire by not simply getting rid of the files instead.
how many more domains does megaupload have that the indictment doesn't list or doesn't know about?
Hell, new ones could be popping up right now for all we know.
You shut something down and something else pops up. It's like a cop trying to catch a kid on a pogo stick.
The cop may run all he likes but the kid will always bounce out of the way.
Read the Indictment, they are going for the the following domain names:
Right, not my point though – was Mega the company as fault here, or is a few high ranking employees of the company acting in a criminal manner? The indictment tries to make a case for why Mega is at fault but the allegations against the service itself seem to be weak and subjective – talking about how not having a search function means they've got something to hide, 72 hours of free video is not enough to watch a full movie so it promotes paying for full pirated videos etc. What is the point of listing these complaints with hard evidence employees of Mega were acting in an illegal manner?
If these guys were engaged in piracy themselves shouldn't that be separate, like a CEO at an investment company engaged in insider trading?
Why take down the company – take down the guys instead
it's a bit extreme in computer crime cases
pinch the computers and never return them
it's happened a lot – I bet you the FBI have got a nice little LAN party going with those confiscated servers – probably in between presenting evidence against Megaupload they play CoD over the LAN they set up lol
I guess the Mayas were right.
I agree. I'm pretty sure this is one of the first signs of the apocalypse.
Megaupload was by far the best of them as well :\... and this sets a precedent...
Also, lets say a shipping company was caught transporting, amongst plenty of legal things, drugs. A couple of the very high up execs were proven to be involved, and were using company assets and processes to proliferate the illegal distribution of drugs.
These guys would be convicted, but the company itself won't necessarily be wiped off the earth, would it? It might end up failing due to important people leaving all of a sudden, but the US Gov aren't going to close up shop and tell a bunch of grunt workers who weren't involved to get in line for a welfare cheque because their bosses were crooks....or would they?
http://arstechnica.com/tech-
This sums up alot of what was in the huge document I linked to earlier.
What they will do next is go through all the premium account holder details, match it with the logs and BAM you are now going to get a knock on the door.
What they will do next is go through all the premium account holder details, match it with the logs and BAM you are now going to get a knock on the door.
Really really highly doubt it.
look at all the gear that got seized
and all forfeit to the US Govt
what a waste of some possibly perfectly good jet skis
I wouldn't mind a jet ski in my room one day, even though it has no petrol to run it with, would be a nice little decoration.
but the US Gov aren't going to close up shop and tell a bunch of grunt workers who weren't involved to get in line for a welfare cheque because their bosses were crooks....or would they?
Who knows what the flapwits that make up Congress would do these days.
Although its not the US govt as such thats prosecuting here. Whilst the charges are on behalf of the People, those People are meant to represent a conglomeration of Congress and the Common Man On The Street.
Given the charges are criminal in nature for criminal conspiracy it's hard to tell. We also don't know how big the company's employee roster actually was. I think you will find they also froze the company's assets – which more or less means no one is going to get paid so closing up shop is logical.
true
but still, what the indictment is saying is that there was no search function on the site. There was no search function on megaupload.com, but other alternative sites existed to provide a search function, maybe the employees may have used one of those other sites, or it may even be true that there was a hidden search function not available to the public.
Nice little graphic showing the anon backlash
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10
what would the US govt do with all of the stuff they seized from MU? It would be a shame to destroy it, most of it works, give it away or sell it to the public IMHO
I'd take the TVs and a BMW which I'd sell to the cops eventually
All you guys using RapidCrap must be using a free account, on premium I can easily pull 2-3mb/s per download. I don't use it anymore because their pricing is just obsurd.
Nice little graphic showing the anon backlash
It is hard to understand why anonymous is doing this. What is the message they are sending, it is ok to steal other peoples work ?
I use to have premium with RapidCrap and I struggled to get above 500KB/s yet on Megaupload, on a free account, I managed easily 1MB/s :S
Well this sucks, there goes someone-other-than-me's premium account at MU and MUF.
How does Usenet compare ? Last time I used usenet (back a few years ago, using internode and one of the popular apps) it was such a pita and files were always incomplete etc.
Has there been any simplification in usenet ? Why is usenet not being targetted ? I mean there are these usenet 'binary' providers whose only purpose is clearly to distribute pirated content, so why have they never been targetted ? I am assuming it has something to do with the fact most people like me don't like usenet and find it too complicated
It is hard to understand why anonymous is doing this. What is the message they are sending, it is ok to steal other peoples work ?
Their action is about the lack of due process. And also they hate the MPAA/RIAA etc and SOPA and whatnot. Its all interlinked.
I don't use it anymore because their pricing is just obsurd.
This, I gave up when they kept changing the payment options and made it outrageously expensive.
Each time they changed the credits to points, back to credits, back to points, it was in their favor and I lost value of points so I lost them.
no wonder there are so many people making claims that they can give you free premium accounts or account generators, it doesn't work that way
just as a bit of a lol story: I tried to download one of these files which was 2mb (about the size of a keygen exe). All I got was a text file with a recipe in German for Spaghetti Bolognese and the rest of the file was filled with gibberish that padded the size out to 2mb.
I think I deleted that file :(
it really is interesting to see how many people think after looking at a link that promises a free rapidshare account that they can download from rapidshare for free
and then they either end up on a malware site or get a hilarious fake like I did.
When I had a premium account (2 years ago off the top of my head) I managed to pull ~45kb/s d/l max and it didn't matter whatever file I downloaded – it was the same speed.
i never renewed my premium account.
What they will do next is go through all the premium account holder details, match it with the logs and BAM you are now going to get a knock on the door.
Not going to happen. The CEO is not under arrest, maybe the dude make a deal with the feds???
I cancelled my premium account months and months ago
and I was only uploading test files anyway
random gibberish text files
so I feel quite safe and warm in my little cubbyhole where i am sitting right now with my Dell Latitude D610 on it's docking station connected to a 1440x900 resolution LCD
full of virus don't go there
What exactly do you base this on?
Been using usenet for over 3 years now and never had one problem with a virus or spyware or malware. Not like I've had with MU, torrents and co.
Not going to happen. The CEO is not under arrest, maybe the dude make a deal with the feds???
Uh yes he is
They took no chances and arrived with a full police force lol
https://twitter.com/#!/la
https://twitter.com/
DVDs are dirt cheap right now.
Hard Drives last longer than the garbage DVD-R's on the market right now.
Sure a HDD can crash, DVD's can scratch.. whats the diff.
torrent
Never had a Virus on Torrent, then again, as always, know what you want, read the feedback and just choose your files carefully, like Usenet or HTTP.
Mind you, might have to start using the IP Blacklists more now though :(
I don't know if this has been posted already
Internet strikes back: Anonymous Operation Megaupload explained
Download Peerblock, worth it
my TAFE teacher for Cert III Networking used to get a shitload of letters from the various ISPs he shuffled back and forth between until he started using Peerblock and then he didn't get a single letter/email.
I use that in conjunction with uTorrent, much easier to keep updated, much easier to manage (single click for enable/disable)
and it's worked great for me just as long as I keep the lists updated.
Damn, I was so close to buying a 2 year subscription earlier this month as well. But I decided against it.
full of virus don't go there
Never had a single virus, malware or fake file in my 5+ years of usenet.
no he isn't. Kimmy Dot isnt the CEO of Mega.
If you're referring Kasseem Dean he was pretty much a "pin-up" CEO. He doesn't own a single thing in Megaupload, hence why he wasn't arrested.
If you're referring Kasseem Dean he was pretty much a "pin-up" CEO. He doesn't own a single thing in Megaupload, hence why he wasn't arrested.
how does that make Kim the CEO? it doesn't. Kasseem Dean was the CEO.
the biggest bummer is megaupload had a good retention rate
If your talking about links 2-3 years old, mostly the megaupload links were still live
how does that make Kim the CEO? it doesn't. Kasseem Dean was the CEO.
What I'm trying to say is Kasseem is NOT the CEO in the sense that he doesn't run the company at all. Making the next in line the others who were already arrested. Please read the article.
What I'm trying to say is Kasseem is NOT the CEO in the sense that he doesn't run the company at all.
I read the article, he doesn't have a stake in the company. He is the CEO though. Owning part of a company and being a CEO are different, you know this right?
Read the Indictment, they are going for the the following domain names: Megastuff.co; Megaworld.com;Megaclicks.co; Megastuff.info; Megaclicks.org; Megaworld.mobi;Megastuff.org; Megaclick.us; Mageclick.com; HDmegaporn.com;Megavkdeo.com; Megaupload.com; Megaupload.org; Megarotic.com;Megaclick.com; Megavideo.com; Megavideoclips.com; Megaporn.com
they didn't get megabuy.com.au!!
Didn't Megaupload make that video clip that got taken of Youtube for claim of copyright.
they are actually suing UMG for the fake takedown request, abuse of DMCA is a crime. This is perhaps a little pay back for the counter-claim.
Can someone explain to me why MegaUpload was a better method than using torrents with private sites? I honestly would like to know why so many people were using these filesharing services.
Apart from the few reasons already mentioned, for me mobile broadband is another reason. It isn't my only connection method, but it is convienent.
For example you might be on the bus when you realise that tv show you torrented last night is fake, so you want to download another one quickly.
The torrenting software for smartphones at the moment is slow and doesn't work properly, even tethering to a laptop, performance is an issue with torrenting on mobile broadband.
All the thousands of sites that linked to MU made it fast and easy, well most of them did, and to be honest with you, apart from rare stuff it looks like most pirates of movies/TV shows, etc moved on from megaupload years ago.
When one does a search these days (on a certain "download everything" search engine), megaupload is very rarely in the first page of results.
Anyway I doubt anyone here is regularly using newsgroups (is that even possible?) and torrents on their mobile phones.
*edit* Also you could be at a friends house (and don't want to install a torrenter or nzb program) or you could have a new PC and don't have time to set everything up and get a ratio back (or restore from backups). You might be on holidays and an internet or power outage means your FTP server is offline. (yes this did happen to me once)
All these are good reasons to use file sharing sites instead, when you just want that thing now.
I still think the future will be streamed.
We need to get rid of this silly content rights discrimination between Australia & the US first though. It's rediculous and a gaping difference even exists in Amazon Kindle books.
Get services like Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime here for us too, with access to the same content the yanks have.
I'll never understand this claims/counterclaims business, all I understand is that Megaupload are bitching about UMG giving them a fake takedown request and they are bitching about how the Feds took them down.
That's all I understand about claims/counterclaims and the rest of it
get it settled out of court and don't waste a judge's time (let the judge enjoy their World of Warcraft) IMHO
if a lot of lawsuits were settled out of court the world would have a lot more judges that have a lot more time to play WoW.
I guess they will start another site and call it Mega??????. All they stuff would still be on their servers.
and one wonders why he wasn't indicted.
Actually, no they don't.
Actually I wonder. Under Sarbonnes-Oxley he should be being indicted.
Temp CEO or pin-up or whatever, he's still listed as the CEO and this demands certain things of me under that law.
maybe a little people justice should help out
we who liked megaupload can go and take whatever shit we want that previously belonged to him (eg the cars, the TVs, whatever) then make him watch him lose his fortune.
I'd keep two cars and probably fit one with a few extras (DVD player linked to two screens in back, extra cup holders, maybe a little fridge powered on an inverter.
I guess they will start another site and call it Mega??????. All they stuff would still be on their servers.
A lot of their servers were seized as a sizable chunk of them were hosted in the US
A lot of their servers were seized as a sizable chunk of them were hosted in the US
And the Netherlands where raids were also carried out.
And the Netherlands where raids were also carried out.
Yep I believe some were in HK as well.
When I was working for FileFactory ours were mostly all in the Netherlands as well. Quite glad I don't work there anymore in light of this.
Inb4 this shit gets thrown out of court.
Disturbing part is, how the hell was the US government able to arrest the MU CEO that lived in NZ, does no one else find that extremely disturbing.
Guess in the end, it was MU's silly idea of having ANY of their servers hosted in the states.
Actually I wonder.
He is a prominent producer of (AKA supplier) of music (AKA stock) to the members of the RIAA Cartel.
He is a prominent producer of (AKA supplier) of music (AKA stock) to the members of the RIAA Cartel.
Sarbonnes-Oxley doesn't care who you are.
"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.
unfortunately, they had a Verisign domain AND servers in Virginia. Which they should be completely allowed to do under the DMCA. Now they are trying to push the courts into taking away the DMCA from Mega.
Disturbing part is, how the hell was the US government able to arrest the MU CEO that lived in NZ, does no one else find that extremely disturbing.
I wonder if they will now have access to the Ip addresses that downloaded from megaupload, thus creating the ability to extradite downloaders and charge them?
Sarbonnes-Oxley doesn't care who you are.
Doesn't this only apply to public companies? Which I believe Megaupload isn't, hence why they could get away with it.
Why take down the company – take down the guys instead
They did nothing wrong, they do removed flagged content just like Youtube does.
Megaupload will be back in very soon, they can't do shit to them unless SOPA/PIPA passes.
Megaupload will be back in very soon, they can't do shit to them unless SOPA/PIPA passes.
this is where you're incorrect, the USA government has 45 days to apply to extradite the guys in NZ to the USA where they can be held until trial for a long long time.
Megaupload will be back in very soon
Only if they either build their own offshore hosting facility and buy their own pipe... or somehow manage to convince another host to let them co-locate... because their current hosts also got shook down as part of the raid.
Nobody would touch them now.
Doesn't this only apply to public companies? Which I believe Megaupload isn't, hence why they could get away with it.
Tbh I am not sure. I know public companies it definitely applies but I believe the idea behind it wasn't just public companies, but any company.
That IP that is going around pretending to be the 'new' Mega Upload has adverts all over it, probably someone trying to make some money.
|IIIII Germanotta IIIII| writes...
I really hope that MU will be up soon for all the people with accounts.
Lol... Don't expect it any time soon.
Disturbing part is, how the hell was the US government able to arrest the MU CEO that lived in NZ, does no one else find that extremely disturbing.
Haven't you heard? It's the US World Police. This is somewhat related
http://www.guardian.co.uk/la
|IIIII Germanotta IIIII| writes...
I really hope that MU will be up soon for all the people with accounts.
Wont happen, The Prosecution wants to seize the servers.
Honestly is it true that they are back online?
Anyone know if they will give us back our Premium accounts?
Luckily my premium expired before Christmas :) good timing.
Megaupload was the best File host known on this planet, the rest were trash compared to this.
DO NOT click on any of those so called new megaupload links. They are just phishing havens for the vulnerable.
Honestly is it true that they are back online?
Anyone know if they will give us back our Premium accounts?
Read the 5th post above yours. A tracert to the ip address hosting the "new" site leads to http://www.worldstream.nl/
They are just phishing havens for the vulnerable.
Exactly, i just said that earlier.. and we get another guy lol. Just wait for OFFICIAL news from trusted sites.
Highly reccomended to scan compuoter if you visit any supicious sites
a war on these kind of sites is like the drug war......impossible to win....'cue world's smallest violin'
LoveBroker writes...
Take away copyright material, would MU still thrive?
Would Bigpond, iiNet, Internode ?
Same question isn't it.
No. They would look at "intent".
If you run over someone accidentally, it's alot different to planing to run someone over.
Bigpond, iiNet, Internode are iSPs, do 95% of the people who use these ISPs do it for the sole purpose of downloading warez all day? Highly doubt it. Megaupload was an operation setup to purely profit from the selling of memberships so people could download warez. The feds didn't take them down only because of this, like I said earlier, they are notorious for making copyright holders wait and delayed all their DMCA takedowns for as long as possible, while their competitors did the opposite and took pirated content down asap if a DMCA letter was sent. This is also a reason why Megaupload got so big! files seem to stay active for longer, people weren't getting the dreaded "File removed" messages.
Honestly is it true that they are back online?
Anyone know if they will give us back our Premium accounts?
The government have seize all the servers and assets, worth up to $55mill. There is no chance they are coming back up. Oww every episode, every application, game, movie ever found on the internet.. rm -rf * forever. :P
friend just linked me this
i havent tried logging in with premium yet though
It is very fake as i'm sure the people behind MU could spell. Look at the text. "WE DON'T HAVE ANY DOMAIN NAME FOR NOW ONLY THIS IP ADDRESS (http://109.236.83.66) BEWARE TO THE PISHING SITES!" What's a pishing site?
Disturbing part is, how the hell was the US government able to arrest the MU CEO that lived in NZ, does no one else find that extremely disturbing.
Haven't you heard? It's the US World Police. This is somewhat related
http://www.guardian.co.uk/l
NZ government sold their citizen out? NZ government just hand over and bend over backwards to US government like that?
100 petabytes of data destroyed in an hour. the web is hosting a load of dead links now, more than anyone actually realises.
Not sure how they are going up for 45 years in prison, USA world police at it again!
It is very fake as i'm sure the people behind MU could spell.
And Mu did not have the Advertising on the front page.
It is very fake
as far as I can tell the guy is from Queensland with couple of other dodgy websites, not related to MU
worldstream was probably their old hosting company, in which case the cops had to issue a warrant for worldstream so that they to seize their servers, and had to specify which servers they were after if I'm not mistaken.
I bet you will never read of a yank gun company being shut down and the owners arrested because to many users were using their product illegally
regards
worldstream was probably their old hosting company, in which case the cops had to issue a warrant for worldstream so that they to seize their servers, and had to specify which servers they were after if I'm not mistaken
Please stop posting unfounded rubbish. None of your posts have a single degree of accuracy and they are all complete poppycock
over in the US they have a right to bear arms
and the highest % of gun related crime and murder anywhere in the world!
and they still don't think the two are related :)
but hey if you download a TV show, you're going for 30 years or 30 million!
but hey if you download a TV show, you're going for 30 years or 30 million!
the US jails are gonna be full...
the US jails are gonna be full...
Question: What's the main difference between mainland USA and a maximum-security jail?
Answer: You are allowed to leave mainland USA.
to quote Emmanuel Goldstein
First you need to shut down cheap public services. Start with something subjectivly immoral, then go from there to take down more and more. Move onto social networks and anything that allows for mass communication.
Then you take away services to low income families. Stop giving them food and money, stop servicing their area with education and roads ad transport. Basically send them into a third world state.
Then they start to riot. It's ok, because you already have laws that allow you to inprison them for as long as you want. The upper and middle classes don't know what is going on, they just hear something about 'terrorist riots' on the news and start to hate the people that the govenment is flapping over.
Then you can do what ever you like to 90% of the population. Force them into slave labour to make food and other goods for the lucky 10%, test drugs on them without concent, anything goes!
Then comes the fun bit! Because you are supplying the 10% with all this stuff that you made your slave army make, you can control them. You can blind them with your media, and enforce them with your police. Homosexuals, blacks and other non-white races, athiests and other non-christians, pedophiles, liberals, enviormental activists, what ever, it dosn't matter! Anybody who dosn't dance to your tune gets sent away as a witch, or commie, or terrorist, or what ever you are calling them. You control all before you, and all people are either too poor, or too blind to see what it going on.
It is wonderful, isn't it?
The money laundering is probably counting the money from illegal uploads as profits of crime and when that money goes into their legal side it is being "laundered"
Then doesn't this also means the likes of Google would also be considered money launderers, considering they definitely receive money from illegal content (eg. AdSense ads on undetected piracy websites, ad clicks via infringing YouTube content) and definitely transfer that money to the totally legit side of their business?
Other than these racketeering and money laundering charges, what actually makes this case a criminal case, as opposed to a civil case? What makes this case different to say the MPAA's lawsuit against Hotfile?
On evidence presented so far, Hotfile is actually more "guilty" than Megaupload, since they actually awarded users based on the number of downloads their uploads generates, and actively encouraged people to upload popular files (and the easiest way to have popular files is to upload copyrighted ones).
to quote Emmanuel Goldstein
Either Emmanuel Goldstein has a really poor grasp of the English language or the person doing the quoting failed high school.
With due respect, what a load of codswallop!!
It's a metaphor for the world as a whole today. 1/6 live in luxury while the others serve.
Question: What's the main difference between mainland USA and a maximum-security jail?
The US today does seem creeping like that crappy escape from la film now.
Either Emmanuel Goldstein has a really poor grasp of the English language or the person doing the quoting failed high school.
Not sure if serious...
I'll laugh when that happens.
I won't, could you imagine the chaos that would cause as former 4chan users spread to other sites across the net (not even WP would be immune to that *shudder*) :X
Megaupload was one of the most genuinely awesome services on the internet.
RIP Megaupload (2005-2012)
As an aside, anyone remember Mr Hat's Hellhole?
We could have had it all http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7UFm6ErMPU
and all I want for Christmas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbHI6nMsVHE is a brave new world where information, innovation and creativity is shared without boundaries or loss to human growth.
could you imagine the chaos that would cause as former 4chan users spread to other sites across the net (not even WP would be immune
NOPE NOPE nope nope nope....
So i guess the cops have all the IP address records to hunt down downloaders right?
If that's so, luckily I've never downloaded anything illegal from megaupload.
So i guess the cops have all the IP address records to hunt down downloaders right?
This has been tried before, way back in the early days of "popular" file sharing like Kazaa etc. and I'm pretty sure they've worked out it's futile.
Going after millions of individuals who potentially have nothing to give back just isn't worth the hassle, hence going for the "big fish".
Granted it's still possible to take action against individuals it's just highly unlikely.
Edit: I should add, they're more after the uploaders and facilitators than downloaders.
So i guess the cops have all the IP address records to hunt down downloaders right?
I don't think anyone has been prosecuted for downloading have they? They always get them for 'sharing' via P2P which is the equivalent of distribution (in their eyes)
As bad as it sounds, sometimes I just wish the terrorists would drop a nuke in their country to teach them a lesson and not to mess with other peoples affairs.
that will make things worse http://news.cnet.com/8301-313
http://news.cnet.com/8301-3
that's what I like about Akamai, it shows you exactly where there is more traffic.
Either those large red dots could be a pointer to where Anonymous mainly is or could just be traffic spikes, it's inconclusive to tell
Megaupload was full of pirated s h i t. Thank god it is down. It is a win for innovators and content creators now their stuff wont be stolen so easily. I hope they bring down other services like this as well and people would start to pay for movies they want to watch.
Kill all the piracy on internet and make it clean. Every one should pay to access the genuine and origianl contect. Innovation is going to be back again.
cars getting seized
http://www.flickr.co
nice cars :)
Megaupload was full of pirated s h i t. Thank god it is down.
The internet is full of pirated s h i t, let's take the internet down.
Sigh, idiotic comments by some people.
I don't think anyone has been prosecuted for downloading have they?
The only one I seem to recall was a lady, In America got nabbed for downloading an album, or was It a song and was forced to pay some stupidly high fine of something like million bucks. I'm sure you could find It.
In America got nabbed for downloading an album, or was It a song and was forced to pay some stupidly high fine of something like million bucks. I'm sure you could find It.
You mean this one... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_v._Thomas
You mean this one... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_v._Thomas
Yep, that's the one I was thinking of.
formatted computer, thinking ok I'll just re-download my mods, such massive amounts of data that's just gone, hopefully they will be back, data and all.
word of the day, anonymous
Get real in life and realise that people spend millions of dollars to create content and they dont do that so that some website rip it off and provide it to people for free or charge them to access it so they can make the money instead of the one who made that content. This is eventually going to discourage the production of new content, products and services.
First, my comment about the nuke was obviously a metaphor!
Second, do you realise there is no such thing as "original" content?
Ideas don't don't come from nothing, they result from a collection of things that the human mind hears, smells, feels, see, and tastes. i.e. through experiences.
In that sense, everything and anything that these people so called "create" are nothing more than bits and pieces of existing content disguised as something "new".
Now tell me, isn't it ironic to so called protect these "original" content when in essence, they themselves are nothing more than a collection of stolen ideas?
We all knew this was coming... Cyberlockers are setup to fail, as they are centralised.
Now everyone who needs to find a way around it, has to do so.
cars getting seized
nice cars :)
damn shame about the cars, let's hope the general public can buy them, I know I would.
We all knew this was coming... Cyberlockers are setup to fail, as they are centralised.
Now everyone who needs to find a way around it, has to do so.
what on earth is Cyberlockers?
The USA gonna hunt down site by site! Why? Their debt is eating them up so instead of cutting their defence force they rather hunt money which doesn't belong to them.
So what about the customers with premium accounts. Do they get refunded
Doubt it.
It is hard to understand why anonymous is doing this. What is the message they are sending, it is ok to steal other peoples work ?
Just wondering to all those who are concerned about copyrighted work, just trying to work out why it is such a crime to steal copyrighted work, but it's absolutely okay to have entire workshops of special needs people working for 50c an hour? This is a crime too, but no-one seems to care less, very funny situation. Not stirring, I'm just trying to understand these people's logic. Perhaps these people who shutdown megaupload can come to Australia, and shutdown a lot of these sweat-shops, there's one about 10k from where I live.
Though I'm disappointed megaupload is gone (my friend lost about 700 gig of stuff), the fact that the guys running it made millions....... is well ....... questionable. :( I think if most of the money went into expanding the services, and what have you, I don't think they would of been such targets. When one makes millions of dollars out of illegal activities, it does tend to get a little attention. Perhaps a mistake that others could learn from most probably?
It is a win for innovators and content creators now their stuff wont be stolen so easily.
That's total rubbish. Content creators stole numerous ideas from normal folks and freely accessible materials like the library. e.g. they stole ideas from the bible, newspaper articles etc ...
The hacking group released a document on file-sharing site Pastebin.com listing the websites they planned to attack along with the names of US Democratic Party leaders and MPAA employees and their families.
The details included property values, work and home phone numbers and addresses as well as the names, ages and schools of the member's children.
"Megaupload was taken down w/out SOPA being law. Now imagine what will happen if it passes. The Internet as we know it will end. FIGHT BACK," wrote @YourAnonNews on Twitter in a reference to the ongoing battle in Congress over the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
That's total rubbish. Content creators stole numerous ideas from normal folks and freely accessible materials like the library. e.g. they stole ideas from the bible, newspaper articles etc ...
Two right. :). And just extending on my thread above, with trying to stay on the topic, special needs people are left as slaves, yet on the otherhand, when hollywood screams like a baby, the entire US legal system fires up. What is it about the folk of hollywood, that seems to make them think they are above the rest of us, and so almighty. This is what annoys the hell out of me, and no doubt many other folk.
Get real in life and realise that people spend millions of dollars to create content and they dont do that so that some website rip it off and provide it to people for free or charge them to access it so they can make the money instead of the one who made that content. This is eventually going to discourage the production of new content, products and services.
You know what else discourages production of content?
- Entertainment industry paying their CEO's salaries in excess of $100m, giving scraps to the real creators.
- Entertainment industry pouring money into DRM which ultimately achieves nothing and just annoys paying customers whilst driving the price up.
- Entertainment industry bribing politicians with $906m [1]
Don't get me wrong, after reading the FBI press release showing the internal emails of Megaupload, I am 100% for the shutdown of the site- even thou I consider myself pro piracy (but only due to lack of legal alternatives that currently exist)
One thing to remember is Kim had $175m in cash at the time his assets were seized amongst a bunch of other expensive stuff, he would also have spent substantial amounts of money on 'everyday expenses' – and had a $30m house.
But focusing on just the $175m works out to be $35m per year since Megaupload was founded – and one would assume that means he was pulling in at least $50m per year when you consider how he spent like a drunken sailor.
This is with limited content, no search features, substantial content being pulled (5,000 files per day alone from just Time Warner) – and no real promoting or advertising.
Once again, assuming the emails quoted in the injunction are legit – I agree 100% with the shutdown of Megaupload – but this is a perfect example of a business model that _could_ work if the record labels got on board. >$175m or whatever could instead be in the pockets of record labels if they would see this as a chance to copy, um, I mean "STEAL" Megaupload's business model (insert adverts to movies, have a limit of free streaming, pay to uncap limit)
The seizure of MegaUpload has made a substantial dent to P2P vid sharing. It means that users are now only left with the options below:
GorillaVid
SockShare
Movpod
D
VeeHD
Novamov
VideoWe
VidBux
Vidozer
VideoBB
St
DivxStage.eu
PutLocker
zshare.net
We're done for.
You know what else discourages production of content?
* Entertainment industry paying their CEO's salaries in excess of $100m, giving scraps to the real creators.
* Entertainment industry pouring money into DRM which ultimately achieves nothing and just annoys paying customers whilst driving the price up.
* Entertainment industry bribing politicians with $906m [1]
Don't get me wrong, after reading the FBI press release showing the internal emails of Megaupload, I am 100% for the shutdown of the site- even thou I consider myself pro piracy (but only due to lack of legal alternatives that currently exist)
Thanks Duideka, you've echoed my thoughts exactly, I would gladly pay if the record companies uploaded lossless material to a service like that. But because much of the music I like has been deleted, or does not show up on ebay, my options are limited.
It is a win for innovators and content creators now their stuff wont be stolen so easily.
Other than the fact that their stuff can still be stolen easily, and if content creators* continues to push back, all that will happen is that easier to use and harder to take down piracy tools will be made out of necessity, and once that's done, it's game over.
*The companies pursuing legislation like SOPA do not create any content. They simply own the license to the content that was made by real artists, whom they readily exploit for financial gain.
Copyright laws weren't created to protect copyright licensees, they were created to protect the general interests of the public by allowing for innovation, cultural preservation and the free exchange of ideas. It's long been recognised that reducing the rights of license holders is sometimes necessary to protect these ideals.
One thing to remember is Kim had $175m in cash
So its ok for financial people to make billions and put the world into economic crisis but not ok for a person to create a site to share hmmm
He is not responsible for what people upload! Going after him achieves nothing.
He is not responsible for what people upload! Going after him achieves nothing.
In general, I would agree with you – infact this was my first reaction.
I agree that webmasters should NOT be held responsible for what is uploaded to their website, so long as they take "reasonable" action to moderate it.
I agree that what most labels consider "reasonable" (monitoring every single file) is completely unreasonable and lacks comprehension of how hard it would be to do that.
I was initially against the Megaupload take-down, but then I read this document:
www.scribd.com/doc/78786408/Mega-Indictment
I'll save you some time: skip to page 30, that is where the (likely illegally obtained, mind you) emails start.
For example, this email:
BENCKO = Web Designer
VAN DER KOLK = Network Admin
On or about October 4, 2007, BENCKO sent VAN DER KOLK an e-mailmessage entitled “pls” requesting “can u pls get me some links to the series called ‘Seinfeld’from MU?”.
On or about October 18, 2007, BENCKO sent an e-mail to VAN DERKOLK indicating that “sorry to bother but if you would have a second to find me some links forthe “Grand Archives” band id be very happy.” On or about the same day, VAN DER KOLKresponded to BENCKO with an e-mail that contained a Megaupload.com link to a GrandArchives music album with the statement “That’s all we have. Cheers mate!
Or:
On or about April 23, 2009, DOTCOM sent an e-mail message to VANDER KOLK, ORTMANN, and BENCKO in which he complained about the deletion of URLlinks in response to infringement notices from the copyright holders. In the message, DOTCOMstated that “I told you many times not to delete links that are reported in batches of thousandsfrom insignificant sources. I would say that those infringement reports from MEXICO of “14,000” links would fall into that category. And the fact that we lost significant revenuebecause of it justifies my reaction.”
On or about April 24, 2009, DOTCOM sent an e-mail to BENCKO,ORTMANN, and VAN DER KOLK indicating, “I remembered the steep drop of revenue at thesame time in 2008 and thought that this might have also been caused by careless mass link deletions. This made me very mad, especially because I told you that such mass deletions shouldbe prevented and sources checked much more carefully. I am sure such mass link deletions arealso contributing to a drop of revenue … In the future please do not delete thousands of links atones from a single source unless it comes from a major organization in the US
Seriously, please go and read the indictment :)
Yeah the indictment is pretty damning, I spent the afternoon reading most of it at work :)
However I am very interested to understand how they got all these emails, some dating back to 2006 ish before they seized the servers etc.
I dont get one good reason why people support megaupload considering all the pirated stuff they host on their website, charge people to access that pirated content and make millions of dollars for themself from the pirated stuff. Shouldnt the people who have made that content, spent their time and money in making them should be getting all that money.
There is however genuine original content on there but thats a very small percentage as compared to the pirated stuff available. I d say inevitabel has finally happened and it is going to happen to other similar sites as well. Copyrighted content must be protected.
Ideas don't don't come from nothing, they result from a collection of things that the human mind hears, smells, feels, see, and tastes. i.e. through experiences.
In that sense, everything and anything that these people so called "create" are nothing more than bits and pieces of existing content disguised as something "new".
So I should be able to eat sushi from any place I want for free, since sushi wasn't created by the guy who owns that store and just bits and ideas from other food chefs.
I dont get one good reason why people support megaupload considering all the pirated stuff they host on their website
They mad coz they lost their premium membership plan... Despite probably saving thousands of dollars already in copying stuff vs buying it.
However I am very interested to understand how they got all these emails, some dating back to 2006 ish before they seized the servers etc.
It's not rocket science.
The Feds did say it was a two year investigation so i wouldn't be surprised if they put a sniffer on the email server and copied (not moved) emails from the mail server to their laptops so they had solid email evidence (of course they had to map MU's network and find the mail server first)
Wat about people like my self who paid over $120 for a premium account (2 days ago mind you)
Should I lose my money it doesn't seem fair I have not committed a crime by signing up to a legitimate site.
Wat about people like my self who paid over $120 for a premium account (2 days ago mind you)
Should I lose my money it doesn't seem fair I have not committed a crime by signing up to a legitimate site.
Did you sign up with the intent to download illegal material or did you sign up to use it for personal files that do not breach copyright etc?
So its ok for financial people to make billions and put the world into economic crisis but not ok for a person to create a site to share hmmm
He is not responsible for what people upload! Going after him achieves nothing.
There is nothing bad to create a site to share but sharing illegal pirated content!! This is wrong both ethically and finacially. They were making money when someone else should be making it. The one that created movies and TV shows available on megavideo and megaupload.
Why cant people see the difference between right and wrong. stealing is wrong and making money by selling someone else's property is wrong.
He is responsible for the uploads because he knew people were uploading copyrighted stuff on his website and he let em instead of stopping them.
Should I lose my money it doesn't seem fair I have not committed a crime by signing up to a legitimate site.
you should be allowed to get a refund but since megaupload has been boned in the ass and assets have been frozen it's pretty unlikely you'll get a refund, in fact close to impossible.
Just goes to show the Feds like going after the big fish who help feed the little fish, take away the big fish, they say, and the little fish starve.
Bull.
When one big fish goes, another one will come along.
Wat about people like my self who paid over $120 for a premium account (2 days ago mind you)
Should I lose my money it doesn't seem fair I have not committed a crime by signing up to a legitimate site.
The feds will probably get megaupload to refund all stolen money. They will liquidate the owners assets and return that money back.. The ultimate problem is all that money is probably used or hidden in secret offshore bank accounts.
all the other file sites are probably shaken to the core because all their email servers, communications are most likely being sniffed.
So I should be able to eat sushi from any place I want for free, since sushi wasn't created by the guy who owns that store and just bits and ideas from other food chefs.
This is such a bad analogy I don't even know where to start, but I think the suggestion that people feel Sushi should be free is ridiculous. Most people are not angry at the artists; but instead are angry at the labels who insist (by force) on being the middle men.
People want the Sushi selling market to be competitive, and when you buy Sushi- the vast majority of the money should end up with the chef, and not some dude that the chef signed his soul away to and ultimately creates nothing.
You should also be on even ground with everyone else to pay for said delicious Sushi regardless of what timezone or country you reside in.
Furthermore when other people prove they can deliver Sushi cheaper than you, instead of suing them into oblivion- examine their business models, and possibly adapt yours to make yourself more competitive.
They were making money when someone else should be making it. The one that created movies and TV shows
You do know the people involved in making it have more than enough money with piracy. There is far too much money involved in these industries as it reaches a huge audience. The amount some of them get paid for 1 episode/ 1 movie is ridiculous to justify they earned it.
Instead of embracing online web they have increased prices and told customers thats life. Instead of wasting time trying to kill websites they need to invest money into technology to stops people ripping their movies and uploading it. As long as the internet exists piracy will 2.
hidden in secret offshore bank accounts.
"I'm sorry, I can't disclose any information about that customer's secret, illegal account.. Oh, crap. I shouldn't have said he was a customer... Oh, crap. I shouldn't have said it was a secret... Oh, crap! I certainly shouldn't have said it was illegal!"
Haha, that Instantly came to my head when I read that.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8405998
says that some of the servers were based in the USA which might explain the slow speeds for some of you
considering the time it takes for the file to come from Virginia, USA to Australia over the overseas cables, it's a hell of a long way there, unless you use fiber optic
and this is good news too:
http://news.ninemsn.com.
at least they have the brains to reconsider the bill
So here is what I think a lot of music producing companies don't realise, the money I don't spend on music because I pirate it, goes towards spending money at gigs. If people had to pay for music, they would be less likely to go to gigs, because of a few factors:
1. Not enough money to afford the gigs, because there budget was already spent on paying for music.
2. They would not know about many bands as they would have to pay for their music and who would want to pay money for someone they have never heard of?
So now begs the question, who cares if less people went to gigs? Well if less people went to gigs, you would not have a music industry, because people would only pay for bands they know and love. The money they would spend on going to see a random gig would be spent on buying more music of a band they like. Thus leaving out all the new bands which come along.
If piracy did not exist, neither would the music industry. How else are you going to spread your music?
Can someone explain why is youtube not down. Same grounds, infact even worse imo.
Why cant people see the difference between right and wrong. stealing is wrong and making money by selling someone else's property is wrong.
Copyright infringement is not the same as stealing but don't let that get in the way of a good argument.
He is responsible for the uploads because he knew people were uploading copyrighted stuff on his website and he let em instead of stopping them.
And MU actively took down copyrighted material. They abided by DMCA take down requests and even had their own DMCA agent.
There is also a ton of copyrighted material on YouTube. Where's your disdain for Google?
He is responsible for the uploads because he knew people were uploading copyrighted stuff on his website and he let em instead of stopping them.
Will facebook be responsible if I upload a movie to their service? Will youtube?
And MU actively took down copyrighted material. They abided by DMCA take down requests and even had their own DMCA agent.
/forum-replies.cfm?t=1851705&p=23#r446
The second quote specifically.
Where does all this confiscated money end up?
Proceeds of crime it would most likely get called in NSW for example. Either the Crime commission does a sweet deal or more likely Government coffers.
In this case the US Government will argue it all belongs to them.
I must say the war for the Internet is heading for a new level. Who's next? Safe Harbour what Safe Harbour. Only for those in the pockets of the US Government?
So many people legitimately use sites like Megaupload to transfer things like Home Videos and Photos for example. Or store large files they created.
They all just got taken out. If some of them dont have other copies available this would be nasty for them.
Never used the service myself i torrent all my Linux ISO's but if people do have legitimate materials on Megaupload i would be trying to find out who to contact to make a formal complaint and demand to retrieve your data.
Will facebook be responsible if I upload a movie to their service? Will youtube?
possibly. they have been for years but the MPAA has done flap all until now.
I haven't used YT since I was in year 6 when I first heard about it
now cause of SOPA I'm revisiting those glory days
damn there's some solid gold on some of those videos
like the 'spiders on drugs', GI Joe overdubbed safety announcements and some classic Doom/Doom 2 playthroughs (anyone remember that game being banned at work?)
I love the spiders on drugs though 'the marijuana spider became the crack spider's bitch' lmfao
what I like though is the large amount of Dakota Fanning hate videos that I've seen pop up now
Wat about people like my self who paid over $120 for a premium account (2 days ago mind you)
tough luck, pay month to month to avoid this in the future
what I like though is the large amount of Dakota Fanning hate videos that I've seen pop up now
All about Chloe Moretz now :)
Have no idea how you could not be on youtube for 6 years O.o
My premium account was expiring in ~55 days. I'm not too bothered by it. Though I have some legit backups stored on my account.
Can someone explain why is youtube not down. Same grounds, infact even worse imo.
Because until recently the record labels could have basically anything taken down at will. Even if they had no rights over it. The actually owners of the material had to prove it was theirs legally to get it back up.
They can and did overstep the boundary who knows how often. just read up a bit on the Megaupload song drama. Payback is swift and fierce it seems.
We have Blackout day against PIPA and SOPA.
They hit back at Megaupload.
Anon hit them back :)
They can and did overstep the boundary who knows how often. just read up a bit on the Megaupload song drama. Payback is swift and fierce it seems.
Yeah I know about that. Was stupid as all hell.
I knew this day was coming, that's why I have 50TB of data ready :) 80% coming from megaupload.
All about Chloe Moretz now :)
haven't seen any of those videos
I love the amateurish feel to those Dakota fanning hate videos
I wonder if DF herself saw them – she'd be upset probably
but I don't think she spends her time tracking down the idiot(s) who creates and posts those videos.
The second quote specifically.
I fail to see what that has anything to do with what I said.
All I see is two employees using the service they created to find shared material for themselves. It says nothing about not abiding DMCA notices to which I was talking.
I've had my own copyright material distributes on the like of MU amongst others and after filing a take down request they were removed quite quickly.
Are you saying you've never shared a YouTube link or the like (For example videos of moments from tv shows) to friends or work mates?
We have Blackout day against PIPA and SOPA.
They hit back at Megaupload.
Anon hit them back :)
endless cycle war yay :D
Did you sign up with the intent to download illegal material or did you sign up to use it for personal files that do not breach copyright etc?
My intent is irrevalant I'm not under investigation. But in answer to your question no since I bought the account I have not used it to dl copyrighted content.
I still believe they are fighting a losing battle when napster was shut down did that stop the copyright of music?
But in answer to your question no since I bought the account I have not used it to dl copyrighted content.
I asked what your intent was, not what you used it for. But that's ok, I can read between the lines.
tough luck, pay month to month to avoid this in the future
Very constructive perhaps if the show was on the other foot?
Mate I have not committed a crime that $120 is a sizable chunk of money to me that could have been useful elsewhere.
This is such a bad analogy I don't even know where to start, but I think the suggestion that people feel Sushi should be free is ridiculous. Most people are not angry at the artists; but instead are angry at the labels who insist (by force) on being the middle men.
Again, beautifully said. I'm with paying the artists for their work, but these slimeballs who insist on being the middle man (record companies, movie companies, etc) should be stripped of their special privilidges, and face the same reality, if their business model is not viable, then ta ta. :)
I asked what your intent was, not what you used it for. But that's ok, I can read between the lines.
My main use for using megaupload was going to be for hosting files for my webpage.
I'm no saint I use other services for what your implying and to be honest would use them before I even thought of using MU for that purpose.
For many years, with anon – I don't understand what the point of taking down websites in retaliation is, especially government websites. It's back to normal within a few hours anyway. I can understand economic based websites, but sites like this??
I'm not tech savvy but wouldn't it be wiser (if possible) to hit the direct source/domain of the website? Unless it's hardware...
Feel free to delete this post if inappropriate.
Will facebook be responsible if I upload a movie to their service? Will youtube?
YES. It is their responsibily to take down the copyrighted videos users put on the websites. They must comply with the laws. MU knew of all those pirated movies and their links but they did no take them all down. Check the emails posted earlier on the thread received by FBI. They endorsed piracy on their website so they are breaking the law and made millions out of it.
All I see is two employees using the service they created to find shared material for themselves. It says nothing about not abiding DMCA notices to which I was talking.
I don't agree. EG:
In the message, DOTCOMstated that “I told you many times not to delete links that are reported in batches of thousandsfrom insignificant sources. I would say that those infringement reports from MEXICO of “14,000” links would fall into that category. And the fact that we lost significant revenuebecause of it justifies my reaction.”
In the future please do not delete thousands of links atones from a single source unless it comes from a major organization in the US.
My take on this is basically; "only delete the file if they have sufficient legal power"
I don't mean to cause offense by this comment, but maybe the reason your content was so easy to get taken off Megaupload was because they saw it had very few hits, and assumed taking it down would not impact revenue?
Are you saying you've never shared a YouTube link or the like (For example videos of moments from tv shows) to friends or work mates?
Oh no, I'm not playing holier than thou or anything like that.
I am simply saying; these Megaupload guys were outright encouraging piracy and completely ignoring the DCMA legislation, whilst knowingly profiteering immensely from piracy.
If no evidence was produced that showed Megaupload was aware that mass infringements were going on, I'd be agreeing with you – but the evidence paints a obvious picture.
Furthermore- if Megaupload was only slightly profitable, despite the fact it is still infringing copyright knowingly – I would be fine with it.
I have always thought the only reason piracy exists is because of the labels refusal to innovate, so I have no problems with pirates – but it's a different case when people use it as a opportunity to profiteer.
The fact Megaupload was able to make such insane amounts of money so quickly proves that even if they give the content away- it is a immensely profitable business model – even by the record labels massively inflated claims of $500m lost revenue, Megaupload managed to more or less get half of that even with many penalties (no search, no advertising and content being pulled (5,000 per day from each company with rights to do so)
This is a hugely profitable business model staring the labels in the face, whether or not they can see is is anyones guess.
this is another worthwhile read:
http://pastebin.com/WEydcBVV
Pretty creepy for the last bit, posting addresses, and family details..lol
Pretty creepy for the last bit, posting addresses, and family details..lol
I agree with the kids age and names
So all that Anonymous does is DDOS by sending millions of hits to the server at once? No actual hacking involved?
Pretty creepy for the last bit, posting addresses, and family details..lol
definitely
at least now the anti-SOPA supporters have people to blame
So all that Anonymous does is DDOS by sending millions of hits to the server at once? No actual hacking involved?
Not entirely correct on the hacking bit.
Remember Mafiaboy's online 'reign of terror'? He used thousands of vulnerable computers, infected them with malware and told them 'ok, I want you to send heaps of pings to this site at this exact time' and they did pretty much what he said
result: lots of sites went offline on the 7th Feb 2000
I still remember that day, probably the second darkest day in the interwebs' history
anonymous probably has a whole lot of volunteer computers they use for DDoS operations all over the world
I fail to see what that has anything to do with what I said.
All I see is two employees using the service they created to find shared material for themselves. It says nothing about not abiding DMCA notices to which I was talking.
Why stop half way? Read the other part where the CEO "dotcom" was telling the staff member not to pull the pirate links off their site because their revenues from membership signups decreased as a direct result of that. That's the great thing about society, we have ignorant people who end up working for the smart people. :P
So all that Anonymous does is DDOS by sending millions of hits to the server at once?
That's essentially what a DDOS attack is...
However, some members may hack other computers and 'order' them to launch an attack on the targeted website.
Wikipedia explains pretty good.
Edit: Is this the fastest growing thread ever on WP?? 25 pages in one day.
For many years, with anon – I don't understand what the point of taking down websites in retaliation is, especially government websites.
The same reason people protest on the streets. Its loud, highly visible and gets media attention. In other words the LOIC hits are advertising. Its also allows people to take part. Opmegupload had something like 6k users involved. thats people. Im sure many ran bot nets too. Not fond of that though.
One interesting side affect they have had before is in restoring services some of these sites have left themselves a little more open in ways and thats where the real hackers start posting stuff they managed to download they shouldnt have been able to get to. They hide in the noise of the big hit.
Internet traffic worldwide is 13-14% higher than usual i saw quoted earlier. Supposedly 4% of Internet traffic got taken out today with the loss of megaupload.
A bunch of 16 year old hackers do this kind of stuff because they dont have deep understanding of real world and they do things just for fun
Will just be a matter of time before the feds knock on their door. I was watching a murder investigation yesterday about a serial killer who murdered 17 women, he sent a letter to the editor with a map location of where they would find the first victim. The feds backtracked the map service he used and subpoenaed the records on the map service for anyone who accessed that property address on x date. They found the IP, went to his house, busted him. Guy ended up hanging himself before trial.
With the release of all the members of their household, property addresses, property values, etc. It won't be hard to snuff them out, the feds just need to goto sites that handle property value data, find out who accessed the records for "x names" and go from there.
The things they do, hacking and stealing personal details, CC info etc, are not something to be proud of.
too right – when I went to study a Cert III in networking at TAFE (I found it difficult due to having high-functioning autism) we had our fair share of flapwits thinking they owned the network
we had to install Sub7 on all the computers as a practice thing one day so that we understood what a remote access trojan was and the resident flapwits took the opportunity to create a botnet of 10 PCs all connecting to a single Quake III Arena server at the same time, which pretty much demonstrated a DDoS attack.
That was the end of that little exercise.
It is god damn creepy hacking and posting this kinda personal details
Agreed. But these people got rich out of attacking the Internet as it were. Anon is the Internet fighting back. While i cant agree with all their methods i can only say play with fire get burned.
Its like being a security guard/bouncer (but obviously more profitable). This guy took the money knowing he was going to upset people and they might take offence. It seems Anon did and hit back by releasing a little personal info.
YES. It is their responsibily to take down the copyrighted videos users put on the websites. They must comply with the laws. MU knew of all those pirated movies and their links but they did no take them all down. Check the emails posted earlier on the thread received by FBI. They endorsed piracy on their website so they are breaking the law and made millions out of it.
Actually, not quite. Under the DMCA, the content holders must first identify which piece of content it being distributed unlawfully, and must contact Facebook to have the content deleted. Facebook is otherwise protected from the actions of its users, via the Safe Harbor (sic) provision of the DMCA. In most cases, without the content holder providing additional information regarding licenses, the service provider cannot determine that on its own, and has no obligation to do so (in the Viacom vs YouTube case, YouTube showed evidence of Viacom employees deliberately uploading copyright content under fake usernames and using techniques to make the video look "home made" to promote their shows, and used this as an example of why content holders should be proactive in identifying content that should be removed, and what should be kept for promotional purposes).
There is also a "red flag" provision, where the service provider must remove "obvious" cases of copyright infringement, but in case of Facebook, where there are millions and millions of posts daily, there's no such thing as "obvious" (eg. unless a link is being downloaded so much that it gets the attention of Facebook staff, then Facebook are legally in the clear). But the "red flag" provision has been repeatedly watered down, if not outrightly ignored by various court decision, due to the vague nature of what is "obvious" and what is not.
The Betamax Supreme Court ruling also made clear that as long as something has "substantial non-infringing use", then the manufacturer/operator would not be "liable for contributory copyright infringement for the potential uses by its purchasers", and I'm not sure if Megaupload's legal usages, and the way it is promoted as a legal service, falls into this category or not. What could get Megaupload into trouble with the emails is the fact that, at least some of their employees had a fairly good idea that there were infringing content on the website, and if that was made aware to management (or if management was already aware of it, based on the emails), then this could be the smoking gun (although I still believe that most of this constitute only a civil action, not a criminal one, and it's almost the exact same case as the MPAA vs Hotfile, which is a civil action).
Disclaimer: I do not have any Megaupload/Megavideo accounts (or with any other file hosting/sharing website), and obviously not affiliated with them in anyway since I'm not under arrest :)
With the release of all the members of their household, property addresses, property values, etc. It won't be hard to snuff them out, the feds just need to goto sites that handle property value data, find out who accessed the records for "x names" and go from there.
That could be a lot of people and how long do you think poeple keep logs for. This could have been months ago. there are also ways and means even a script kiddie can hide this sort of act fairly easily.
Most of the Anons download LOIC and hit fire. Script kiddies in other words. The guys who post this stuff actually have skill. Catching them has proved very non trivial. Think OpPayback.
They will catch a few idiots again maybe half a dozen. Most of the people involved will escape in the noise.
Anon is not some tight nit group with lists of Members on a server somewhere. Its a mass that comes together on things. A lot of them one operation only.
I looked at a lot of links tonight and at least one of them was a page that uses your browser as a LOIC attack (i spotted it fast). How many other stumbled across a similar link, how many hacked computers in a bot net took part. Separating the real people behind it from the noise isnt easy is what im trying to get across.
Obviously it's the old adage 'if one group does something wrong, the community suffers'
who ever invented that adage should be taken out the back and shot
considering the time it takes for the file to come from Virginia, USA to Australia over the overseas cables, it's a hell of a long way there, unless you use fiber optic
It's a shame our data comes from the US via carrier pigeon then lol.
I dont get one good reason why people support megaupload considering all the pirated stuff they host on their website
Most sensible people don't support illegal copyright infringement. They are just fed up. And end up using sites like Megaupload.
The fatcats who own these companies like the old distribution models of charging $15-$30 per DVD and not allowing you to download it. And prefer you buy it at retail outlet. Where they can charge more. This is an attack on the general public.
Rather than allowing people to download it over the internet. With lesser cost. Cause there is no mark up for the retailer. This current debate is all about protecting the current model of charging customers at retail outlets exorbitant prices for DVD's, music, films and anything else that they can get away with.
Movie, music or dvd retailers need to move with the times. Anyone who opposes legitimate downloading of legitimate content is scum. And all the MPAA or RIAA is trying to do is that.
Or why is it not possible for Australians to get content from Hulu?
This is a hugely profitable business model staring the labels in the face, whether or not they can see is is anyones guess.
You sound as if you would condone drug dealing and ship hijacking as well. The so called model revolved around stealing peoples intellectual property rights. Rumour has it that the Feds will be auditing all the data and credit card details to ascertain who was doing the downloading as well.
It's a shame our data comes from the US via carrier pigeon then lol.
it certainly is, and we do lose a few pigeons so we have to re-request them, happened all the time with megaupload and mediafire back when it first launched till they got their act right and fixed that
looks like they'll be killing all the carrier pigeons if SOPA goes through
so that's the end of that then
might as well retire from IT and consider another career as a portaloo plumber like Kenny
You sound as if you would condone drug dealing and ship hijacking as well.
Awesome compare someone who denys these guys a few $$$
Edit (fixing link) http://img193.imageshack.us/i
With people who do things that serious hurt people.
Download a movie some of those guys miss out on their cut.
Transport drugs and people get addicted and rob and steal or die for them.
Hijack a ship and possibly kill crew members.
Yeah those offences are so close.......
Awesome compare someone who denys these guys a few $$$
Yeah Right, more cut and paste propaganda. What about the INDIVIDUALs. Always this baseless punititive argument about a few whales. So you would condone shop lifting as well ?
I would like to see how most of you would handle your own property being stolen on a daily basis. Especially if you depended on that property to feed your family.
I hope that the MU crowd get locked up.
Where will the internet be if you couldn't download music, movies programs etc. I download some things some i buy depending on if i want it in blu ray quality or not.
Fair enough while a movie studio may lose revenue because someone downloads something many others are profiting.
Whats next should ISP's be made to limit the size of an internet plan for each household because it is impossible for someone to download 200gb in a month.
Every ISP in Australia even though they are not hosting these files are putting products on the market targeted at people who download pirated content.
Why should i rent a movie through an online service for $6 when i can walk into a shop and do it for the same price. I would be happy to rent movies online and pay for them but lets face it its a digital copy if megaupload are able to share so much content and distribute it to so many people at $10 a month how can someone like Telstra justify $6 for a movie when im also paying for the internet connection to download it.
Maybe the business plan for the national broadband network should work like this. Surf the web for free rent movies tv shows work out deals for programs and download directly through online retailers at reduced prices but not pay a thing for internet access.
Or the media organizations create something like megaupload new releases pay the premiums but charge a fee to download as much as you want for other content.
If piracy doesnt exist other businesses will suffer in other ways. the problem isnt piracy its that the people who own the content want larger margins for what they do sell and wont change their business models to become more competitive.
Company's like megaupload succeeded because for 150 million people thats where the market is at. If they had 150 million active members how many more are on the 10 or so other sites similar to it.
The ceo made 46 million out of this last year 150million registered users that 1.5 billion in turnover. How much are the uploaders making to support a user base like that.
Seems to me company's should be looking at their business model and using it to their advantage.
The so called model revolved around stealing peoples intellectual property rights.
You have misunderstood me.
I am not suggesting that a third party website "stealing" peoples intellectual property and selling it for their own financial gain is a "good" business model.
I am talking about the record labels creating a Megaupload like service that is convenient for the users.
Megaupload more than likely made $250m in their existence, which isn't far off the $500m in "lost revenue" that the record labels are claiming (when you consider they always exaggerate those figures)
Plus, as mentioned, given Megaupload relied on other websites to link and upload files, with some of them being killed and no search function- that $250m would have more than likely been alot higher.
I'm simply saying a perfect delivery method is staring the record labels in the face, let the user stream one video for free a day so long as they sit through a series of adverts, and they can pay to watch more than one per day.
Essentially what I'm suggesting is the model used for free to air TV in Australia, except over the internet, on demand, and 3 billion people sitting on the end of a modem have access to it.
The potential is incredible but instead the labels pursue these archaic delivery methods.
They must comply with the laws.
Didn't you know Laws have always been optional on the Internet?
MU knew of all those pirated movies and their links but they did no take them all down.
What about Google? Seriously Google have more pirated links than MU.
http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2011&p=.htm ..take alook at box office, it's incredible how much movie studio earn while American in bad shape..
What about Google? Seriously Google have more pirated links than MU.
Google is a search engine. They are not directly hosting the material
Google is a search engine. They are not directly hosting the material
They make money for advertising it
Google is a search engine. They are not directly hosting the material
Ahhh The TPB argument :) Didnt save them though.
The potential is incredible but instead the labels pursue these archaic delivery methods.
Ok, my apologies. Yes I re-read your post and relate to your opinion. I cant give any numbers as to what they (whales) consider fair but there seems to be a mis-conception that stealing is acceptable when its in the form of illicit data transfer.
You are not condoning this.
I'm simply saying a perfect delivery method is staring the record labels in the face, let the user stream one video for free a day so long as they sit through a series of adverts, and they can pay to watch more than one per day.
I think that idea is why Megaupload scares them enough to draw this type of response. What if some horrible rouge artists started using someone like Megaupload to do this for a cut of the fee.
They make money for advertising it
Read the indictment letters and you will see that Google Adsense ceased their contract with Megaupload due to copyright infringements.
What if some horrible rouge artists started using someone like Megaupload to do this for a cut of the fee.
That would be an acceptable deal between 2 parties on the provision that the artist is an independant. If they want the power of Sony Music marketing dollars the artist will have to enter into a business contract. I hardly doubt that sites like MU would scare Sony in the sense that they are offering a viable alternative.
All they were doing (MU) was offering a repository for stolen goods to be distributed. You do understand the distribution process? That model appeals to you eh?
All they were doing (MU) was offering a repository for stolen goods to be distributed.
I will note among other quite legitimate uses. Even if you choose to ignore that some innocent people ended up shafted out of this situation i wont.
Edit: For the same reason Torrents are not universally blocked sites like MU shouldnt be taken out wholesale. There are quite a few legitimate users caught in the crossfire.
Movie studios and record labels had their fair share, they ripped off the entire world for years. Now, the tables have turned.
I will note among other quite legitimate uses. Even if you choose to ignore that some innocent people ended up shafted out of this situation i wont.
If it was legitimate it wouldnt have been raided and CLOSED. Im sure you would be the first to complain if your own work was being freely shared without your permission.
The innocent people will always be innocent as I am sure the Feds will be able to sort through the data.
Movie studios and record labels had their fair share, they ripped off the entire world for years. Now, the tables have turned.
That is a valid argument and yes we have paid to much for everything. The problem is that the data is being stolen and as long as that continues the valid arguments will be lost amongst the illegal downloading of pilfered material.
Read the indictment letters and you will see that Google Adsense ceased their contract with Megaupload due to copyright infringements.
Did they cancel their contract with all company offering a similar service or are they only interested in doing so if their indicted. Google are making money our of illegal downloads as are many companys in Australia and around the world.
The way i look at sites like megaupload are they have a percentage of a very large market. They are not the only ones doing it they are just the first major one who have left themselves open to be shut down.
Company's shouldn't be looking at how to shut them down and crying poor because they loose a small percentage of their profits at the back end but look at the business model and find a way to win that market back.
Lets face it with the invention of the internet it growth and where it stands today any company who is crying poor because of lost revenue isnt looking at how much these activity's are providing revenue to 1000's of other businesses.
They should view it as a market force they still make massive money and its not going to stop movie or tv studios from producing high quality content.
They should be working at how they can become a dominant force in the industry as it stand today. And honestly if they took it on made it cheap enough for everyone that market could be 100 times larger then it stands today. Content would be a higher quality then something ripped from a pvr and they could make huge profits from it and still be insanely cheap.
Its simple use megauploads and similar business model cheap content that people will eat up and grow it to the point paytv is no longer the dominant force in homes to stream content. I would pay $80 a month for whatever content i want to download legally then i would for $10 from megaupload.
If it was legitimate it wouldnt have been raided and CLOSED.
So your argument is no megaupload use was legitimate. As it was closed down its obvious the site was guilty?
Seriously what happened to proof being required? Guilty until proven innoconet. I love right wing Nuts :)
I guess Muhamed Haneef was guilty of terrorism too as he was arrested and had his visa cancelled....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhamed_Haneef
Nope the governments of this world would never do something like this and be wrong. Laugh if this case gets thrown out i can see some massive compo requests.
Logic failure NCAA. Some would even say it was an EPIC FAIL of logic
The way i look at sites like megaupload are they have a percentage of a very large market
With a majority client base of thieves. There is no model when all the valuable stock is stolen. This example has no merit and should not be used to justify that MU was doing everyone a favour other than those who paid $120.00 per year to download thousands of dollars of stolen material.
After reading this thread from start to finish I am amazed at how supportive many people are of the music and movie indusrty.
Who have been fighting tooth and nail any moves to moving their content online.
Who prefer only selling through retail outlets. What they are doing is opposing the internet.
Movement of data such as cd's, movies or any other media that can be converted into digital is much more efficient over the internet.
It has benefits such as
1) Less packaging. Better for the environment.
2) Less transportation costs. Again, better for the environment
But then we can go back to the old way of doing business. Which the RIAA or MPAA would love. Let's all buy all or music, movies or cd's, or dvd's from retail store.
Anyone who supports that model is living in the past.
So your argument is no megaupload use was legitimate. As it was closed down its obvious the site was guilty?
I reckon you should quit now, you dont have an argument. Watch my lips, it was closed because it was involved in illegal dealings. The legitimate 20 users will find alternatives.
Did they cancel their contract with all company offering a similar service or are they only intere
Like I said, read the indictment papers. Google cancelled it well before the investigation was made public.
After reading this thread from start to finish I am amazed at how supportive many people are of the music and movie indusrty.
Anyone who supports that model is living in the past.
Mega Upload was closed for distributing copy right material with no license.
ega Upload was closed for distributing copy right material with no license.
I could careless about Megaupload. My argument is against the fact that a lot of the content that they may or may not have hosted is not being sold legitimately.
And that is the reason that sites like megaupload existed.
Until this is redressed. Banning such sites as megauploads is pointless.
Really some fatcats in hollywood need to look at how they earn their $100 million dollar SALARIES.
With a majority client base of thieves. There is no model when all the valuable stock is stolen. This example has no merit and should not be used to justify that MU was doing everyone a favour other than those who paid $120.00 per year to download thousands of dollars of stolen material.
You think people in the USA arent looing for alternative to this sort of content. Lets face it compared to going down the road and renting a dvd cost of living is going through the roof. Once upon a time it was gas water electricity and a phone bill.
Now its gas, water electricity , mobile, internet and foxtel. All costs are going up and wages are going down.
Also content is being produced at an incredible rate its not possible for the average person to find the money to legitimately purchase the range of content being produced these days. That's why illegal download sites like this flourish.
Its not like these company's are missing out on the revenue they say they are because the people who are using these sites couldn't afford to purchase the sheer amount of content they are downloading.
If they dont find a way to use the market as it stand in their favor they may gain revenue but lose so much potential and the companys that are profitting because of the way the internet is used today will lose revenue because of executives that are trying to hold onto a dated business model.
I wouldn't touch foxtel the content is crap its not worth touching
Heres a perfectly legitimate business model which could mean massive revenue for every legitmate studio.
Say i want to watch a tv show i know just was released in the USA i have my xxx account log on click on the file i pay $20 for the service each month. The studios in the USA allow me to download the file directly and stream it live. They put ads in to create revenue targeted to the region i am in or if i want an ad free version i pay an extra fee.
Other advantage to this business model is tv studios that would normally cancel a show because its been downloaded by 150 million people around the world can now continue to produce a show because of the revenue generated through advertisement or outright purchase.
The host makes money from the subscription and the studio makes money thorough advertisement.
There is nothing wrong with megauploads business model it should pave the way for the future for the ones that are smart enough to find a way to make it work.
Banning such sites as megauploads is pointless.
Again, the site was closed because it was distributing copyright material without a license.
My argument is against the fact that a lot of the content that they may or may not have hosted is not being sold legitimately.
What do you mean by that? TV Shows etc. What was not being sold, can you dive some examples? One would feel that the majority of digital mainstream media is being offered for sale but its not appealing to the people that like to steal it.
After reading this thread from start to finish I am amazed at how supportive many people are of the music and movie indusrty.
If you support the pirates your supporting terrorism and people shoplifting from the corner store.
Its said by all the people supporting the movie industries moves so it must be true.
id support the movie studios if they didnt use their marketing machine to make every movie that comes out look completely different to the steaming pile of S__t they actually turn out to be. transformers 3 anyone?. I wish i had a few hundred million dollars to get my way with governments and stop that from happening.
Oh and if you havent already worked it out i got sick of your rude swearing via Whim and added you to ignore NoLogicAtALL
Are you going to confirm/deny his allegations?
You think people in the USA arent looing for alternative to this sort of content. Lets face it compared to going down the road and renting a dvd cost of living is going through the roof. Once upon a time it was gas water electricity and a phone bill.
The only way to make them (whales) change is to stop using the product, vote with your feet perse. But...no one will do that. Thats the only solution I can offer to make them drop the price of entertainment.
There is nothing wrong with megauploads business model it should pave the way for the future for the ones that are smart enough to find a way to make it work.
The host makes money from the subscription and the studio makes money thorough advertisement.
But the issue here is that the Studio is greedy and doesnt want to share. A file sharing business is nothing if it doesnt have anything to share.
I am not against new methods of distribution at all. If MU wanted to do it right, why not approach the majors and offer the service. There was nothing stopping them from doing this at all. Keep in mind that Indy artists already have their own portal for music distribution (eg). Its not as if this concept is new.
Again, the site was closed because it was distributing copyright material without a license.
Read what I have written.
Not what you think has been written. I have not supported Megaupload.
What I do not support is the current view taken by RIAA and MPAA that piracy is rampant.
It is not. I'm not sheep.
However if the MPAA or RIAA want to reduce it all they have to do is agree to sell their content online.
If you support the pirates your supporting terrorism and people shoplifting from the corner store.
Ridiculous claim. Outrageous. My arguments have been rationale and fair.
Ridiculous claim. Outrageous. My arguments have been rationale and fair.
I think they were being sarcastic :)
I think they were being sarcastic :)
Maybe they got the idea from some of the claims you have made against other ;-)
The only way to make them (whales) change is to stop using the product, vote with your feet perse. But...no one will do that. Thats the only solution I can offer to make them drop the price of entertainment.
You do realise that if i was to sign up to a service like megaupload i am voting with my purse.
They make huge profits at inital release onces its no longer a new release make it affordable for everyone and profit greatly by doing so with a different business model.
Or even better tv shows would profit greatly from a revised business model Instead of looking at ratings at a national level in the USA they can reap far greater numbers and income generation by creating a service they is international and eliminating the need for tv shows to be downloaded illegally.
Movies studios are fine apart from the occassional pre release they can still use this service to direct market to millions around the world.
Lastest from Anonymous:
https://twitter.com/#!/Your
Hehe love the artwork
You do realise that if i was to sign up to a service like megaupload i am voting with my purse.
But the problem is the material copyright is being infringed. I am not saying that you downloaded this material. So why did you join MU, to share photos of your dog?
Movies studios are fine apart from the occassional pre release they can still use this service to direct market to millions around the world.
If this was being done with a license thats cool. Not an issue, guess what – wont happen.
RIP MegaUpload, though I will concede there was a lot of pirated stuff there lol ... same with all those other sites.
Still, just like a years ago when a major torrent host site gets shut down it's interesting watching the follow on.
IF the MPAA or RIAA really cared about their industry they would ensure more of their content was online. And saleable. Earning their members and supporters an income.
Yet RIAA and MPAA are doing the exact opposite.
Oh the irony. Annoying the customers they are paid to keep.
If I worked for these organisations I would hang my head in shame and retire.
Oh the irony. Annoying the customers they are paid to keep.
Sounds like what DRM achieved. Eventually many of them saw the error of their ways. iTunes anyone?
Wow this topic got even more reply than SOPA, we should go there and spam
I was thinking the same thing. Its the Power of the Anonymous WhirlpoolTM
If I worked for these organisations I would hang my head in shame and retire.
I think you will find they hang their heads in shame and leak content to pirated websites.
Thank god I didn't buy membership a few weeks ago when I was contemplating it.
there are was quite a number of ways of getting premium membership before for jackshit
just going to filestube and not seeing megaupload there as a host....still hasnt sunk in
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Just found out about this a few hours ago.
I used megaupload quite a lot, it was a site I used to download mods, updates and other things, including uploading content for friends.
I'm curious, why don't they also take down Rapidshare as it's a lot bigger then megaupload and also has god only knows how much illegal content available for download.
How come stealing hundreds of movies off the internet is okay, but going down to the local Big W and stealing a couple of DVD's would be looked down upon by those here?
Lets face it... Mega Uploads almost entire market was Warez, pirated movies and songs.
I would like to see how most of you would handle your own property being stolen on a daily basis. Especially if you depended on that property to feed your family.
Again someone misusing the word stolen.
When something is stolen, one person loses the item, another gains. In copyright, one person gains, but the original is still there. The word stolen is a misnomer. I will assume you did not know the difference.
There are so many holes in your argument, that I do not know where to begin. What you really mean is that someone has created some intellectual property and that people are not paying for it.
You are implying that the availability of pirated copies is the cause.
If the scenario was as simple as you paint it, then there would no longer be any rich musicians like Lady Gaga because every single one of her songs are available free via pirate sources. But she is rich and getting richer. Her song "Born this Way" sold millions of copies on iTunes even though it was available for free at the same time.
Many people have a house full of both pirated and legal DVD/BlueRay movies. Why is that? Why do they have any legal copies at all? With your reasoning, they shouldn't have.
The problems and solutions are nowhere near what you paint.
I guess Muhamed Haneef was guilty of terrorism too as he was arrested and had his visa cancelled....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhamed_Haneef
Maybe if hes brother didn't detonate a bomb using a phone connected to haneef, nothing would of happened? It's not like the cops just randomly picked out some guy to detain.
I'm curious, why don't they also take down Rapidshare as it's a lot bigger then megaupload and also has god only knows how much illegal content available for download.
Because unlike Youtube, Rapidshare, Mediafire etc, Megaupload were notorious for delaying coprighted removals, they delayed the requests for as long as possible. Think of it like this. A new movie comes out as DVDrip, the first couple of weeks, its red hot and achieves millions of downloads. When movie companies file DMCA reports to get their content removed, Youtube, Rapidshare do it fast. Infact, many of them do it within the first 6-12 hours. Megaupload on the other hand would delay their removals for sometimes up to weeks. In addition, the feds were tapping their email servers for quite some time and obviously saw all the conversations going on between the CEO and staff.
I'm curious, why don't they also take down Rapidshare as it's a lot bigger then megaupload and also has god only knows how much illegal content available for download.
Rapidshare has had their fair share of lawsuits and fines against them already. They also changed their pricing structure/reward programs. So since then they have dropped quite a bit in popularity. I'm pretty sure Megaupload overtook them, It has an Alexa rank of 72 vs Rapidshare 213
Maybe if hes brother didn't detonate a bomb using a phone connected to haneef, nothing would of happened? It's not like the cops just randomly picked out some guy to detain.
So your arguing what that it wasnt a mistake. To arrest him, pull his visa and deport him?
Just like MegaUpload users like Fake1 whrl.pl/Rc3TFG who used Megaupload for quite legitimate reasons its only fair to punish the many for the actions of a few?
Some people get all high and mighty on the its naughty thing and consider anyone to be reasonable collateral damage.
Megaupload was used by both legal and illegal downloaders. Just like roads are used by both drivers who follow the law and those that dont. Do you suggest banning roads too.
Heck driver who speed and Drink drive risk peoples lives. People who download illegally cost what? Some of these guys loose some profit. How sad.
http://img193.imageshack.us/
Whats next the ISPs? Maybe we stop the net altogether. SOPA/PIPA should achieve that goal i guess. Hopefully the Internet MkII arrives soon after and the US can live with the rest of the worlds rules instead of trying to impose theirs on everyone else.
Rapidshare has had their fair share of lawsuits and fines against them already. They also changed their pricing structure/reward programs. So since then they have dropped quite a bit in popularity. I'm pretty sure Megaupload overtook them, it has an Alexa rank of 72 vs Rapidshare 213
When rapidshare dropped their rewards system, pirates just walked away in masses. They all moved to megaupload. They've since moved onto to filesonic, fileserve and now wupload. However, won't be too long before all these other file sites "remove" their rewards system based on what happened to megaupload and the severe consequences of using pirate uploaders as mules to carry out their dirty works.
So your arguing what that it wasnt a mistake. To arrest him, pull his visa and deport him?
Yep it was a mistake.. thats why the government compensated him with $1,000,000 Australian tax payer dollars. Dunno about you but sounds fair to me. $1mill tax free would let him live like a king for the rest of his life in India.
How come stealing hundreds of movies off the internet is okay, but going down to the local Big W and stealing a couple of DVD's would be looked down upon by those here?
Again with the copyright violation = theft routine.
Did you ever watch Transformers? Bumblebee drove next to a nice looking car, scanned it and then turned himself into the same car. Now what if that car was a hand made unique model? It would be a violation of copyright, but the owner could NOT claim his car was stolen.
Parroting the crap that is put annoyingly in the front of legal DVD/BlueRay movies is not only unoriginal, but incorrect.
And Bumblebee did not pay the car owner for the scan. The owner might well be irked, but he still has his original car, so he CANNOT claim his car was stolen.
Also the assumption that a pirated download = lost sale is also not a valid argument. Many teens download dozens of movies per week, but at $30 each for a new DVD/BlueRay movie, there is no way that the teenager has the money to buy them all. So whilst they may have been able to buy SOME, 1 pirated movie != 1 lost sale. And they are also not likely to buy them even if they have the money (assuming the free download is not available) because they will prefer to spend their money elsewhere. Again, 1 pirated movie != 1 lost sale.
I appreciate that you feel the need to defend the poverty stricken CEO's of distribution companies and wish you well with your endeavor. But please try to utilise approximately correct examples.
In addition, the feds were tapping their email servers for quite some time and obviously saw all the conversations going on between the CEO and staff.
The US Feds didn't have to tap their servers directly. It's established by the two US Patriot Acts that all e.mail is monitored within the US and scanned for key words – ostensibly to detect terrorist activity, but there's nothing that limits it to that. It would be fairly easy for them to target and filter out e.mail activity of any specific company or group they chose to, and as far as I'm aware there is no oversight – they don't require warrants or court orders to gather the evidence.
as far as I'm aware there is no oversight – they don't require warrants or court orders to gather the evidence.
Frightening isnt it the so called "land of the free" using something that is supposed to "protect them from terrorism" against anyone they choose. For whatever reason.
I hope the case gets thrown out or these guys get off. It would then only be fair they have everything returned and be compensated for any and all probable lost profits for the time MU is offline.
Many teens download dozens of movies per week, but at $30 each for a new DVD/BlueRay movie, there is no way that the teenager has the money to buy them all.
Cheap $2 tuesdays for new release dvds.. Too much for the teen hey?
And Bumblebee did not pay the car owner for the scan. The owner might well be irked, but he still has his original car, so he CANNOT claim his car was stolen.
ok so that means you would be fine if I sat next to you in class while we did tests and i just "scanned" your paper for answers. I mean, really I didn't steal anything.. All you did was stay up all night leaning, reading, memorizing answers.. Sharing is cool right?
So what's the difference between the two? You studied your butts off to do the test. I copied them. Content company spends millions to produce an application/movie, you come along and just "scan/copy" it.. Doesn't hurt anyone?
Maybe it's time for anonymous to revolt against exams! we should be able to copy test exams!
Cheap $2 tuesdays for new release dvds.. Too much for the teen hey?
What movie rental stores still exist?
Edit: I will also note how many teens can stay up Tuesday nights watching movies. or do you suggest they hire, copy, watch on the weekend?
Tuesday nights are cheap for a reason. Only the unemployed can afford to be up all night lol
What movie rental stores still exist?
True. Mass downloading is killing the vid stores. I have a mate who is an absolute newbie when it comes to PCs, he has bought/hired every DVD. Doesn't know what torrents are, doesn't know how to copy a file. Went to his place the other day, hadn't seen him for a year and behold, he's now got a NAS hooked up to his media player and a megaupload account! He no longer rents/buys DVDs, just copies them. This guy has a collection of over 500 purchased dvds.
When I saw that I realize that piracy is now going mainsteam. File sharing sites like megaupload, rapidshare was making it way way too easy to copy. Out of all my friends, 5 years ago all of them rented movies at the local dvd store. 8/10 of them all have file sharing accounts now. They no long rent or buy dvds. There's only one exception.. They still take a trip to the cinema every now and then, but when it comes to apps, games, music, mobile apps, their file sharing account is the universal access gateway.
Edit: lol, fileserve a major filehosting just closed their rewards/affiliate system. The shockwaves are being felt.
Cheap $2 tuesdays for new release dvds.. Too much for the teen hey?
1 lost rental does not equal 1 lost sale. And not everyone has access to such "Cheap Tuesdays". I do not have them where I live, so I do not know the details, but I assume that they have to be back within 24 hours? How many movies can a teen watch on a single weekday school night?
Equating rentals with purchases is quite a stretch. Whilst there is a link, it is by no means a direct one. At best you would state that 100 lost rentals = 1 lost sale. And people will watch something that they got for free that they would never dream of paying for, so again, the linkage is tenuous.
ok so that means you would be fine if I sat next to you in class while we did tests and i just "scanned" your paper for answers. I mean, really I didn't steal anything.. All you did was stay up all night leaning, reading, memorizing answers.. Sharing is cool right?
Go for it. What do I actually lose? I retain all of my information for the rest of my life. I will be able to use it and benefit from it whilst you will only have a good exam result. You have taken nothing away from me. When I was in Uni, I was a HD student. I was copied many times. Other students often requested to see my reports before they were handed in. What they did with it was not my problem. Never bothered me a bit. I am sure that some of them simply modifed my report to avoid plagiarism accusations, but how did I lose? I was still a HD student.
Some of these guys loose some profit. How sad.
http://img193.imagesha
+1
With piracy there is more than enough money to make everyone single person happy. Like I said before if they cared about more profit how about invest in tech which prevents people ripping movies from dvds.
The US is the world in their eyes LMAO.
word on the street is that all the huge file sharing sites are now deleting TV shows and movies like theres no tommorrow. Pirates uploading tv shows are having their files removed within minutes, not the 6-12 hrs it use to take before.
What's interesting is they use to claim they could'nt monitor and detect "bad" content from the good, but apparently after yesterdays raids, it's all of a sudden possible? lolol
Went to his place the other day, hadn't seen him for a year and behold, he's now got a NAS hooked up to his media player and a megaupload account! He no longer rents/buys DVDs, just copies them. This guy has a collection of over 500 purchased dvds.
Do you want the good news? Whoever put him onto MU will now direct him to another site. Or teach him .nzb's or torrents.
You cant turn back time. They have to realise this at some point and adapt rather than try and force their choices onto others.
Im no angel but all my games these days are steam. With the odd Windows Live game. Maybe you could work out why.
I should add that I am not saying that creators of information do not lose because of copyright infringement. They do, but it is not theft. It is however the world we live in. There are ways to improve the situation, and the heavy handed way being taken now is not it.
You cant turn back time. They have to realise this at some point and adapt rather than try and force their choices onto others.
Thats only because it was too easy to pirate. With this raid, the first of its kind on commercial/paid file sharing sites, the effect is being felt. It's like 9/11. Before, security on air fights were substandard, all that changed after 9/11. I've been monitoring some warez discussions, there have been massive changes since the raids. The rewards systems on all these big sharing sites are being nulled without any announcements. The file sharing sites are too scared to even post that they are no longer rewarding pirates. Without rewards, new movies/dvds will not be posted. You can figure out what happens next.
Without rewards, new movies/dvds will not be posted.
I think your dreaming here.
Explain the many torrent sites and the number of uploaders.
Obviously Newsgroups get the files somewhere.
No monetary rewards required.
Wont slow filesharing for a second. The only ones who may be hurt by this are people who did things like game Mods and earned a little for their efforts. Now they will have to add a PayPal link or something and beg for donations. Although many already choose to do things this way now.
The money laundering is probably counting the money from illegal uploads as profits of crime and when that money goes into their legal side it is being "laundered"
Yeh but its up to the copyright issuer to file a complain to have the files removed!!!
??
It's like 9/11.
Out of Interest are you seriously comparing a terrorist attack where lots and lots of people died to one Filesharing site going down?
Seriously WTF!!!!
Do you know how many torrent sites have been taken out over the years? Most resurrect a week later elsewhere. Sometimes with new admins sometimes with the same ones.
This is not the first Fileshare site to be taken offline and it wont be the last either. Enjoy the show. The USA is pissing into the wind on this one.
Out of Interest are you seriously comparing a terrorist attack where lots and lots of people died to one Filesharing site going down?
No, I was comparing it to the fact that before this takedown, many commercial filesites were doing whatever they wanted. They were paying their mules to upload pirated content, they were delaying the takedowns. The raids that took place yesterday shocked them, they are taking down everything and moving to be what they should of been setup todo "a real cloud hosting service". Not a place that promotes piracy. That's why I compared it to 9/11 as it was a wakeup call for the airline industry/airline security.
The raid yesterday was a wakeup call to all the commercial file sharing sites that have been doing whatever they wanted over the past couple of years.
btw you need to listen to what I write, you are purposely ignoring certain words. I said "commercial" file sharing sites, not free torrent, file sharing sites like piratebay.
Can anyone give me one good reason to support piracy online??
Can anyone give me one good reason to support megaupload??
Can anyone give me one good reason to support posting the CC details online by hacking their account (anonymous)??
If you have even a single reason, you are morally and ethically dead.
And people need to stop whinging about piracy is not stealing. It literally isnt stealing but using someone's product or service without paying for it (when it is not available for free by the creator or producer) is stealing.
How would you feel if you spend your time, money and resources to make something for example a software and want to sell it for 10 bucks but everyone keeps downding it for free and you make nothing out of it or a small amount. If you are not going to feel good about it then stop make others feeling bad. Not every one is lady gaga who would make money anyway.
If you have even a single reason, you are morally and ethically dead.
If they used modern distribution methods, reasonable pricing etc I would pay. But things like waiting 3 months after a TV show is shown in the USA then having ads all through it means that downloading is better for the end user.
If they used modern distribution methods, reasonable pricing etc I would pay. But things like waiting 3 months after a TV show is shown in the USA then having ads all through it means that downloading is better for the end user.
While I completely agree it is still illegal though
word on the street is that all the huge file sharing sites are now deleting TV shows and movies like theres no tommorrow. Pirates uploading tv shows are having their files removed within minutes, not the 6-12 hrs it use to take before.
What's interesting is they use to claim they could'nt monitor and detect "bad" content from the good, but apparently after yesterdays raids, it's all of a sudden possible? lolol
It doesn't take long for the word to go around does it?
They probably have a fear that they'll end up like Megaupload (and that the Feds were sniffing their network) and when the shit hit the fan with MU, once all the filesharing sites got a whiff of it they roared right into action finding and deleting pirated shit.
It doesn't take long for the word to go around does it?
They probably have a fear that they'll end up like Megaupload (and that the Feds were sniffing their network) and when the shit hit the fan with MU, once all the filesharing sites got a whiff of it they roared right into action finding and deleting pirated shit.
It simply confirms that the suppliers of file sharing services are thiefs and now they are running scared. I hope they tighten the cuffs one extra notch when they are parading them to the dock.
If they used modern distribution methods, reasonable pricing etc I would pay. But things like waiting 3 months after a TV show is shown in the USA then having ads all through it means that downloading is better for the end user.
Do you realise that before digital stealing was invented no one gave a shit about 3.5 men. People that place so much empahasis on TV must have a cholesterol problem.
Again someone misusing the word stolen.
When something is stolen, one person loses the item, another gains. In copyright, one person gains, but the original is still there. The word stolen is a misnomer. I will assume you did not know the difference.
Well my reply to that spineless argument would be this.
Why are the MU people on the run?
A. Because the KNOWINGLY were stealing peoples property and selling it. They were being aided by uploaders that also had nothing better to do than to steal content.
Do you remember Napster?
I wont bother with the rest of your post because you cant tell the difference between purchasing an item and stealing it. Your little world reckons that a twist on words justifys filling your pockets with stolen goods.
Can anyone give me one good reason to support piracy online??
FACT: People who pirate content purchase more legitimate content for money than those who do not.
Google is a search engine. They are not directly hosting the material
Google does host copyrighted material, they have this service called YouTube maybe you'd like to check it out
Coincidentally a site I have used before that links to others like Megaupload has just gone off air.
No fun :(
A. Because the KNOWINGLY were stealing peoples property and selling it. They were being aided by uploaders that also had nothing better to do than to steal content.
Copyright infringement/piracy is not stealing. There is no two ways about it, the law disagrees with your stance here. Both AU law and US law have precedents set that shows this.
In the traditional understanding of theft, a person’s property must be appropriated by someone else. In other words, ownership changes hands. Suddenly, your 60-inch LCD TV is now owned by Joe. He took it unlawfully, and that is considered stealing. If, on the other hand, Joe is a genius who invented a device that can scan any object and create an exact copy (like a replicator on Star Trek), Joe copied it but did not steal it.
Furthermore following this conception that if it considered theft/stealing, some iPods could be valued at millions of dollars and a file sharing service could aid in copyright infringements representing more value than the Gross Domestic Product of entire countries
As per the Dowling v. United States (1985) the supreme court agrees with the sentiments that copyright infringement is not theft
http://en.wikipedia.org
I'm not saying Copyright infringement isn't an offence because it is, however it is NOT the same as stealing or theft
I'm not saying Copyright infringement isn't an offence because it is, however it is NOT the same as stealing or theft
http://venturebeat.com/2012/
Ok its not stealing, its just a massive criminal offence. In the laypersons eyes, its stealing.
If someone was using a counterfeit copy of MS Server in a business environment deriving an income from the application would that not be theft?
Last time I looked, counterfeit money was illegal. When presenting counterfeit money to obtain goods would that not be stealing from the shop owner.
The way I see it, people that are selling counterfeit goods that they never purchased dont like being called thiefs but happily cruise along stealing whatever they can get their fat mits on, so they can on sell at a massive profit.
That includes duplicated and cracked software.
http://venturebeat.com/2012/
Can anyone give me one good reason to support megaupload??
If you do not see the problem of something being shutdown to protect the claimed financial interests of a very few.
Of a legal outcome being decided even before it faces the court.
or that the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim.
Then, we do have more things to worry about than Megauploads :(
Here's a thought, is it piracy if I show a blu-ray I own on google hangouts to 8 of my friends? It's really like they were just at my house watching it.
If someone was using a counterfeit copy of MS Server in a business environment deriving an income from the application would that not be theft?
No. It would be copyright infringement/piracy as opposed to theft.
18 luxury cars? the most expensive NZ mansion?
Cops have a ton of cash to spend now if they do sell the cars/mansion
Joe is a genius who invented a device that can scan any object and create an exact copy (like a replicator on Star Trek), Joe copied it but did not steal it.
Copyright infringement isn't an offence because it is, however it is NOT the same as stealing or theft
^These
On the other hand, a tv show that is not released in Australia, even if it's only delayed for 3-5 years, did the artist who created it want it to be seen? Or did they just want funding from it? (think comedy central/showtime/hbo)
Just because it's not released in this country it does not mean 'I' – a citizen of this great planet – should not be allowed to view an artists work simply because executives in said country fail, time and time again, to bring people the content they want.
Furthermore tv shows when aired do not come with a warning at the start or end saying DO NOT COPY (or TIVO) if you're unable to sit down and watch at the said time the executives allow the show to air.
As for purchasing the dvds, well if you've never bought that dvd or watched that said dvd, then you won't have seen the piracy warnings, therefore have you really done anything wrong? Oh but then if you're a fan and tell 2-3 people and sales from your fandom somehow along the road bring the exectuives money, well who's to say you haven't made them more money by downloading something that would otherwise still not have aired in your said country?
As an artist I can say for FACT that ALL artists want their work seen/heard/watched. Normally the company/executives that air the work then make profits from it through advertising/consumerism. Therefore it was never the show that actually had money coming in, it was merely the commercials/advertisements in between segments of the show. Again, the artist who wanted you to see this content probably didn't plan on commercials being in 'allocated/awkward spots'.
Futhermore if you then take the system, well it doesn't support real copies (think 1080p bluray rip or at 'minimum' 320kbps audio rips). I won't use itunes and hate the very thought of it because the software it comes with rearranges all my content, as oppossed to leaving it in folders EXACTLY as I'd spent time organising it for 'my' personal preference. Not someone elses idea of 'awesome organisation' (imo pure f-in chaos).
If you then take the fact that people can put up with software and the creative/intelligent few can make their own alternative versions still using the same 'purchasable' media library, well what happens when the said library not only doesn't support the content as though you'd copied a backup from a disc yourself in true 1080p or 320kbps/flac, BUT the library doesn't have the content you want, or it's not out yet, or it's a special edition that itunes have edited, or a re-re-re-released mind-blowing-400zillion hours of bonus footage and commentaries the director thinks everyone must see.....
REMEMBER, if the director/artist wanted you to see something, chances are it would be in the original copy anyway. With that said, when Die Hard 4.0 came out people all over the net were complaining that the lack of swearing was pythetic, well in the dvd I had, all the cursing was exactly where it should have been in all it glory. Therefore until we can trust executives/companies/whoever NOT to TINKER with the ARTISTS work, well of course there'll be people torrenting all kinds of things.
If they want people to stop pirating, then THEY need to change thei marketing/advertising strategies, I mean online business has been booming, how can small business and individuals 'get it right' yet people with billions of dollars to throw around STILL be 'missing the point'?
Well they're not, all they're after at this point in the game is control over everything you see/hear/view/do/eat and on it goes. Hence these bills that are going through and being passed that strip the individuals rights, be it right here on our homeland or overseas.
That is why Ron Paul is given ZERO media time in the states and The Australian Sex Party are given ZERO media time here at home....
Ron Paul will WIN the 2012 election and slowly you'll all start to see the world make sense as individuals get back civil liberties and rights, and that wil echo the same kind of rights back here in Australia.
If he does not, you'll see the Anonymous and people in general strip America down, think Greece/Egypt/Syria....
It's all tied in...
Can anyone give me one good reason to support megaupload??
I don't know about support, but I really hope the authorities have a water tight case against them, and can legally backup their actions.
My gut feeling says: No :(
My gut feeling says: No :(
Do they ever really have a watertight case though?? ;)
Is it me or is the media trying to scare people atm with computers/technology/internet, feels like the whole Kevin Mitnick 90's thing again.... you know these rogue people on pcs and the net are DEVILS and the SPAWNS OF SATAN.... the amount alone my parent have been worried (even though they wouldn't know what megaupload was) just because the msm is putting fear into the subject of pcs and internet..
though could just be my paranoia setting in...
So you too believe in guilt as the default ?
No, someone asks how living the high life could be illegal. I just gave a suggestion. For example, drug barons, people smugglers, warlords etc.
So I assume you expect them to take Youtube, iCloud, Dropbox, IMGUr etc all down too ?
That's their current modus operandi – didn't say I agree with it – just that I expect it.
FileSonic, DepositFiles, FileServe, TurboBit, ExtaBit, FilePost, BitShare, Ziddu, UploadStation, FileJungle, MediaFire, PutLocker, FileFactory, RapidShare, FreakShare, ZShare, HotFile, Crocko, Wupload, Uploading, MegaShare, Badongo, iFileIt, EnterUpload, GameFront, UploadedTo, FileApe, Loadto, TwoShared, FileKeen, and JumboFiles
Until yesterday I hadn't heard of Megaupload or any of this mob. I'm not personally saddened by their demise. Given the action of the feds you can expect that a lot of the other players are reviewing their business models, practices and server content with a view to making sure that they are not next in line. There are some signs that this process has started.
I don't see this as a resounding victory for the authorities or content owners. Megaupload is gone, probably for good. Some of the other players might clean up there act, a few might even close up shop.
It hasn't reduced the demand for downloadable content. Nor will it reduce the desire of online entities to profit from the sharing of copyrighted content. The numbers here are staggering. Revenue in excess of $175,000,000. The vacuum left by their exodus will attract new entrants to the market. The way the prosecution proceeds will shape the way the new entrants structure their offerings.
Megaupload thought that they had been smart enough to hide behind the safe harbor provisions. It looks like they may have miscalculated. This is now a matter for the courts to decide.
Is it me or is the media trying to scare people atm with computers/technology/internet, feels like the whole Kevin Mitnick 90's thing again.... you know these rogue people on pcs and the net are DEVILS and the SPAWNS OF SATAN.
You mean like this?
http://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunri
You mean like this?
Hahaha, man the title of the seconding whether or not to run the piece, meh, another three years from now and they probably will..... if anyone from WA has never been to VIC/NSW, then they really won't get how much further behind the country we (WA) are when it comes to technology, for that matter, just things in general...
As for the important news, I noticed the top 3 recommendations underneath the first link as
Makeup Magic
Kochies Angels
Pippa vs Paparazzi
Just goes to show how the internet is really helping educate people away from this msm crap forced down our throats....and now 7 days a week, whatever happened to weekend morning cartoons? Guess studies are proving kids who watch this msm crap from a younger age are more likely to follow msm orders huh!? ;)
Also Yahoo have completey blacked out on Ron Paul. One article within 4 hours after it was posted on yahoo, not citing his name once, had 2000 odd comments from people basically saying "WTF, where is Ron Pauls name, that's the whole reason I clicked the link..."
So I vote to blanket channel 7....
Lots of phishing sites popping up ie http://109.236.83.66/
It's spreading like wildfire on twitter.
http://twitter.com/#
Got to love social engineering.
Got to love social engineering.
Aren't they just doing the same thing as is happening in this thread, though? 31 pages in less than 24 hours?
With a majority client base of thieves.
You are confusing physical property with intellectual property. The concept of individual rights to personal property has a long history with many cultures having prohibitions on the taking of property without the consent of it's owner or at least restrictions on who could do this in what circumstances. Theft is an unauthorized taking, keeping or using of another's property with the the intent to permanently deprive the owner or the person with rightful possession of that property or its use.
Copyright protection for artists and the concept of artists having assignable rights to their works dates back to the 18th century. The nature and scope of these rights has changed considerably since their foundation and continues evolve until this day. The law recognises the "intellectual property" as a set of exclusive rights. When someone violates these rights they commit an unlawful act but do not take something.
The conflation of breach of copyright with the act of theft dates back to VCR days and stems from a successful campaign by rights holders to associate something which people were morally ambivalent about with something that was almost universally regarded as a wrong. It has no basis in law.
When I saw that I realize that piracy is now going mainsteam. File sharing sites like megaupload, rapidshare was making it way way too easy to copy.
I agree, the answer is clear.
The record labels simply MUST make it even easier to pay for content legitimately.
Your suggestion that DVD rental shops exist is laughable, that is not only incredibly inconvenient, but by the time a DVD rental shop in Australia actually gets a new release DVD it will have probably been available on the internet for 6 months..
The only reason piracy exists is because the "big" labels have utterly failed to offer anything alternative.
Also, you don't seem to pay any consideration to the fact that piracy can create sales – have you ever been told about a awesome movie/game/TV series from a friend that downloaded it, and you- or someone else you told, paid for it as a result?
Im no angel but all my games these days are steam. With the odd Windows Live game. Maybe you could work out why.
Same. I am no stranger to pirating but I can honestly say I have never, ever pirated something that I was able to purchase on Steam – my Steam account has thousands of dollars worth of games in it.
And people need to stop whinging about piracy is not stealing. It literally isnt stealing but using someone's product or service without paying for it (when it is not available for free by the creator or producer) is stealing.
By that logic when you go to a library to borrow a book, you are stealing. Oh, it's definitely a "lost sale" too ;)
I really hope the authorities have a water tight case against them, and can legally backup their actions.
My gut feeling says: No :(
Haha read the indictment, Megaupload is stuffed, the Fed's actually have a really good case against them. Page 30 onwards they present evidence.
lol @ this piracy/stealing debate :P
I agree if you can't see how it is "wrong" to steal get something without buying it then, well just goes to show what most people won't admit – you're in it for the piracy. The magnitude doesn't matter, and I know I wouldn't have bought stuff anyway as well ... doesn't make it right. So it's not the most evil or harmful thing to do it ... still doesn't make it right.
I'm not Pro taking-down sites, PIPA, SOPA, and arrests, but get real ... it's illegal and people know it, I know it when I did it. Pity those who paid and used it legitimately.
just going to filestube and not seeing megaupload there as a host....still hasnt sunk in
lol I was using FilesTube last night and now that you mention it, it never actually hit me it was no longer listed.
Page 30 onwards they present evidence
Man that's 22 pages of evidence just for one count.... :/
Are they all US citizens? If not are any likely to not be extradited?
Then the bigger question is whether they'll be tired by 'their' peers or a bunch of old blue collar right wing fuddy duddies....?
it is "wrong" to steal get something without buying it then, well just goes to show what most people won't admit – you're in it for the piracy
But at what cost is it wrong to 'steal'? Like you pay once at the movies/cinemas/theatres. You attend a live concert and want to re-live some of those emotions/thoughts/memories. You've bought a dvd.cd and the bogus material it's made of left it no longer playing/working (even if only optimally).
The companies know this, things these days are made to break, it's actualy engineered that way. Therefore if they must release devices that are no longer backwards compatible, for example I owned a tv show or movie on vhs, or that album I used to have on tape/record, but now you can barely find places that sell these devices to make use of the content you have, but can no longer play...
I'd love to be called in as an 'expert of something' for these guys, the arguments I could put forth would make for an impenetrable defense.
So I ask again, at what cost is it ok for the consumer to become a pirate?
rrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (lols)
EDIT: Here's a CLASSIC example. A Very Harold and Kumar Xmas. I must have phoned almost every cinema in the country, but no, we didn't get it, then if you just happen to be stumpling the internet and without wanting to you read a spoiler because some twat has posted it trying to be a clever smart arse.....
How long must we wait before we can see it? Is it wrong to want new experiences without them being spoiled? Isn't that a key element of a movie....?
AND it's not just that film, it happened a heap this year with Australia being like a full month behind the rest of the world... Source Code springs to mind....
Seriously, at what point is it ok to become a pirate so you can appreciate an artists work for what is was inteneded? Not just having to wait because 'they' couldn't be bothered getting in what 'the people' wanted to see?
Edit: I will also note how many teens can stay up Tuesday nights watching movies. or do you suggest they hire, copy, watch on the weekend?
What times do these "teens" normally watch DVD's that makes it impossible to rent and watch a DVD between the hours of 9am of Tuesday to 6pm Wednesday?
Tuesday nights are cheap for a reason. Only the unemployed can afford to be up all night lol
A standard length movie is about 1Hour and 40 minutes. Why would they be up all night when they have between 9am Tuesday to 6pm Wednesday to watch the movies?
What times do these "teens" normally watch DVD's that makes it impossible to rent and watch a DVD between the hours of 9am of Tuesday to 6pm Wednesday?
School, study, part time job. They would likely watch it after 9pm-10pm, stores closed at that time, can't hire.
Then the bigger question is whether they'll be tired by 'their' peers or a bunch of old blue collar right wing fuddy duddies....?
Hardly a question, your defence team can say yes or no to potential jury members at the start.
Just "copy" your test answers off your friends... it's not "stealing"
it's not stealing, it's cheating.
School, study, part time job.
Welcome to real life buddy! ;)
Seriously some of these arguments are ... crap. Then again being an internet forum I expected so, plus if with the wide range of ages I'm surprised to get some "younger responses" – that's not meant to be backhanded insult or anything honestly.
You're quantifying the "wrongness" but it is still wrong. Justifying how it's such a small act or one of no choice and how it doesn't deserve the shut down and charges ... I would agree. But it's just silly to say it's not wrong.
Say when I feel like looking up a Simpsons clip and it has been removed from YouTube. Sure, I'm a little disappointed (massive over-statement), I would never buy it, and might think they are a little over the top (like this act now), but I know full well they are allowed to for their copyright.
School, study, part time job. They would likely watch it after 9pm-10pm, stores closed at that time, can't hire.
..but let's say they did somehow manage to make it to the store and hire something. Then they do stay up and watch it, sleep in late the next morning, fail to make it back to the store to return it, and voila, overdue fees, so a simple $4 film turned into $8 film, or whatever price said store charges.
Either way I'm 100% with you on this, it's just outdated and old school. Renting videos from a store is pointless, the amount of times I 'used' to rent, then get home and find the disc is scratched and the movie won't play, only to find the store is closed or I've got to then make a return trip, wasting more money on petrol just to get the disc cleaned with still no guarantee that it'll make it through that part of the movie again...if it even plays... and scratched bluray discs, well, why bother renting the bluray copy, if it's scratched may as well be std def anyway, right? ;)
your defence team can say yes or no to potential jury members at the start.
sorry man, my point was the avergae joe blow knows jack about this stuff, therefore I highly doubt they'll 'truly' be peers...
sorry man, my point was the avergae joe blow knows jack about this stuff, therefore I highly doubt they'll 'truly' be peers...
The allegations are pretty damning, even if the jury knew everything about file sharing I still think the megaupload staff/owners would be convicted.
Everyday on whirlpool we can read the arguments about stealing vs copyright infringement.
This argument never goes anywhere with both side sticking to their opinion. So why bother arguing about it again?
Can't we just stick specifically to the matter at hand?
I still think the megaupload staff/owners would be convicted
What if there was no money involved... like same case, same allegations, just no money exchaning hands anywhere along the way?
Pretty much, I'm going to keep to the news stories related to this matter.
RIAA and MPAA sites are still down. While amusing, they'll be back up sooner or later. I think the takedown of MegaUpload was basically targeting the low-hanging fruit before focus shifts towards the more long term projects the FBI have. It will be much harder for US authorities to impose their brute force on other file hosts at this stage.
Ironicially, a number of websites that I use that link filehosts (some of the most popular on the internet) were moving away from Megaupload and towards FileSonic and WUpload for monetizing purposes (which is seen as a red flag in The Scene).
So here is what I think a lot of movie/tv show producing companies don't realise. Most of these companies do understand and are doing quite a good job, but improvement is still needed.
When someone downloads a movie or a tv show, they are hurting the industry. As it's unlikely they would have paid for that content otherwise. Some people try to argue that is the reason they download content. While it's true. It actually helps movie companies as well, this can make someone really enjoy a particular actor/directors/cinematographers work they are more likely to pay to see there next movie/tv show at the cinema or on tv or buy the blu-ray. This is not always the case, but if it's not, then your content was rubbish. If it doesn't want viewer wanting more you failed in what you made.
Another issue which is more for people outside of America is the fact they can't watch content in their home country because their networks don't show it...or they are behind by a year or so in content. Lately this has been improving. But it's still far from perfect. The other issue is if you miss an episode on TV and didn't schedule a recording you can't watch it till it's on again. But again this has been fixed and often you can watch things online now for free, which is great. In Australia it only took us about 5 years to do this, in comparison to the US who has had it for those 5 years.
The other issue is price. Pricing is everything for this industry in my opinion. Why on earth would I pay $30 for a blu-ray that only gives me 1 and a half hours of entertainment? Which I may or may not watch again. If that price was more around the $5-$10 mark for new movies it would be fine. It should cost about the same as going to the cinema to watch it. As the cinema has to pay for cleaning, power etc.
A lot of production companies realised this and have now added things such as netflix. The issue now is the fact you can't get that in 90% of the world. The UK just got it, but it's no where NEAR as good as the American version. But it beats nothing. In Australia we have Quickflix, however they only have about 300 movies to download. No TV shows at all. Which in comparision to Netflix which has over 100,000 titles is a joke. Netflix has its own set of issues though, as not all content is there. But it's not bad and is priced reasonably at under $10 a month.
If you made a good movie, you would do well at the box office and this is where you will make a majority of your money anyway. So if you make something rubbish, expect it to be passed around the net like rubbish. Also the fact more people will see your content will make them talk about it will encourage others to watch it.
TV shows are a bit of a different story as most of them depend on advertisements and/or external sponsor funding. The biggest issue I think for the TV show market is the fact they are not easily accessible to anyone overseas. The same could be said about Australian shows in America, but the issue is we don't produce anything worth while to be shown there. All of it is flapping reality TV, it's a joke.
I've got so much content downloaded I haven't seen 90% of it. Does that impact the industry at all? Nope.
What if there was no money involved... like same case, same allegations, just no money exchaning hands anywhere along the way?
Well they are still breaking the law aren't they? They would have still be hosting files that are illegal by the law.
If you get paid to kill someone it's still murder.
I'm sure a portion of the money was prob made legitimately anyway.
If you get paid to kill someone it's still murder.
So if someone killed your family, stole all your money and took you r life away from you, then you sought revenge that would be the same as a hitman who regularly takes contracts? A bus driver accidentally hits a kid who ran out in front of a stop sign? That's also murder if it showed he didn't react on his brakes quick enough because he still had 0.005 of alcohol in him from celebrating a company outing?
I guess I'm trying to say there's always a gray area....
I was coming at the money more from the good samartian side. You know, library with books allows others to have some great experiences, gain knowledge, learn, expand horizons. Therefore it'd be more of a civil disobedience case.
Though as they've made a bucket load of money, well it's a much more criminal offence imo, unless all fnuds were given to a charity or to invest/test-to-find a legal alternative/way around doing so illegally.
If only authorities concentrated on real crimes a little more, rather than easy targets.
Where's the shutting down of scamming and spamming websites?
I still think the megaupload staff/owners would be convicted.
Unless some jury members are/were subscribers
nah "mysteriously" most jury members will be older people who don't know as much about internet and downloads. Easier to blow up the consequences. :P
On the flipside here are people who know don't seem to know what "illegal" means lol
t! He no longer rents/buys DVDs, just copies them.
Good for him, he has evolved into the digital era.
When I saw that I realize that piracy is now going mainsteam. File sharing sites like megaupload, rapidshare was making it way way too easy to copy.
Its been mainstream for 5+ years.
Out of all my friends, 5 years ago all of them rented movies at the local dvd store. 8/10 of them all have file sharing accounts now. They no long rent or buy dvds. There's only one exception.. They still take a trip to the cinema every now and then, but when it comes to apps, games, music, mobile apps, their file sharing account is the universal access gateway.
I agree. 10 years ago everyone I knew rented movies from video stores. Today I know not a single person who does. With regards to cinema, friends and I still go to watch 3D movies at the cinema occasionally, although everything else is obtained via the freedom of The Internet.
On the flipside here are people who know don't seem to know what "illegal" means lol
Downloading movies or copyrighted material is not illegal. It is a civil matter (thus one that governments should stay out of).
I bet the owners and operators of mediafire, filesonic, fileserve, crocko, oron, uploading.com and many more are shitting their pants right now. And that goes for every1 that thinking of starting such services on the net too. Megaupload is a scapegoat, the unlucky one.
USA is a country actively seeking more hate from ppl all around the world. Not that I'm sympathetic to those haters but I can see they have good reasons for it. This campaign against the whole internet is just one of them.
Hopefully once we all fix up this horrible 'piracy' problem we'll take a look at secondary concerns, like, i don't know, two thirds the world living in abject poverty and disease and having done so for, well, forever now.
Don't get me wrong creating things requires investment and thus returns and there is a structural problem piracy creates or can create (that it can only create loss is not cut and dry), but somewhere along the line it feels like people have mistaken humanity as existing for capitalism, rather than capitalism existing for humanity.
As though it's inherent and obvious the creation of systems for infinite duplication allowing free dissemination of knowledge/entertainment to all is categorically bad or unethical – because think of the moneys!
I bet the owners and operators of mediafire, filesonic, fileserve, crocko, oron, uploading.com and many more are shitting their pants right now.
Would be funny if some of them turned out to be owned indirectly by one of the major movie company.
Hopefully once we all fix up this horrible 'piracy' problem
It is not a problem.
As you alluded too, starvation is certainly a problem however.
Piracy can never be fixed and so does what the Americans so called war against terrorism. You just can't fix and win against these things.
If SOPA/PIPA passed and everything that hosted piracy stuffs were wiped off the face of internet, I'm pretty sure there will the second coming of internet reborn without reliance or being dictated by americans, underground net or something like that.
Ppl even pirate vhs tape vcd and etc in the old days without internet. Seriously ... Piracy will never stop, unless you wipe off the underlying problem that caused that piracy in the first place.
Here's a CLASSIC example. A Very Harold and Kumar Xmas
Love all the Harold and Kumar movies, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (especially being stuck in the middle cubicle while two young hot chicks are playing 'Battleshits' LOL)
I don't know why we didn't get it, maybe Julia Gillard isn't a fan of H&K.
or that album I used to have on tape/record, but now you can barely find places that sell these devices to make use of the content you have, but can no longer play...
It's all CDs and mp3s now, tapes were way back in the 90s, even the Wiggles released their first few albums on cassette and CD.
Australia being like a full month behind the rest of the world...
That sucks, having to wait a month after a movie is released all over the world to get it. The way I see it is that once it is released, someone will rip the DVD/Bluray/whatever, post it up on thepiratebay and you can get it quicker than having to wait around for the DVD release, which takes around a month to get into Australia cause of the time the container ships set off with the cargo of cheap B movie DVDs or mainstream releases that they carry.
I always buy a movie if I've heard glowing reviews about it, or seen previews and I like the previews, but I wait at least 2 months between the first previews to actually buy the DVD.
Would be funny if some of them turned out to be owned indirectly by one of the major movie company.
Yes it would be. Because i'm actually a paying customer for one of them. Never hosted anything though, just using it for downloading (don't ask what). Lol.
/Ducks and hides in bunker
Ppl even pirate vhs tape vcd and etc in the old days without internet.
Macrovision was one of my least favourite vhs protection schemes, the extra voltage pulses would flap up the video on our old '78 era CRT, but somehow we managed to make a copy of a Marx Bros film Horse Feathers from a Macrovision VHS onto a blank $3 VHS from a supermarket. We had to buy a video stabilizer though cause our old VHS recorder was a pile of crap and would mistake the cheap tapes as Macrovision signals, therefore flapping it up.
We eventually junked that recorder and got a proper DVD/VHS combo box that still works today.
Another example of why piracy is a problem for the industry is ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/83
This man apparently is not rich and corrupt enough.
They are greedy plain simple. Piracy has been around for ages in one form or another. Internet being the latest medium.
Downloading movies or copyrighted material is not illegal. It is a civil matter (thus one that governments should stay out of).
Still wating for your answer to the question I have asked four times, care to share a verifiable link that backs up your contention that downloading intellectual property without the permission of the owner is legal.
Illegal, or unlawful, is used to describe something that is prohibited or not authorised by law.
Another example of why piracy is a problem for the industry is ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/
This man apparently is not rich and corrupt enough.
They are greedy plain simple. Piracy has been around for ages in one form or another. Internet being the latest medium.
Hard to figure what motivates Murdoch. Dude has all the money and power anyone inclined that way could possibly want and then some. I really don't know what his aim to imprint more and more of himself on the world is funded by... Fear of death maybe? He's a strange one...
I thought the US was a shit government after their right wing, muslim-murdering response to 9/11. Now they've shut down megaupload. These two are the biggest atrocities perpetrated by a western government in the past 50 years.
Only a matter of time till the "Feds" catch up with the rest of "Dotcom's" cadre. I wonder if the "Feds" have seized his assets under the NZ proceeds of crime legislation (That's assuming they have that type of legislation)
Off to the US he goes for an extraditional jaunt with the US Federal Justice system.
What's to stop megaupload or similar to move their business to a country that does not co-operate with the U.S?
ie: Iran, Korea, Cuba, etc??
Now there's a get rich idea!
R.I.P ,
There goes many hour's of uploading encrypted backup's (as a third tier backup of important files).
My poor lifetime account :)
These two are the biggest atrocities perpetrated by a western government in the past 50 years.
Don't forget vietnam ... that ended less than 40 yrs ago. Give a ring to them and ask how they feel about americans, especially the older generations.
i used this for legitimate files i couldnt send to relitives
large home movies and pdf documents and photos to big for email
this is a real bastard of a thing
have to love this bs
now i wonder if icloud will be next because that will definatly have outlawed content
and makes you wonder if soem back door shenanigans are behind this
fruit wise
wink wink cough cough
compation!
What's to stop megaupload or similar to move their business to a country that does not co-operate with the U.S?
ie: Iran, Korea, Cuba, etc??
North Korea has trouble with electricity let alone tech infrastructure, Iran isn't much better and Cuba isn't a terrible strong country economically or militarily.
I think Russia is the best bet – many sites have already moved there.
Geographically they are perfectly positioned, between Europe and Asia (largest markets) with cables spanning out to every corner of the planet – electricity is cheap due to nuclear power, and lastly they are not someone who want to mess with economically or militarily.
From what I understand the vast majority of gas and oil that European countries consumes comes from Russia – that's a awful lot of cards in the Russians hands, if threatened economically with sanctions or embargo's they could respond harshly.
China's not a good idea given the Great Firewall unfortunately, although they are working on opening up their tech sector – they are building a suburb in Chongqqing devoted to cloud computing and data centers, apparently it's exempt from the Great Firewall, but even so I wouldn't trust it to stay that way.
I think Russia is the best bet – many sites have already moved there.
Geographically they are perfectly positioned, between Europe and Asia (largest markets) with cables spanning out to every corner of the planet – electricity is cheap due to nuclear power, and lastly they are not someone who want to mess with economically or militarily.
Nice post! I think your right, although i do think the U.S and Russia still have some sort of diplomatic relation but no extradition treaty.
I think that the movie industry have really shot themselves in the foot, instead of coming up with legitimate means of distributing their digital media and trying to work with these companies they are just going to send it deeper underground to countries where they have no jurisdiction.
It will be a case of too little too late.
Any truth to this? So many people I know are going to jail D:
http://www.youtube.com/watch
If you support the pirates your supporting terrorism and people shoplifting from the corner store.
FALSE; same also for drug gangs and other forms of organised crime far more serious then the issue of copyright infringement.
Further reading:
Media Piracy in Emerging Economies (MPEE) – http://piracy.ssrc.org/the-report/
The above report actually makes for good further reading for the thread also since it's moved onto an debate on 'piracy'.
The whole ordeal (SOPA, PROTECT IP, ACTA) to me stinks of big brother wanting to curb the free flow of information on the internet with copyright infringement being the equivalent of the proverbial 'think of the children' argument.
2nd edit:
Ars Technica talks about the collateral damage to the legit users of megaupload.
http://arstechnic
I was referring to all the people who paid for an account but used it legitimately. It seems they too have lost all their money.
Make an application for a refund? one wonders what the Feds will do with customer records they have seized, especially the records of the uploaders who were paid, prosecute the mega earners from this for criminal infringement of copyright?
Make an application for a refund?
That's never going to happen, just ask those millions of fulltilt poker users.
Not sure if this has been mentioned but:
Why is Megaupload's CEO, famous American DJ, rapper, and producer Swiss Beatz (best known as the husband of Alicia Keyes, perhaps) not named in the lawsuit?
Virtually every other employee — including the company's CMO and CTO — at Megaupload is facing criminal piracy charges, but for some reason this key American music insider was not even mentioned in the Grand Jury's complaint [PDF].
I also read that he owns no stake in Megaupload and only serves as the leader. But would that make a difference?
If I was a leader of a gang and my gang buddies went out and caused trouble, would the I also not be probed?
especially the records of the uploaders who were paid, prosecute the mega earners from this for criminal infringement of copyright?
With any hope that's what will happen. Why should someone profit bigtime off someone elses work.
Dunno what those people that come here and say "its good and stuff, anti-piracy" think they will achieve by constantly saying that.
I think that the movie industry have really shot themselves in the foot, instead of coming up with legitimate means of distributing their digital media and trying to work with these companies they are just going to send it deeper underground to countries where they have no jurisdiction.
It will be a case of too little too late.
I agree. Look at Kodak. they were once the worlds most powerful camera company although field for bankruptcy in the past couple of days. They had failed to adapt quickly enough to digital (rather than film) and as a result are now bankrupt.
It will only be a matter of time before movie companies etc find themselves in the same scenario given that they refuse to downsize and adapt.
With any hope that's what will happen. Why should someone profit bigtime off someone elses work.
You do know that Representative Lamar Smith, the guy who is trying to push SOPA through Congress and Rupert Murdoch have been caught stealing data (even copyrighted and private) themselves.
Yet nothing is ever done by it.
I know it's not exactly mass stealing, but it's still hypocritical.
..but let's say they did somehow manage to make it to the store and hire something. Then they do stay up and watch it, sleep in late the next morning, fail to make it back to the store to return it
They got until 6pm to return it. These arguments are cr4p
Mr Dotcom has been booked for the following offences:
Credit Card fraud(stole hundreds of credit card numbers and sold them onto the Russian mafia)
Insider trading(Bought $200K worth of a company, then announced he was going to buy $20 Million dollars worth when he didn't have anything like that sort of money. Sold when the price skyrocketed and turned a Million dollar profit)
Was head of several companies that went bust personally taking loaned money and investments for himself.
This guy is a class act... just the sort of pin up boy for the Pirate supporters.
Download Peerblock, worth it
Useless hunk of junk placebo, like trying to drink water out of a collander.
You IP is always visible and easily farmed when using BT.
No wonder "Dotcom" got busted, extravagant lifestyle, fast cars, etc, etc, talk about keeping yourself on the radar.
Insider trading(Bought $200K worth of a company, then announced he was going to buy $20 Million dollars worth when he didn't have anything like that sort of money. Sold when the price skyrocketed and turned a Million dollar profit)
Credit Card fraud(stole hundreds of credit card numbers and sold them onto the Russian mafia)
Mr Malodorous, apparently he brushed all that off by saying that Germany has a wipe slate clean policy.
Probably donated a huge chunk of his lucre to achieve it.
Useless hunk of junk placebo
I disagree, sure it is useless for torrents/p2p but for other legit uses it has it's purposes. YMMV.
Any truth to this?
I seriously doubt it.
I can only see the FBI going after the largest uploaders to Megaupload – these folk will have ended up making large amounts of money from the "Uploader Rewards" program. It is good to "make a example" of these people, and they might even be able to seize assets worth a fair bit given apparently several of the top uploaders received hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But I can't see them going after the downloaders, it makes no economic sense – the court costs will greatly exceed the costs that can maybe be recovered – apparently one billion people in total have used Megaupload – there is absolutely no way that is even a possibility to process. You would need to deforest half or Brazil to print out enough court papers let alone other issues like paying for the lawyers.
He also claims "they will be taking down Rapidshare and all the other ones" – I think that is exaggerating.
I was initially against the Megaupload take-down, thinking it was just the USA flexing their "world police" muscles again – but read the indictment of Megaupload. There is mountains of emails in it that are more than enough proof to prove Megaupload staff (and CEO) knew full well they were profiterring from piracy, and they were being very selective with processing DCMA takedown requests.
I can't see the FBI being able to take down other file hosting websites unless they can likewise find serious evidence that the management know full well they are engaging in piracy and profiteering from it.
I don't trust the USA, and 100% agree they will do whatever they think they can get away with- but I think Megaupload is a different situation.
"Now they can arrest the entire world if any company has servers in USA"
Only if you are living in a country that has a extradition treaty with USA, granted that is pretty much all western countries.
Any truth to this? So many people I know are going to jail D:
http://www.youtube.com/watc
First they need to contact the Aussie ISP's. I doubt they'll get anywhere like last time. Although if you're in the US you are screwed.
I can only see the FBI going after the largest uploaders to Megaupload – these folk will have ended up making large amounts of money from the "Uploader Rewards" program.
Those mega uploaders will be doing a lot of tap dancing I reckon. :D
First they need to contact the Aussie ISP's. I doubt they'll get anywhere like last time. Although if you're in the US you are screwed.
I never really understood the concept of arresting someone for a non-violent crime and making them suffer more then someone who committed a violent one.
Seems odd to me.
Its funny how pirates get fined millions of dollars but murderers and terrorists alike get fine 100 bucks and bailed out and all this ridiculous punishments
/forum-replies.cfm?t=1851705&p=33#r651
zivad are you going to answer my question I asked in the above?
"Dotcom" charged with racketeering, understandable given this definition.
A pattern of illegal activity carried out as part of an enterprise that is owned or controlled by those who are engaged in the illegal activity. The latter definition derives from the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corruption Organizations Act (RICO), a set of laws (18 U.S.C.A. § 1961 et seq. [1970]) specifically designed to punish racketeering by business enterprises.
http://legal-dictionary.thef
|IIIII Germanotta IIIII| writes...
but murderers
Not in America they don't, they get the death penalty in most States, as for terrorists lots of them get taken out by drones or in the case of Osama get bumped off by Navy Seals.
I never really understood the concept of arresting someone for a non-violent crime and making them suffer more then someone who committed a violent one.
Seems odd to me.
Well apparently it's because the internet is open and when you upload infringing work there is a high chance hundreds or thousands of people may have downloaded that illegal copy. That's how they at least justify it.
I don't know about support, but I really hope the authorities have a water tight case against them, and can legally backup their actions.
My gut feeling says: No :(
This is why they add other charges and also bring out the child porn angle ...
They try to make it look like the people involved were worse than Hitler.
zivad are you going to answer my question I asked in the above?
What question, the legality of copyright one? So if we assume you are fully right for a second, what are you going to do with the (at a guess) 8+ million Australians who have downloaded copyright material before (whether that be an mp3, ebook, movie, tv show, game, etc), build super jails akin to Nazi concentration camps and imprison them all?
who's going to pay for all the inmates (food, running water, dunny facilities so they can take a shit when they want in the comfort of their cell)
the taxpayers on the outside? I sure hope not.
high chance hundreds or thousands of people may have downloaded that illegal copy. That's how they at least justify it.
In Australia the uploader would be hit with seperate infringements for each copy that is downloaded which is called "make available online", the downloader would be hit with "making a copy" now if uploading and downloading are involved that would be two seperate infringements.
This is why they add other charges and also bring out the child porn angle ...
damn I'm glad that I wasn't one of the paid uploaders
all I did was upload a few hundred megs of TAFE assignments a year and email myself the links so I could download them at will
then when I heard about dropbox I switched to that
build super jails akin to Nazi concentration camps and imprison them all?
What has what those genocidal scum did got to do with illegal file sharing? using it, that's just plain obnoxious and bilious, shame on you, using what those genicidal scum did as an example to try proving a point is AFAIAC beyond contempt.
You still haven't answered the question, you just keep on throwing up smokescreens to try and deflect from the fact that your contention is totally and utterly misinformed.
Well apparently it's because the internet is open and when you upload infringing work there is a high chance hundreds or thousands of people may have downloaded that illegal copy. That's how they at least justify it.
How does that justify putting someone away for longer then a murderer, who took a life?
How does that justify putting someone away for longer then a murderer, who took a life?
Simple if they can't do the time, don't do the crime.
What has what those genocidal scum did got to do with illegal file sharing?
You say its illegal. If we assume you are fully correct on the matter then that makes half of all Australians hardened criminals according to the record companies and studios. so where do you propose the police lock up those 8+ million hardened criminals (including children) then?
How does that justify putting someone away for longer then a murderer, who took a life?
Well everytime someone downloads illegal copies of something the media companies need to apparently fire someone so they may have to *kill* off a few characters. /joke
What question, the legality of copyright one? So if we assume you are fully right for a second, what are you going to do with the (at a guess) 8+ million Australians who have downloaded copyright material before (whether that be an mp3, ebook, movie, tv show, game, etc), build super jails akin to Nazi concentration camps and imprison them all?
When the majority become tagged as 'villains' something's amiss. If those in charge obstruct evolution hard enough for long enough they'll eventually create revolution. That's just the way things are and always have been – systems bend or they eventually break.
Clearly a substantial and growing minority, if not already a majority, want ideally for the free flow of digitally stored wares. Capitalists should be trying to adapt for that social development – there are obvious ways if they have any actual capitalistic chutzpah whatsoever. They shouldn't be obstinately demanding everyone get back in line and righteously, and hypocritically, (remember the two thirds of the world who have nothing) browbeat those who won't. Apart from everything else, it's just going to be self defeating in the end.
I can only see the FBI going after the largest uploaders to Megaupload – these folk will have ended up making large amounts of money from the "Uploader Rewards" program. It is good to "make a example" of these people, and they might even be able to seize assets worth a fair bit given apparently several of the top uploaders received hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I agree totally with you..
Extradite millions of downloaders house them and feed them.
It makes no sense in any language but then we are talking about the U.S.A
and then sell the seized goods to the general public
now that would be interesting, I'd go along and buy whatever I could afford
|IIIII Germanotta IIIII| writes...
Its funny how pirates get fined millions of dollars but murderers and terrorists alike get fine 100 bucks and bailed out and all this ridiculous punishments
Big corporations make the rules.
If you screw a big corp you are in the poo
Surely no-one thinks the Government runs the U.S.
Michael Moore has demonstrated how America is run by Corporations
and the politicians are merely puppets.
The only reason piracy exists is because the "big" labels have utterly failed to offer anything alternative.
The decline in revenue for the music industry I think has less to do with piracy, and more to do with people moving from buying albums to buying tracks. Up to until 2006, the music industry earned more then 90% of their revenue from album sales, with practically nothing from singles. Now, album sales account for only about 60% of their revenue, with revenue from singles accounting for 20% or more.
It's all graphed and analysed in this article, all using data provided by the RIAA:
http://articles.businessinsi
So it make sense that their revenue should decline, now that people have the choice to pay for the songs they want, as opposed to having to pay for other tracks that they don't want as part of an album.
The music industry also made more money than they would otherwise have during the 90's due to people converting their vinyl collection to CDs, but no such paid conversion is necessary for the move to digital, thanks to CD ripping (which is probably why Sony tried to add DRM rootkits to CDs).
In other words, piracy is probably not the major factor in the recent decline of the music industry. For example, since the demise of LimeWire, there's been little evidence in terms of increased revenue, despite a dramatic decrease in music piracy. If anything, revenue growth seems to be slowing down after the demise of LimeWire, with revenue growing 2.1% in 2009, but only 1.6% in 2011 (source).
http://www.youtube.com/watch
Jeepers media guy made a new video, pretty Interesting.
I remember when Napster and Kazaa were shutdown, it only made file-sharing communities bigger and stronger. You cannot censor the internet, you cannot stop what the people want, much like prohibition in the 1920's, it just won't work.
Make an application for a refund? one wonders what the Feds will do with customer records they have seized, especially the records of the uploaders who were paid, prosecute the mega earners from this for criminal infringement of copyright?
They whole thing is being staged in a way to try and get the money transfered to copyright holders, this is the whole point of the conspiracy charges. If they are a conspiracy against the copyright holders – the holds get all the money, while the users get nothing. If it was just copyright the money would have to go back to the users and the individual users would have to be found guilty.
It's not a criminal offence except in backwards, third world shitholes like the US*.
Sorry to poke a hole in the above, criminal infringements of copyright are on the statutes in Australia, rightly so.
This "Dotcom mob's" actions are a perfect example of criminal infringement.
|IIIII Germanotta IIIII| writes...
Its funny how pirates get fined millions of dollars but murderers and terrorists alike get fine 100 bucks and bailed out and all this ridiculous punishments
Thats not true.
In the U.S(probably not here though cos our laws are soft), you can sue the individual for murders in civil proceedings court.
In fact OJ Simpson who got off with murder in the criminal courts was sued for millions of dollars for the murder in civil courts(screwed up I know, but true)
In fact OJ Simpson who got off with murder in the criminal courts was sued for millions of dollars for the murder in civil courts(screwed up I know, but true)
How is that screwed up? Criminal court has nothing to do with the victim. They don't care about the victim or restitution to the victim. They only care about making the tax payers pay to make the cases drag out for years so all the lawyers (on both sides) and the judges all make a full time living thanks to criminals.
The civil court is even worse. The victim has to pay all the costs themselves, and like in the OJ simpson case, they will never see a cent even when they win because the lawyers will drag it out for eternity.
In the U.S(probably not here though cos our laws are soft), you can sue the individual for murders in civil proceedings court.
I'm glad I'm not a judge or lawyer in the US having to defend someone who is being sued for a possibly capital crime.
And by 'possibly capital' I mean the outcome may result in a death sentence for the accused if in a criminal court.
Pictures of Kim Dotcom mansion and some of his 18 luxury cars.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/n
Mr Dotcom reminds me of that nerd at school that had no friends and everyone teased... but was really smart... and now he's got out of school and is making a mint he has to show off all this money he's made to show how "cool" he really is and basically pay for friends.
It's all very sad really.
Sorry to poke a hole in the above, criminal infringements of copyright are on the statutes in Australia, rightly so.
This "Dotcom mob's" actions are a perfect example of criminal infringement.
Arguably yes, but what I meant to say (sorry for being unclear) is that ordinary, run-of-the-mill downloading, being copyright infringement, isn't criminal here. In the US, I believe it's criminal; regardless, the US has silly statutory damages meaning that even run of the mill downloading can net you millions in a civil suit, whereas here it's only for the true damage occasioned to the copyright holder.
Also, you can sue people here for assault, but here, as in the US, most crims have no assets.
You still haven't answered the question, you just keep on throwing up smokescreens to try and deflect from the fact that your contention is totally and utterly misinformed.
Because he can't, because it is illegal and everyone knows it.
Now his points on how it's not exactly a big deal in whole scheme of things like poverty and violence; not worth shutting down, etc. etc. I agree with. But I sure as hell still know it is illegal.
And when/if I do any piracy stuff I full well know it's illegal, probably like a lot of MU users. Pity the legit ones have been screwed over too.
People are kidding themselves if they didn't think MU had a lot of this stuff going – I don't think it's worth prosecution and shutdown but obviously authorities do.
No wonder "Dotcom" got busted, extravagant lifestyle, fast cars, etc, etc, talk about keeping yourself on the radar.
And why should he?
Envy much?
He created a profitable business, made heaps of money. Good on him..
Obviously made too much money and some higher authority decided to shut him down..
Seems today, you can shutdown someone's business by making outlandish claims...
How could you possibly reasonably calculate loss of income like they have here.
In the US, I believe it's criminal;
Now I could be wrong but I think it's still a civil matter, those cases against Tenenbaum and Rassett Thomas were conducted in the civil jurisdiction.
The megaupload matters involve criminal infringements.
Seems today, you can shutdown someone's business by making outlandish claims...
I don't like to keep spamming this, and whilst your reaction was the exact same as my initial reaction- I'd suggest you look into it more:
/forum-replies.cfm?t=1851705&p=23#r446
The indictment has pretty damning evidence.
I agree with your statement in general, that it's too easy for the US government to shut down various websites. But I think it's completely a different case here!
Dotcom is a flapping hero if you ask me, a real Mother Teresa of our times.
That is wrong on so many counts, the guy is criminal scum, busted heaps of times in Germany and now involved in a multi million dollar criminal enterprise, good on the Feds for busting him, he's no hero nor is he anything like Mother Theresa, saying he is totally besmirches Mother Theresa and all her humanitarian efforts.
In Australia the uploader would be hit with seperate infringements for each copy that is downloaded which is called "make available online", the downloader would be hit with "making a copy" now if uploading and downloading are involved that would be two seperate infringements.
Ah, so now you make up laws and hope people will get charged...
"make available online", from which Australian law/act did you extract this from? Especially which part makes it a crime for an individual to do so?
Mother Theresa and all her humanitarian efforts
I'm surprised.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
h
Kiwis have only ever done good for the world.
Shame on the NZ gov for letting the US enter and take him away.
At least SOPA/PIPA's been shelved for now.
Make no mistake about it, another government will probably bring it up under a totally new name (same shit, different smell) and will probably try and pass it, then old Murdoch will get pissed when he can't go on thepiratebay anymore to get his movies (or whatever else he enjoys pirating).
Unless of course he gets a VPN link overseas or something (I wonder if Zimbabwe VPN links will become popular)
then there's India, where it is an achievement to make a successful local call (and the land of outsourcing) and the small telcos may even set up VPN links that go from one ISP to another, who knows? (they did have an illegal telco exchange that took calls from a satellite modem through a PABX then sent it onto the Indian GPRS network via prepaid SIM cards so they've got the know how)
The indictment has pretty damning evidence.
Whilst I'm not defending the action of the staff here. It is no different to sharing a link to a film clip or snippets of tv shows that are on YouTube to colleagues in an office or friends on Facebook.
Many of the claims against MU could easily be applied to Google. Not only do they knowingly host copyrighted material (Granted they do take it down, but then so did MU as well), Google profits off this copyrighted content with the display of ads in the videos themselves and on the pages.
Google profits off this copyrighted content with the display of ads
The money must go somewhere. FBI had to find that out with WikiLeaks and MegaUpload.
What's the point of "shelving" SOPA and PIPA when the US Government can just shut down a web service at a whim ?
With the current profitable system Corporations have with politicians everyone is at the mercy of all of them.
Website blackouts are a joke and it makes it even more funny now that Megaupload is down. Annonymous DDOS'ing various websites ? That does nothing too, if the GoDaddy incident is something to go by then it's living proof that the only way to hurt them is to boycott.
No money for the Corporations = no money for the politicians = freedom for another day.
And who says piracy is hurting the industry? Everything I pirate gets purchased.
if the GoDaddy incident is something to go by
i didn't hear about GoDaddy, was it similar to MU?
or did some random Fed hire the services of Anonymous in return for regular payments of hush money so that they could take down GoDaddy?
What's the point of "shelving" SOPA and PIPA when the US Government can just shut down a web service at a whim ?
Because SOPA and PIPA would allow them to go after sites which merely link to other sites that host copyrighted material.
Amongst other things
i didn't hear about GoDaddy, was it similar to MU?
or did some random Fed hire the services of Anonymous in return for regular payments of hush money so that they could take down GoDaddy?
Not at all. GoDaddy was a supporter of SOPA once people found out they started bleeding customers until they reversed their decesion
Not at all. GoDaddy was a supporter of SOPA once people found out they started bleeding customers until they reversed their decesion
How many customers did they lose?
Many of the claims against MU could easily be applied to Google. Not only do they knowingly host copyrighted material (Granted they do take it down, but then so did MU as well), Google profits off this copyrighted content with the display of ads in the videos themselves and on the pages.
Only US companies can profit off the non-china net. (they are a world of their own.) didn't you know that?
Lots of US public filesharing enterprises and "grey importers" of US products into the vassal states of the empire. Why aren't they going down?
What's the point of "shelving" SOPA and PIPA when the US Government can just shut down a web service at a whim ?
US authorities have always had that right with US hosted servers. However it requires a proper investigation leading to a court order and it doesn't affect foreign hosts.
SOPA would take care of both of those "inadequacies".
let me try and do the maths here, how many domains did GoDaddy host previous to them supporting SOPA?
let me try and do the maths here, how many domains did GoDaddy host previous to them supporting SOPA?
No one really knows, i dont think they ever published the number. But getting the exact number they lost or have is extremely hard.
Ah, so now you make up laws and hope people will get charged.
"make available online", from which Australian law/act did you extract this from?
Not a made up law, have a read of the copyright holders exclusive rights contained in the Australia Copyright Act 1968 as amended.
Read the many decisions made by Justice Cowdroy in the first iiNet trial.
So I didn't make it up in the hope people would be charged.
The two infringements are as I said before, downloading "is making a copy" which infringes the copyright holders exclusive right of reproducing the work and uploading is "make available online" which infringes the copyright holders exclusive right of communicating with the public.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au
Kiwi sold out their citizen which is scary when your government doesn't protect u.
How have they sold him out? so should the NZ Government protect a man involved in a criminal enterprise?
The NZ Gov't haven't sold him out, he sold himself out involving himself in a criminal enterprise.
I still can't believe that in the USA, they have for-profit jails. I mean, WHAT THE flap?
We have privatised prisons in Australia too. It's no surprise that they're all run by consortiums at least partially controlled by US companies that started in the business of private prisons over there, but we have them nonetheless.
But what's that got to do with Megaupload, and the arrests in NZ?
How have they sold him out? so should the NZ Government protect a man involved in a criminal enterprise?
Of course not – the NZ government should prosecute the man in NZ according to NZ law. Just up and shipping him to the US without due process is where the problem comes in.
We need to lobby the Chineese Goverment to allow hosting MU servers in its Territory, stuff the yanks..its a blight in free expression closing MU :(
the NZ government should prosecute the man in NZ according to NZ law.
He has committed offences against American laws, so he should be tried in America.
Just up and shipping him to the US without due process is where the problem comes in.
Have they done that? he will get due process at the extradition hearing. He hardly warrants any consideration as far as I am concerned his criminal record is testament to what sort of person he is, living it large on the proceeds of his criminal enterprise speaks volumes as well.
Australia will sell out its own citizens just as fast if the master tells them to. The Australian government and authorities bend over to the USA at every oportunity. I have never heard of them denying any request.
I have never heard of them denying any request.
Cos thats what friends do, they sell out their families to their friends.
But what's that got to do with Megaupload, and the arrests in NZ?
it was pointed to in this, www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tD1yaE0GfQ as now the MPAA/RIAA have lists of every MegaUpload uploader and what files they uploaded, how much, how many downloads, how much Megaupload paid them.
it's basically one giant list of people to send to prison and/or sue into oblivion.
they are extraditing a 23 year old UK uni student for running a site that just had LINKS to other sites, which is not a crime in the UK.
it really is a flapping joke.
The two infringements are as I said before, downloading "is making a copy" which infringes the copyright holders exclusive right of reproducing the work and uploading is "make available online" which infringes the copyright holders exclusive right of communicating with the public.
that gives the copyright holder a civil right to sue for the damages incurred....which would be, uh, about $20 in the case of someone downloading an album off rapidshare.
Not a made up law, have a read of the copyright holders exclusive rights contained in the Australia Copyright Act 1968 as amended.
You still haven't provided anything proving your statement nor an extract of the law related to it.
Nor have you provided anything making it a crime in Australia for an individual to do such thing (as opposed to civil litigation)
When it comes to Law, it's rather easy to provide the actual extract of the act...
When it comes to Law, it's rather easy to provide the actual extract of the act...
I did.
You still haven't provided anything proving your statement nor an extract of the law related to it.
Oh yes I did as well as explaining it all.
Suggestion re-read my post.
Nor have you provided anything making it a crime in Australia for an individual to do such thing (as opposed to civil litigation)
Nowhere did I suggest it was crime, in the case of "Dotcom" and his cadre's enterprise it is a crime.
Oh yes I did as well as explaining it all.
YOu didn't... You referred to iiNet vs Afact: this is a civil suit
In no case did you quote specifically anything relevant to your original quote making "making available online" a criminal matter..
You mentioned something as being "illegal": to be illegal, you have to break the Law: it's a criminal act.
Stating "copyright act", is hardly quoting anything.
It's just as accurate as me saying something like "it's in the Law: case closed"
Dotcom is a flapping hero if you ask me, a real Mother Teresa of our times.
On principle I agree with this. Well said Bananana.
Highly doubt Megaupload can pull back from this, and I doubt anyone who downloaded or uploaded would be affected, unless they moved massive amounts of copyrighted data.
How many customers did they lose?
They lost me for one. I won't be using them (GoDaddy) again either.
He has committed offences against American laws, so he should be tried in America.
By that reasoning if you have a wife and she doesn't wear a headscarve in public (illegal in Iran) in Australia then she should be extradited to Iran and tried under their Sharia law there.
Ridiculous.
Nor have you provided anything making it a crime in Australia for an individual to do such thing (as opposed to civil litigation)
I concur. It is a civil matter, not criminal (which I've linked to in previous threads – read my post history to find them).
Richard O'Dwyer ran a legal website in the UK and is still being extradited to the USA, despite never having been there ever before, because it is illegal in the USA to post links to copyrighted material there.
the above about the head scarf thing applies well to these situations, imagine you are a female and post a video on the internet with you in a bikini at the beach and someone from Iran/Saudi Arabia/etc watch it online, then you are offering this up in them countries so is that not breaking their law and you should be extradited immediately to face the law there?
the NZ government should prosecute the man in NZ according to NZ law. Just up and shipping him to the US without due process is where the problem comes in
my understanding is that NZ/australia don't have a lot of legislation regarding online piracy & that is why the music/movie industry likes to have them extradited to american courts.
If I "burn" myself $100,000 dollars worth of $100 Dollar Notes on my printer, would that be considered a victimless copy of intellectual rights?
If someone is caught downloading they should be made to pay the costs of the downloads.
Have no idea how the US huge fines can be justified. Corrupt government all I got to say!
If I "burn" myself $100,000 dollars worth of $100 Dollar Notes on my printer, would that be considered a victimless copy of intellectual rights?
You're on to something here.. copy off a $100 bill, leave it somewhere to be stolen, and cry "I've lost $100, compensate me!". A cunning plan without flaw.
If I "burn" myself $100,000 dollars worth of $100 Dollar Notes on my printer, would that be considered a victimless copy of intellectual rights?
I think the point you break the law is when you try to use counterfeit money.
If someone is caught downloading they should be made to pay the costs of the downloads.
If someone is seen to have profited from sharing copyright material, they should be made to pay the costs of the downloads. Hopefully they search MU for the people who they have paid cash to. The ones who had the most popular downloads.
Those are the people who should be put in jail.
No one really knows, i dont think they ever published the number. But getting the exact number they lost or have is extremely hard.
http://www.webhosting.info/r
Nor have you provided anything making it a crime in Australia for an individual to do such thing (as opposed to civil litigation)
Copyright infringement is never theft. However certain types of copyright infringement are criminal activities in Australia with criminal sanctions including possible fines and jail terms for offenders. Our copyright act has always contained criminal provisions, but the law was amended and the criminal provisions were expand when we entered the free trade agreement with the US.
http://ag.gov.au/www/agd/agd
The US Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act 2004 (USFTAI Act) and the Copyright Legislation Amendment Act 2004 (CLA Act) made a series of amendments to criminal offence provisions of the Copyright Act 1968 (the Act). The amendments implement general criminal law obligations under the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA). Both the AUSFTA and the criminal law offence amendments in the USFTAI Act and the CLA Act came into force on 1 January 2005.
The key criminal offence obligation under the AUSFTA is to provide for criminal procedures and penalties to be applied at least in cases of wilful copyright piracy on a commercial scale.
Under the AUSFTA, this includes two specific types of conduct:
(1) where a person has committed significant wilful infringements of copyright with no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain.
(2) where a person has committed wilful infringements of copyright for the purposes of commercial advantage or financial gain.
Implementation of this obligation has been achieved by a series of amendments to the criminal law provisions in sections 132 (general offences) and 135AS (broadcast decoding devices) of the Act.
Broadening the scope of existing offences
The amendments made by the USFTAI Act and the CLA Act will broaden the scope of offences in sections 132 and 135AS of the Act to criminalise certain activity involving infringing copies and broadcast decoding devices where that activity is committed ‘with the intention of obtaining a commercial advantage or profit’. For example, the distribution from an internet site of infringing copies of movies or computer software not for profit but for some other commercial advantage (eg, attracting commercial sponsorship) may come within the scope of the offence.
The amendments will also broaden the scope of the offence in paragraph 132(1)(a) of the Act so that it applies to the making of infringing copies with the intention of obtaining a commercial advantage or profit (thereby strengthening the current offences regime that targets activity such as ‘business end user piracy’). For example, this will ensure that the offence is wide enough in scope to criminalise the making of infringing copies of computer software in a business for internal commercial use.
Importantly, the amendments include a definition of ‘profit’ which excludes ‘any advantage, benefit or gain resulting from or associated with private or domestic use of any copyright material in the work or other subject-matter’. This ensures that the scope of the offences does not extend beyond commercial uses of copyright material in a work or other subject-matter.
New offence relating to significant infringement of copyright
The amendments also inserted new subsection 132(5DB) into the Act which makes it an offence where:
a person has committed one or more infringements of the copyright in a work or other subject-matter,
the infringement or infringements occur on a commercial scale, and
the infringement or infringements have a substantial prejudicial impact on the owner of the copyright.
The offence is intended to implement the obligation under the AUSFTA that criminal procedures and remedies apply to a person who has engaged in significant infringing activity on a commercial scale but where they have no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain. For example, this offence may be committed by a person who creates a web site that allows infringing copies of movies or computer software to be downloaded to internet users for free.
Under new subsection 132(5DC) of the Act, certain matters are to be taken into account in determining whether one or more infringements on a commercial scale under subsection 132(5DB) occurs. These include the volume and value of any articles that are infringing copies.
Other fact sheets outline specific criminal law changes to other areas of the Act, including further changes to provisions dealing with broadcast decoding devices.
http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd
NEW AUSTRALIAN COPYRIGHT LAWS
FACT SHEET
A wider range of copyright enforcement measures have been created, including a tiered offences system,
infringement notices, and proceeds of crime remedies.
Tiered offences system
There are now three tiered offences for most offences in the Copyright Act 1968. The amendments create
indictable, summary and strict liability offences relating to copyright piracy. The tiered offences contain
similar physical elements, but have different fault elements to reflect the offences’ different levels of
seriousness.
For example, the most serious offences are indictable. They have default fault elements of intention and
recklessness. They have maximum penalties of 5 years imprisonment and/or between 550 ($60,500) to 850
($93,500) penalty units for natural persons.
The summary offences have a lower threshold, with most containing fault elements of intention (by default)
and negligence. They have maximum penalties of 2 years imprisonment and/or 120 ($13,200) penalty units.
See also
http://ag.gov.au/www/agd
http://ag.gov.au/ww
http://
http://www.dfat.gov.au/fta
http
http://www.dfat.gov.au/ft
Edit:additional link.
You mentioned something as being "illegal": to be illegal, you have to break the Law: it's a criminal act.
You are sadly misinformed, just because it is a civil matter doesn't make it any less illegal to acquire intellectual property without the permission of the rights holder.
May I make a suggestion, look up the meaning of the words illegal, better still I will save you the trouble.
Illegal, or unlawful, is used to describe something that is prohibited or not authorised by law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal
Downloading intellectual property without the permission of the rights holder isn't authorised by law so it is illegal.
You are making the same mistake as zivad has on numerous occasions, contending that it isn't illegal because it is a civil matter.
It clearly is illegal to download IP without the permission of the rights holder. Justice Cowdroy clearly backed that up with his decisions in the first iiNet trial.
Nowehere in my post did I refer to what I posted about the Copyright Act and the infringements of that Act as being a criminal act.
The matters at hand are of course criminal acts and if committed in Australia would fall under the criminal provisions (written in as a result of the FTA) of the Copyright Act 1968 as amended
If I "burn" myself $100,000 dollars worth of $100 Dollar Notes on my printer, would that be considered a victimless copy of intellectual rights?
No it would be an offence under The Crimes (Currency) Act 1981 and could incur a lenghty gaol term.
If someone is seen to have profited from sharing copyright material, they should be made to pay the costs of the downloads. Hopefully they search MU for the people who they have paid cash to. The ones who had the most popular downloads.
Just had my account for about 15 days. Havnt even uploaded anything but have downloaded. Should I be worried?
I also had a premium account there and the annoying thing for me is I produced an educational video (which *I* own the copyright) for students to download etc... Now I need to find another place to upload this and I don't even know if the new website would suffer the same fate.
By just taking the site off like that, it does leave me with poor impression with the US government. I have no control of what other people are putting on there and megaupload had a policy that they would remove copyrighted materials. As an analogy, if a bank involves in illegal money laundering, why should an innocent customer be penalised with the bank being frozen of a sudden?
I think if companies want to combat piracy, they need to come up with better technologies to protect their materials. The reality is that people will always share files electronically. Shutting down one site after the other isn't going to stop piracy and it annoys people like me who use it to share our own work with the community at large.
Havnt even uploaded anything but have downloaded. Should I be worried?
It depends on what you have downloaded, if it is not popular by a long shot you are fine, if the file was pretty popular you may be flapped.
Havnt even uploaded anything but have downloaded. Should I be worried?
Fact: the Feds have seized all Megaupload records, if you haven't used it to illegally acquire IP then don't be worried.
Fact: the Feds have seized all Megaupload records, if you haven't used it to illegally acquire IP then don't be worried.
WP is going to be a ghost town once all the deportations commence back to the USA.
the annoying thing for me is I produced an educational video (which *I* own the copyright) for students to download etc.
A solution, host the vid on either www.legaltorrents.com or Mininova or do you only want it to be acquired by your students?
You could also make a torrent of your vid and use the inbuilt tracker in Vuze or uTorrent and only release the information to people of your choice.
Hmm I wonder if MUSO were involved in this matter?
MUSO is the industry standard for the media industries in tracking and removing illegal files and streams, an accurate, powerful, cost-effective system for rights holders to use in-house – or by our piracy team as a managed service.
WP is going to be a ghost town once all the deportations commence back to the USA.
The WHOLE WORLD is going to be a ghost town!
Just had my account for about 15 days. Haven't even uploaded anything but have downloaded. Should I be worried?
You,me,maybe 99% of Whirlpoolians and 25%(guesstimated)of the internet population are going to be extradited to the U.S.
Will be setting up my IP cam at the front door and screen visitors.
I alert but not alarmed.
America always trying to flex it's muscle..
A solution, host the vid on either www.legaltorrents.com or Mininova or do you only want it to be acquired by your students?
The problem with torrenting is a number of places block the ability to torrent or make it very difficult to do so. Granted this is mostly down to stop pirating but it also wipes out the legitimate use of P2P with the same brush stroke.
Lol don't worry. The Feds don't have any client information. If they did it would take them 10 years to sift through and even then it would be US convictions only. But no the buck stops at the shut down of the service.
The problem with torrenting is a number of places block the ability to torrent or make it very difficult to do so. Granted this is mostly down to stop pirating but it also wipes out the legitimate use of P2P with the same brush stroke.
You could use windows live skydrive or your ISP hosting space to share your video ? No ? There are 1000s of ways to share the data. Google is your friend
The WHOLE WORLD is going to be a ghost town!
Lol, i'd like to see the US imprison millions of people... They won't have enough money to do that. Not like they have any money currently. :P
Just had my account for about 15 days. Havnt even uploaded anything but have downloaded. Should I be worried?
Probably not...
The site claims to have had more than onebillion visitors in its history, more than 180,000,000 registered users to date, an average of 50 million daily visits, and to account for approximately four percent of the total traffic on the Internet
Nobody has an appetite for prosecutions on that scale. They'll pick off the people who profited most from uploading. Then they will go for a handful of small time downloaders to send out a message that no matter how small the infringement you run the risk of getting done. You do fit the bill here but the odds are in your favor. You'll be one of the many, you've got as much chance of winning lotto.
Don't be surprised if you receive a written warning, but they wont go much further than this for the majority of offenders.
The site claims to have had more than onebillion visitors in its history, more than 180,000,000 registered users to date, an average of 50 million daily visits, and to account for approximately four percent of the total traffic on the Internet
So these people have not only been stealing from artists, but also slowing down the internet tubes.
Good riddance I say.
2nd edit:
Ars Technica talks about the collateral damage to the legit users of megaupload.
http://arstechn
This is exactly the point is was making earlier.
Many legitimate users and uses for MU. Everyone gets taken out at once just to make the entertainment industry in the USA happy.....
Who's next Google? They direct link to torrents via a search much like TPB. They even own YouTube. How much infringing material up on YT?
Anyone think both the timing of the action and how seriously they are trying to make it all sound is because SOPA/PIPA got destroyed after the Blackout?
Sorry but this looks like pure muscle flexing to me. A case of the Internet won that round but we are going to hit back harder. If they start lining up downloaders from MU i think this is the message being sent.
Many legitimate users and uses for MU. Everyone gets taken out at once just to make the entertainment industry in the USA happy.....
What legitimate uses did MegaUpload have and please BE SPECIFIC.
So these people have not only been stealing from artists, but also slowing down the internet tubes.
Those get expanded regularly. Whats slowing them down even more is OpMegaUpload from Anon. The quote was traffic is up 13-14% on normal. Thats after 4% just got taken out. I guess taking out MU was bad for the Internet pipes lol
Fact: the Feds have seized all Megaupload records, if you haven't used it to illegally acquire IP then don't be worried.
i was watching bbc impact(abc24) and they said megauploads had approximately 150 million registered users and over 15 million(i have seen it said to be more like 50 million too) hits per day.
do you really think for 1 second they are going to be going after 150 million+ people ?
i just had to go around to a mates parents tonight to bookmark and show how to use a new site so they can download the videos and pictures he sends them. he lives in america and only gets back here every 5 years or so. so a bit of a pain with other sites using obscured checks(his parents eye site isnt great) but not the end of the world either.
What legitimate uses did MegaUpload have and please BE SPECIFIC.
home movies :)
You know, the family vacational type. Also some open source software.
What legitimate uses did MegaUpload have and please BE SPECIFIC.
look at my last post. just because you dont use file sharing sites or some people use them for the wrong thing doesnt mean there is no legitimate use.
When this sort of thing happens, it just strengthens my resolve to seek out other sites that can provide free content. I use other file sharing sites and BT. I hate it when these holier than though scum bags shut down legitimate sites.
Those get expanded regularly. Whats slowing them down even more is OpMegaUpload from Anon. The quote was traffic is up 13-14% on normal. Thats after 4% just got taken out. I guess taking out MU was bad for the Internet pipes lol
Yep, you are correct there IMHO
Megaupload had always been slow for me when I used it years ago to u/l some backups of my uncle's TAFE assignments, they were at least 8mb in one zip and 20kb/s a sec... you do the maths on that one.
I don't know if it's just you or me but the internets seem faster now, maybe MU were passing a lot of the free d/l links they provided thru servers which had to handle u/l and d/l of files, which slowed it down a fair bit, which maybe could be tactics to entice users onto a premium a/c.
one way speed could be limited
although my dad did buy a premium account two months ago only for one month and he said there was no speed difference between free and premium links.
What legitimate uses did MegaUpload have and please BE SPECIFIC.
Heres what in that very article.
Users say federal action "too broad a brush"
One Ars reader suggests in the forums that users who lost access to content and paid for services they now won't receive should file a class-action suit against the US government. "I am not saying that distribution of illegal content is ok, but killing all other legitimate content as a sort of a ' collateral damage' in this case is surely not ok," the commenter writes.
While such a suit seems unlikely to succeed, the sentiment is reflective of users' anger about the lost service. A book editor named Cassandra Olivia says graphics designers and editors she works with use Megaupload to exchange files for review, and that she uses it herself for sharing family and vacation photos with relatives who are "just technologically adept enough to click on a link."
"I'm glad my Megaupload account was just backup and I still have the photos somewhere, but now I have to retrain my family into using Dropbox or similar," she says. "Taking Megaupload down without distinguishing between infringing and non-infringing content did the legitimate users a disservice and was a violation of due process. Too broad a brush, I think. I hope I get my account, and my photos back."
Heres some of the uses they have listed
A rights group using it while opposing SOPA
Public Knowledge is a prominent SOPA opponent, and Weinberg was using Megaupload throughout the SOPA debate and right up until yesterday's action against Megaupload. "As luck would have it, over the weekend I used my home laptop to pull down the stream of the House Judiciary Committee SOPA markup," Weinberg says. "I wanted to transfer it here to work so that I could cut it up into a video we were using. I uploaded it, but before I had a chance to download it Megaupload was shut down. I can't speak for everything happening on the site, but Megaupoad was providing me a completely legitimate service for a completely legitimate end.
Someone sending HD video to family. Now wondering if anywhere is safe.
Reader Mark Ellul tells us "I used my account for online storage and backups, also to send my personal home video files from Spain to Australia, so my parents can see HD videos of their granddaughters. I have received tweets from DJs who used it to share their legal creations. Obviously there was a pirated use, but there were so many uses to have unlimited space in the Web. Now I find it hard to trust in any service, because Dropbox or any of the other competitors could be brought down by the FBI."
Collaboration on Music Tracks
One user in Colorado who goes by "daveIT" in the Ars forums said he paid for the premium service for increased speed, and used it to collaborate with a friend in Alaska on music tracks. "Not a huge blow personally—other than having to waste the time to re-upload tracks on my slow DSL," he wrote, noting that with Megaupload he had uploaded files 6GB to 8GB in size with no problems.
Andriod developers were using it. Whole section dedicated to that. Im not going to cut and paste the lot look for yourself.
Megaupload important for Android developers
Heres another musician. Now worried about what may happen to confidential files in the hands of the US Government.
Professional musician Suzanne Barbieri e-mailed us to note that she used Megaupload to store and share music in part because most of her projects "are too large for something like YouSendIt. A Megaupload free account allows you to send files of up to 2GB. I have no idea where I will upload files now." Barbieri tells Ars the pre-release tracks she makes are confidential and intended only for the recipients' use, so she doesn't like the files being in the US government's hands.
Guess reading a link is to hard for some and this post is long so im not going to keep listing more
absolutely loved megaupload, would send stuff around it with my classmates all the time when we had assignments and group work – we'd jump on, u/l a bunch of our pictures, text, whatever, send the links to the group leader via email then we had said person put it all into Word, make it presentable and post it back out via email. Worked a charm. As long as you didn't u/l anything above 2 MB with MU you got the fastest speeds out.
They probably couldn't add new servers fast enough to keep up with the demand for pirated warez, movies and whatever else have you even with great wads of cash.
do you really think for 1 second they are going to be going after 150 million+ people ?
Makes you wonder how many of them are politicians, police, MPs, judges and employees of movies/record companies.
I sure hope MU and other similar services kept such a list.
The problem with torrenting is a number of places block the ability to torrent or make it very difficult to do so.
How so? www.legaltorrents.com and Mininova aren't blocked, who in Australia blocks the ability to torrent? can you provide an example of a legitimate P2P site being blocked?
What legitimate uses did MegaUpload have and please BE SPECIFIC.
I did not have an account with megaupload, however I have used their service often, such as searching for drivers, manuals or any firmware for HTC devices would download from a link to megaupload (most of http://forum.xda-developers.com firmwares were hosted on a megaupload mirror)
I have never downloaded any infringing materials from their site that I know of.
Having said that, it seems so easy to make a claim about "ownership" that it seems anything you ever get could be.