Feds Shut Down Megaupload.com

[Giordano]

Does SOPA protect MY original work? Of course not, it only works for the wealthy corporations.

 

So [bleep] them. Let Anon DDOS the [bleep] out of them, I don't care.

[Alg]

So [bleep] them. Let Anon DDOS the [bleep] out of them, I don't care.

I would care if Anonymous DDOSing them makes the government crack down harder. :mellow:

[Dizzle229]

On the other hand, it's been a while since anon actually did anything. So there's that.

[Range_This11]

 

I'm sorry dude, but this quote was said in the context of the horrific apartheid system in South Africa at its height in the mid-1980s. I don't know how readily it should be applied to Megaupload being shut down. I don't agree with the shut down, but the quote is a little dramatic for these circumstances :lol:

 

 

It fits perfectly.

Universal flexed its corporate muscle over the fact megaupload often gets copyrighted material put on it (even though they oppose this and do their best to remove it) and got it shut down because of this. As a medium of sharing things fairly (eg your own work) this makes megaupload a tool of free speech. To shut it down for such a bogus reason is unjust and oppressive; besides if you ignore the small things you lose ground to face the big things as the rights to do so have been eroded away from underneath you will you sat there being apathetic as it 'wasn't a big deal'. It's how the nazis worked, they made a few little changes here and there that people weren't best pleased about and then by the time they made the big changes so much free speech and civil liberty had been eroded it was near impossible to oppose them from within Germany.

I already said I didn't agree with the shut down, so relax. Second, please do not make the comparison to the Nazi regime. We are and never will be ANYWHERE close to the oppression that the Nazi party used in Germany. Nazi comparisons are almost always ridiculous and inappropriate.

 

My point was that the quote was too dramatic. And it is.

[Sy_Accursed]

 

I'm sorry dude, but this quote was said in the context of the horrific apartheid system in South Africa at its height in the mid-1980s. I don't know how readily it should be applied to Megaupload being shut down. I don't agree with the shut down, but the quote is a little dramatic for these circumstances :lol:

 

 

It fits perfectly.

Universal flexed its corporate muscle over the fact megaupload often gets copyrighted material put on it (even though they oppose this and do their best to remove it) and got it shut down because of this. As a medium of sharing things fairly (eg your own work) this makes megaupload a tool of free speech. To shut it down for such a bogus reason is unjust and oppressive; besides if you ignore the small things you lose ground to face the big things as the rights to do so have been eroded away from underneath you will you sat there being apathetic as it 'wasn't a big deal'. It's how the nazis worked, they made a few little changes here and there that people weren't best pleased about and then by the time they made the big changes so much free speech and civil liberty had been eroded it was near impossible to oppose them from within Germany.

I already said I didn't agree with the shut down, so relax. Second, please do not make the comparison to the Nazi regime. We are and never will be ANYWHERE close to the oppression that the Nazi party used in Germany. Nazi comparisons are almost always ridiculous and inappropriate.

 

My point was that the quote was too dramatic. And it is.

 

I never said it will be anywhere close, but it is a perfectly legitimate comparison this kind of "minor" thing that you deem to be over dramatic to view as a major injustice is EXACTLY how they erode away rights which leads to the kind of situations nazi germany was; this isn't a universally political field but its still the same concept and SOPA/PIPA (which this links to and is a mere drop in the lake in comparison too) are pretty darn extreme policies which will extremely infringe freedom of speech and creative outlet and business start ups and the economics of some big industries among other things.

 

I don't think its at all over-dramatic; I think you are vastly underplaying the importance of this event and while disagreeing with it are willing to look away and ignore the implications until its too late. A quote I find apt (thought I can't recall who said it) is "If you ignore the rain, you will never be ready for the flood." Meaning just because its a relatively small rain shower on its own does not mean you should look the other way and under play it as in the bigger picture it is a prelude to the flood.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Nazi Germany happened because of mass poverty, a political void in elite German society, anti-Semitism and a feeling of injustice following the Versailles Treaty. You're not seriously trying to imply any of those are "minor" things which lead to something more, are you? As you've already been told, comparisons to Nazi Germany are ridiculous, and almost invariably made by people with no meaningful understanding of what German people were going through in 1933.

 

Back to the topic... I'll just say this. You can go through many sections of society where the actions of a minority ruins it for the majority, but it still happens, and action gets taken against it. It remains an offence to broadcast copyrighted material which has not yet been made available for public use by its original author. Just because I'm faciltating that crime, rather than actually committing it, doesn't absolve me of my responsiblity to stop that crime from happening. Do I think it's right Megaupload was closed? If the balance of evidence showed that they were failing to prevent piracy from occuring, then yes, it is right. In such circumstances, they should be deemed incapable of delivering that service in a way that satisfied their legal obligation to prevent crime from happening through that service.

 

Do I think that counts as censorship? Well... even suggesting that requires a slight dose of hysteria. There are similar laws pertaining to the written word (magazines, newspapers etc.), but I don't see them as being "censored", so would the Internet be any different? Not in my eyes.

 

Also, I'm refusing to take any SOPA-related comments seriously. This type of action takes at least days, weeks, possibly months to consult on and plan ahead, yet it happened barely 24 hours after anti-SOPA protests occured. It's like when people blamed London winning their Olympic bid for the 7th July terrorist attacks. It only appears connected, in reality they're two seperate events.

[Howlin0001]

http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-what-made-it-a-rogue-site-worthy-of-destruction-120120

 

File-hosting services all around the world will have looked on in horror yesterday as MegaUpload, one of the worlds largest cyberlocker services, was taken apart by the FBI. Foreign citizens were arrested in foreign lands and at least $50 million in assets seized. So what exactly prompted this action? TorrentFreak read every word of the 72-page indictment so you dont have to, and we were surprised by its contents.

 

Yesterday a massive operation took down MegaUpload, one of the worlds leading file-storage services and one of the worlds biggest sites, period.

 

While the timing came as a huge post-SOPA protest surprise, the fact the site was targeted was not for many months there have been rumblings behind the scenes that something might be done about MegaUpload. Nevertheless, the manner in which the action was taken and the language used by the authorities in doing so was utterly unprecedented.

 

So the key question this morning is this What made MegaUpload a rogue site which deserved to be completely dismantled and its key staff arrested? The answers lie in the 72-page indictment and show just how the authorities (with the massive assistance of the MPAA, no doubt) framed Megas activities in such a way as to strip it of any protection under the DMCA.

 

In the U.S., online service providers are eligible for safe harbor under the DMCA from copyright infringement suits by meeting certain criteria. However, the indictment states that member of the Mega Conspiracy (capital M, capital C no less) do not meet these criteria because

 

they are willfully infringing copyrights themselves on these systems; have actual knowledge that the materials on their systems are infringing (or alternatively know facts or circumstances that would make infringing material apparent); receive a financial benefit directly attributable to copyright-infringing activity where the provider can control that activity; and have not removed, or disabled access to, known copyright infringing material from servers they control.

 

Lets cover the last point first the apparent non-removal of known copyright material from MegaUploads servers. First, a little background on how MegaUploads user uploading system worked because this is absolutely crucial to the case against the site.

 

Mega had developed a system whereby files set to be uploaded by users were hashed in order to discover if a copy of the file already exists on the Mega servers. If a file existed, the user did not have to upload his copy and was simply given a unique URL in order to access the content in future. What this meant in practice is that there could be countless URLs owned by various users but which all pointed to the same file.

 

Megauploads Abuse Tool to which major copyright holders were given access, enabled the removal of links to infringing works hosted on MegaUploads servers. However, the indictment claims that it did not actually function as a DMCA compliance tool as the copyright owners were led to believe. And heres why.

 

The indictment claims that when a copyright holder issued a takedown notice for content referenced by its URL, only the URL was taken down, not the content to which it pointed. So although the URL in question would report that it had been removed and would no longer resolve to infringing material, URLs issued to others would remain operational.

 

Furthermore, the indictment states that although MegaUpload staff (referred to as Members of the Conspiracy) discussed how they could automatically remove child pornography from their systems given a specific hash value, the same standards werent applied to complained-about copyright works.

 

In June 2010, it appears that MegaUpload was subjected to a something of a test by the authorities. The company was informed, pursuant to a criminal search warrant from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, that thirty-nine infringing movies were being stored on their servers at Carpathia Hosting in the Eastern District of Virginia.

 

A member of the Mega Conspiracy informed several of his co-conspirators at that time that he located the named files using internal searches of their systems. As of November 18, 2011, more than a year later, thirty-six of the thirty-nine infringing motion pictures were still being stored on the servers controlled by the Mega Conspiracy, the indictment reads.

 

The paperworks goes on to accuse MegaUpload of running a program between September 2005 and July 2011 which rewarded users for uploading infringing material.

 

A citation from an internal MegaUpload email from February 2007 entitled reward payments claims to show that at least two key staff members knew that cash payments were being paid to users who uploaded infringing material including full popular DVD rips and software with keygenerators (Warez).

 

Then the indictment starts to throw up some very interesting questions, specifically how the authorities managed to get hold of not just one but many of MegaUploads internal company emails (dating back to 2006) to use in the case against them.

 

Its certainly possible that the authorities were monitoring MegaUploads correspondence but there are also at least two mentions in the indictment of an unnamed person described as an unindicted co-conspirator. While prosecutors sometimes use this term to describe people who have been excluded from an indictment on evidentiary concerns, they also use it to describe individuals who have been granted immunity from prosecution.

 

In any event, these emails are being heavily relied upon since many appear to indicate a knowledge among staff that copyright works were held on the companys servers. Heres a sample:

 

An email from 2006 claims to show how MegaUpload attempted to download large amounts of content from YouTube and appeared by April that year to have obtained 30% of the sites content. A follow up email in 2007 claimed that Kim [MegaUpload's founder] really wants to copy Youtube one to one.

 

An email from August 2006 titled lol contained a screenshot of a MegaUpload download page showing a cracked copy of CD burning software Alcohol 120%.

 

Other correspondence quoted in the indictment appears to show key staff members sending each other links to copyright works hosted on MegaUpload.

 

One contained 100 MegaUpload links to content by recording artist Armin Van Buuren. Another, allegedly sent in December 2006 by Kim Dotcom to another staff member, carried a link to a music file hosted on a MegaUpload server entitled 05-50_cent_feat._mobb_deep-nah-c4.mp3. No context for the sending of these links is given in the indictment.

 

Other emails show staff asking each other to help locate copies of infringing content including TV series The Sopranos and Seinfeld, and music from a band called Grand Archives. Again, no context is offered in the indictment.

 

An email sent in July 2008 shows a key staff member reporting an earlier conversation with another entitled funny chat-log.

 

We have a funny business . . . modern days pirates, the exchange begins. Were not

pirates, came the reply. Were just providing shipping services to pirates.

 

But aside from exchanging links to copyright works, the indictment claims that key staff members also uploaded material themselves including a TV show from the BBC and a copy of the movie Taken.

 

The indictment lists several other examples which are supposed to demonstrate that the admins of MegaUpload knew that their service was being used for the storage and distribution of illegal material.

 

Emails from customers are cited where they complain that for various reasons theyre unable to watch named copyrighted works. Others ask how to find pirate movies on Mega and are told to go to sites that index Mega-hosted material, such as the ThePirateCity.org, a site seized as part of Operation in Our Sites.

 

On at least two occasions the indictment reports key MegaUpload staff discussing TorrentFreak articles on seizure operations being carried out by the US authorities.

 

In one email, Kim Dotcom reportedly stated: This is a serious threat to our business. Please look into this and see how we can protect ourselfs [sic], adding, Should we move our domain to another country, Canada or even HK?

 

The indictment separately lists several movies being distributed from MegaUploads servers in the United States, all of which were not yet commercially available. There is no indication, however, that MegaUploads operators knew they were there.

 

On face value it would seem that in a handful of cited instances staff at the company did indeed link each other to copyright works, but when the massive scale of the MegaUpload operation is set beside them, their significance is put into a different perspective.

 

The issue of not taking down content is a fascinating one. MegaUpload is not on its own when it hashes content then allows users to access already-stored versions of the same files. Nevertheless, will taking down a specific URL and not the content itself be enough to appease the courts?

 

Finally, and despite the assertions of the MPAA, RIAA and the authorities, MegaUpload carried a huge amount of non-infringing content, giving the service itself substantial non-infringing users. Nevertheless, all content has now been seized, leaving millions of people and companies without their personal data.

 

Cyberlocker services and potential startups all around the world will be watching this case like hawks. Seismic doesnt really come close.

 

I guess this really something to keep an eye out for for the next while. I also pity all those people who have legal files on the website.

 

http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/20/megaupload-computer-abuse-reinforcement-education has a few interesting points...

[Randox]

If they shut down a site that has a system very similar to youtube to take down copyrighted videos, I guess Youtube might be next.

 

This sucks. I need to find an anti-sopa signature.

 

Would they really dare take on Youtube?

 

Well, you'd have to wonder if anyone wants to fight google on that issue. I imagine that youtube is easily profitable enough to be worth defending pretty hard. Also, with things like the VEVO channels and some of the ads, it looks like the music industry is using the site themselves, so I'm not sure they really want it down. Either way, without the SOPA bill, I'm not sure they have the firepower to push the issue.

 

And I thinik only certain fire sharing can be taken down by that kind of case. Megaupload as I understand it (having never used them) stored all the stuff on their own servers, while say a torrent site only enables it. For something like a torrent, you actually need to pursue all the people who make copy protected material available. Then again, they took limewire down a while ago, and it operated on pretty much the same principle, so who knows.

 

Now I have to wonder if this kind of thing wont cause a pirating panic where everyone is afraid their illegal stuff wont be available for much longer, and everyone instantly tries to download everything they want in the foreseeable future while it is still available.

[Nomrombom]

I don't like that they shut it down, but they have the right to. This isn't injustice. Megavideo and megaupload have always had tons and tons of copyrighted material on them (I've watched plenty of copyrighted movies on megavideo). Even if they say they remove it, there's always some left and there's more every day. What you should be arguing against is the laws that make that legal/justified.

 

@jrhairychest

 

Not the same thing at all. Going into a store to get things means you're taking the things and leaving nothing or money behind (or other stuff if you're allowed to trade). Things like megaupload just let people enjoy the item without having to pay for it. Nobody is directly hurt (as is the case with stolen goods). A better analogy would be if you went into a store, bought the item, made millions and millions of duplicates, and let anyone have them for free. And even that isn't perfect.

[Sy_Accursed]

Nazi Germany happened because of mass poverty, a political void in elite German society, anti-Semitism and a feeling of injustice following the Versailles Treaty. You're not seriously trying to imply any of those are "minor" things which lead to something more, are you? As you've already been told, comparisons to Nazi Germany are ridiculous, and almost invariably made by people with no meaningful understanding of what German people were going through in 1933.

 

If you read my original post I talked specifically about Nazi policies and how they slowly eroded away rights etc. thus creating the climate where by their horrendous policies could go unchallenged. I certainly did not draw a parallels between the entire series of Nazi history and their entire spectrum of actions, just 1 singular piece. What they did with policy etc. once in power and why they got into power are not strictly interlinked and I did not mentioned the later of why they got into power. I know perfectly well what I am talking about I studied Nazi Germany and the holocaust for GCSE History and then went on to study The Nazi Rise to power, the Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (which shares some common ground) for my History A Level; I'm not in the habit of throwing out broad and general Nazi comparisons for no good reason and in this case the SPECIFIC element I compared is perfectly well grounded and entirely unrelated to anything you mentioned.

 

But this is getting rather off-topic so I shall leave this point at this and move on; I'm hardly surprised at the reaction people rarely bother to pay attention to specifics when you mention the word Nazi and either write it off entirely or try to justify ignoring by trying to play intellectual one-up man-ship of listing off a few facts/events about it they do know about it (even when they are entirely unrelated to what you brought up and thus just proves they either did not read or are in fact foolish enough to try and dismiss a point due to facts you did not even remotely refer to) and say that people say Nazi's all the time and have no idea what they are talking about.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Right... closing down a website guilty of hosting pirated material is "slowly eroding away rights" such that "policies may go unchallenged" a la Hitler et Mussolini. Pirating is a human right now?

 

Whatever.

 

You know the other people replying to this thread actually have decent points, not half-assed comparisons which don't make any logical sense.

[Orpheus]

Right... closing down a website guilty of hosting pirated material is "slowly eroding away rights" such that "policies may go unchallenged" a la Hitler et Mussolini. Pirating is a human right now?

 

Whatever.

 

You know the other people replying to this thread actually have decent points, not half-assed comparisons which don't make any logical sense.

 

Well, whether the sites are guilty of hosting pirated material is for the courts to decide. They're innocent until proven guilty at least. And AFAIK, MU always was really damn good about complying with the DMCA. You can't control what users upload, but you can certainly control what can be removed.

[Ginger_Warrior]

Well, see, that's the grey area of this debate. That excuse washes with you, it doesn't with me. It doesn't matter what service you're offering, if your service is being used by others for illegal purposes, you still have a responsiblity to prevent them from using it when you know they are using it to that end. The real question is this: What counts as a reasonable attempt to prevent illegal piracy from being hosted? But blankly saying "They can't control what others are doing" isn't really a reasonable response, because you could make no attempt at all and still use it.

 

• As a landlord, I can't physically stop junkies from lighting up, but it is my responsibility when they're doing it on my premises.
• As the owner of MU, I can't physically stop illegal piracy from happening, but it my responsibility when they're doing it through MU.

See where this is going?

 

The one thing we can both agree on is that MU is being punished too strongly for something that they weren't actually doing. Sadly, the nature of the Internet means that MU and LimeWire suffer whilst the real perpetrators get away with hiding behind anonymity. If people didn't download pirated music, MU could carry on being used the many legitimate uses it does have.

[Orpheus]

There's a difference between being able to figure out if junkies are lighting up in your houses as a landlord and checking EVERY SINGULAR FILE uploaded on MU. There are literally billions of files uploaded to that site. There is no way that is humanly possible to check each file. Signature files that check files in a way similar to Youtube can easily be avoided by merely changing file types. Names can be edited, etc.

 

Also, I'll agree that it's impossible to track down the offending individuals if they half-know what they're doing. IP addresses can be spoofed. Uploads can be done from a library or public place, especially those that don't monitor connections.

[Sy_Accursed]

Right... closing down a website guilty of hosting pirated material is "slowly eroding away rights" such that "policies may go unchallenged" a la Hitler et Mussolini. Pirating is a human right now?

 

Whatever.

 

You know the other people replying to this thread actually have decent points, not half-assed comparisons which don't make any logical sense.

 

It is eroding the right to freedom of speech and free expression as while yes some USERS may of misused the site, the site itself was NOT doing anything illegal and nor were many of it users, but their right to exist within law has been crushed in the name of 'copyright infringement' and such hosting sites that are at the more iffy end of the spectrum are the first erosion of such rights that could lead to, if SOPA is passed, many sites such as youtube, facebook, twitter, wikipedia, anything with a forum, blogging services etc. being taken down for 'copyright infringement' of the few users thus utterly crushing the freedom of speech and freedom of expression and freedom to promote your start up business or brand.

 

Which is the exact points I've previously contributed and explained on this thread and have perfect logic to them, as did my comparison in the context it was applied.

Afterall it MU is just one upload site and not a big deal, what does it matter if the other sites are then closed down?

And if they are all closed down what does it matter if some of the more obscure video websites are shut as they are in similar grey area?

And then if other video sites went what does it matter that youtube is shut down as it has videos in dodgey areas?

etc.

Allowing the minor to just slide by as "no big deal" gives them grounds to argue for the next 'small step' and before you know it the 'small steps' have turned into something rather sinister and nasty that have done a whole lot of damage to your freedom on the internet.

 

Edit: I must admit my line of logic has become rather void on this matter since this news has appeared:

http://mashable.com/2012/01/20/sopa-is-dead-smith-pulls-bill/

Since without the looming badness of SOPA, this doesn't really act as a stepping stone so much any more.

[obfuscator]

I saw tons of stuff on MV and MU that was copyrighted. I don't think the admins made much of an effort at all to take it down.

[Range_This11]

Nazi Germany happened because of mass poverty, a political void in elite German society, anti-Semitism and a feeling of injustice following the Versailles Treaty. You're not seriously trying to imply any of those are "minor" things which lead to something more, are you? As you've already been told, comparisons to Nazi Germany are ridiculous, and almost invariably made by people with no meaningful understanding of what German people were going through in 1933.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Someone else who understands comparisons to Nazi Germany are completely and totally ridiculous.

 

By the way, all the lawmakers--including those who sponsored the SOPA/PIPA bills--are rescinding their support of it. It will not be passed.

 

SOPA and PIPA dead - for now

 

 

House and Senate leaders abandoned plans to move on SOPA and PIPA on Friday the surest sign yet that a wave of online protests have killed the controversial anti-piracy legislation for now and maybe forever.

 

SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said his committee wont take up the bill as planned next month and that hed have to wait until there is wider agreement on a solution before moving forward.

 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, meanwhile, said he was calling off a cloture vote on PIPA hed scheduled for Tuesday.

 

Reid tried to put on a brave face, saying in a statement that he was optimistic that progress could be made in the coming weeks. But there's no mistaking what happened. Many of the Senate bills co-sponsors have since come out against it, leaving Reid a no-win choice: Go forward with the cloture vote he'd planned for Tuesday and lose, or send the bill off into back-burner purgatory.

 

PIPA sponsor Patrick Leahy got the message and he wasnt happy about it.

 

In a steaming response to Reid's announcement, the Vermont Democrat said Internet thieves in China and Russia "are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided it was not even worth debating how to stop the overseas criminals from draining our economy.

 

And he didnt stop there. Leahy said the day will come when the senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem.

 

The double-barrel decisions to punt on the bill capped an extraordinary week of public pressure and an extraordinary reversal of fortunes for Hollywood, whose lobbyists seemed to think they were on cruise control to passage of bills aimed at protecting their content from online thieves.

 

Over the weekend, the White House expressed concerns about the legislation. Over the next several days, co-sponsor after co-sponsor jumped ship. And Thursday night, the four remaining GOP presidential candidates all said theyd oppose the bills as currently drafted.

 

The sudden shift left Smith and Reid no choice but to punt. And the tech interests who fanned the flames of protests were quick to celebrate the decisions.

 

[Howlin0001]

Right... closing down a website guilty of hosting pirated material is "slowly eroding away rights" such that "policies may go unchallenged" a la Hitler et Mussolini. Pirating is a human right now?

 

Whatever.

 

You know the other people replying to this thread actually have decent points, not half-assed comparisons which don't make any logical sense.

 

Well, whether the sites are guilty of hosting pirated material is for the courts to decide. They're innocent until proven guilty at least. And AFAIK, MU always was really damn good about complying with the DMCA. You can't control what users upload, but you can certainly control what can be removed.

I think that is part of the reason, MU apparently only removed the link to the file and not the file itself.

[Sam]

Oh well. Megaupload was terrible anyway. It's annoying waiting for 45 seconds to download any file and to be constantly bombarded with ads.

 

Not the biggest loss the internet has had, there's plenty of other better file-sharing sites.

[Sbrideau]

One thing that's to understand in the SOPA debate in this thread is that taking a site like this down takes proof, and what SOPA/PIPA will do if it gets through (looks unlikely for now) is that they won't need proof, as far as how vague the bills are. Which means that it would give media companies absolute control over the internet.

[Danqazmlp]

Looking at that article a page back by Torrentfreak, I was expecting an incredibly biased and one sided view against the actions taken, but looking at it, it seems hard not to see the Mega group as having at least some liability, and the actions taken against it seem just.

[i_love_burritos]

Looking at that article a page back by Torrentfreak, I was expecting an incredibly biased and one sided view against the actions taken, but looking at it, it seems hard not to see the Mega group as having at least some liability, and the actions taken against it seem just.

After reading a little more and seeing the WP article, I can't help but think this way too. Still, there were other things the government could have done.

[Guest jrhairychest]

People aren't upset because they are not unable to get copyrighted material. The point is that this website was shut down because some people used it for uploading copyrighted material, despite the facts that the admins always removed copyrighted material when it came to their attention, the site had many legitimate uses, and the purpose of the site was not to provide copyrighted material free to all. The feds are blaming the admins for the actions of the users. It's like shutting down YouTube because a few of the users upload copyrighted material. There are still SO MANY legitimate uses for YouTube. It's not a piracy site.

 

If a site is facilitating the broadcast of copyright material then it's in violation of copyright law in breach of public broadcasting conditions if the owner does not give permission for it. It's as simple as that. As far as blaming the users go I would agree with you but that's what you get when you give users too much freedom - it gets abused and they ruin the whole system for themselves. Then everyone cries 'Nazis'. It's no use blaming the powers that be for the monster the community created. The community should, for once, take some responsibility for itself.

 

Not the same thing at all. Going into a store to get things means you're taking the things and leaving nothing or money behind (or other stuff if you're allowed to trade). Things like megaupload just let people enjoy the item without having to pay for it. Nobody is directly hurt (as is the case with stolen goods). A better analogy would be if you went into a store, bought the item, made millions and millions of duplicates, and let anyone have them for free. And even that isn't perfect.

 

Copyright law exists for a reason. You're not supposed to be watching it without paying for it. The entertainment industry loses out as well as other factors e.g. music artist royalties. If you think no-one gets hurt then the entertainment industry would heavily argue against you, not just me. If it was possible would you download from the local DVD store if they didn't know about it as no-one gets hurt? You probably would think you could and you'd be doing nothing wrong. In fact, you still stealing the item. Just because it's not physical doesn't mean its ok to do it.

 

It doesn't matter if you're a single user just enjoying what's there. Check the copyright info of any of your DVD's or other stuff. There's a lot of people out there who download illegal music, games and videos who are in the same mindset as you - They think because they're not distributing it and it's not a physical item they're doing nothing wrong. In fact, they think they're entitled to it. It's theft and they're thieves.

[decebal]

Did MU receive a warning or anything? I understand that the admins were pretty much asking to be shut down with the conversations they had (although the legitimacy of how the prosecution received the e-mails is a bit... fishy), there should have been some form of warning.

 

I don't question the fact that the MU admins had some form of liability, however I do question the approach by the FBI to shut down the site so abruptly.

[The Dark Lord]

 

• As a landlord, I can't physically stop junkies from lighting up, but it is my responsibility when they're doing it on my premises.
• As the owner of MU, I can't physically stop illegal piracy from happening, but it my responsibility when they're doing it through MU.

See where this is going?

 

Try preventing a single item of copyrighted material from ever being uploaded to your site when you have millions of users. The most you can do is ban their account, IP ban them, and remove the illegal material; but we know how effective that is considering that anyone can easily make another account and circumvent an IP ban and reupload material that infringes on copyright claims.

 

It's ridiculous to punish a website like MegaUpload over this, if they truly did try to prevent copyrighted material from being uploaded. The illegal material will always slip through the cracks.

 

If I misunderstood the situation, my apologies. This post was aimed at what other people said in the thread.