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Feds Shut Down Megaupload.com


Orpheus

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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 had the same feeling too, knowing the full picture makes you feel less supportive of Megaupload & co although I wish the government did something else rather than such drastic measures.

 

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 didn’t 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.”

 

This guy is really an idiot, I suppose these so called Internet thieves include the likes of Google, Firefox, and Wikipedia, all whom have main offices that are situated in the US. :rolleyes:

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  • 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?

 

ok lets take your logic to its conclusion and prosecute walmart the next time someone makes explosives from chemicals bought there, after all they are providing access to these chemicals so are responsible for whatever happens to them.

and dont forget to prosecute the mailman who unknowingly delivers the next ransom note or letterbomb, hes responsible for aiding crime too!

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  • 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?

 

ok lets take your logic to its conclusion and prosecute walmart the next time someone makes explosives from chemicals bought there, after all they are providing access to these chemicals so are responsible for whatever happens to them.

and dont forget to prosecute the mailman who unknowingly delivers the next ransom note or letterbomb, hes responsible for aiding crime too!

What a ridiculous exaggeration. If walmart was selling bombs that would be be a more apt comparison; but they aren't.

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"It's not a rest for me, it's a rest for the weights." - Dom Mazzetti

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My thoughts in bulk:

- I think governments have to understand that even if something is wrong, sometimes prohibiting its use doesn't necessarily solve the problem. This applies to drugs and piracy, perhaps amongst other things.

- Perhaps if people in Asia had access to legal and fairly priced means of buying music, piracy wouldn't be as much of a problem. iTunes only serves about 15% of the world's population, as of May 5, 2010, and that's counting anyone in a country where it's available. Cut out the ones who are "struggling to make ends meet" and you're left with about 8% of the world*. There's a huge untapped market in the East.

- Megaupload users should have been given fair warning.

- Remember the whole "Home taping is killing music" thing, and how that coincided with an economic crisis? And how the radio was the bane of the music industry in the late 1920s/early 1930s? And how we're currently in the same kind of financial quagmire? And how the dip in music sales start before Napster did? Because music is not really a necessary purchase, it's the first thing to go when people don't have any money.

- Speaking of that "Home taping is killing music" thing, turns out home tapers were actually the people who bought the most music, as reported by court-ordered research. The same thing applies to downloaders. This is anecdotal, but I download a heck of a lot of music, hadn't I had that chance, I actually wouldn't be into music and I wouldn't have bought anything at all or gone to any shows. When I come across quality, I recognize it, and I try to pay for it, or at least to turn other people onto it.

- If the music industry wants to protect artists, why does this happen?

- If Bandcamp's doing very well while taking only 10-15% of all artists' revenue (compare to figures at the end of the last article), why can't record companies?

 

I could go on for 15 pages, since that's approximately the length of the paper I handed in last year, and I realized I've digressed quite a bit already. You get my point though--the MPAA, RIAA, et al are untrustworthy, and the way they act doesn't jive with the way they speak. Piracy is inevitable; they should focus on what they can change.

*I know, this article is a pain to read through.

Matt: You want that eh? You want everything good for you. You want everything that's--falls off garbage can

Camera guy: Whoa, haha, are you okay dude?

Matt: You want anything funny that happens, don't you?

Camera guy: still laughing

Matt: You want the funny shit that happens here and there, you think it comes out of your [bleep]ing [wagon] pushes garbage can down, don't you? You think it's funny? It comes out of here! running towards Camera guy

Camera guy: runs away still laughing

Matt: You think the funny comes out of your mother[bleep]ing creativity? Comes out of Satan, mother[bleep]er! nn--ngh! pushes Camera guy down

Camera guy: Hoooholy [bleep]!

Matt: FUNNY ISN'T REAL! FUNNY ISN'T REAL!

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  • 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?

 

ok lets take your logic to its conclusion and prosecute walmart the next time someone makes explosives from chemicals bought there, after all they are providing access to these chemicals so are responsible for whatever happens to them.

and dont forget to prosecute the mailman who unknowingly delivers the next ransom note or letterbomb, hes responsible for aiding crime too!

What a ridiculous exaggeration. If walmart was selling bombs that would be be a more apt comparison; but they aren't.

 

megaupload isnt selling copyright material, theyre providing a service that some misuse, just like in my example walmart isnt providing bombs, theyre providing things that some misuse to make bombs. if youre going to hold people accountable for the actions of others at least be consistant about it...

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Guest jrhairychest

Hmmm..........................Internet users complaining about not being able to access free stuff any more (Yes that's what its REALLY about)........F2Pers complaining about having to pay for high scores......................So, we have communities complaining about accessing stuff that they think they have some god given right to without paying. This is the problem when you give people in general too much for free and unrestricted and then take it away.

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You've noticed in both examples, people making silly references to "freedom of expression" or "bad business sense" for pirated music and RS hiscores respectively in order to justfiy them receiving something for free. You're not the only one. I'm willing to bet the majority of people who illegally download pirated music don't give a rat's backside about freedom of expression, they're just abusing a practice which has gone unpoliced for years without fear of ramifications.

 

megaupload isnt selling copyright material, theyre providing a service that some misuse, just like in my example walmart isnt providing bombs, theyre providing things that some misuse to make bombs. if youre going to hold people accountable for the actions of others at least be consistant about it...

If you're going to take my analogy to the nth degree, then it would be like Walmart providing a room for you to make those bombs with. MU is providing you an account to upload illegally pirated music from, that's the difference, it's just that because of the sheer numbers of accounts, they usually decide not to vet them. That's what's come to bite them in the arse in the long-run, but just because they've chosen not to care about it doesn't make them innocent of allowing it to happen.

 

Likewise, taking two copyrighted pieces of work, mashing them together, and releasing it as your own piece isn't the fault of the websites you gained the two original samples from. It's yours. Taking two bomb ingredients from Walmart and making something on your own patch isn't their fault either. The crucial word is facilitation. MU, in inadvertently providing a service through which pirated material could be freely exchanged to the public, were facilitating crime, even if they weren't personally doing it themselves.

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You've noticed in both examples, people making silly references to "freedom of expression" or "bad business sense" for pirated music and RS hiscores respectively in order to justfiy them receiving something for free. You're not the only one. I'm willing to bet the majority of people who illegally download pirated music don't give a rat's backside about freedom of expression, they're just abusing a practice which has gone unpoliced for years without fear of ramifications.

 

 

No-one at all on this thread is arguing that it infringes freedom of expression etc. because they can't get stuff for free illegally any more. They are arguing it because MU had many legal and legitimate uses outside of illegal content and they did make efforts to take down illegal content and under existing law fault and liability is supposed to lie with the user perpetrating the act; not the service provider whose terms they violated in doing so. These laws are in place specifically for online services because it is so free and open it is entirely impossible for any sort of hosting/sharing service to exist without someone abusing it with illegal materials.

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Can you express yourself through YouTube?

Can you express yourself through Facebook?

Can you express yourself via a letter/email to your local representative?

Can you express yourself by writing in a magazine/newpaper?

Can you express yourself with the spoken word?

Can you express yourself on a demonstration?

Can you express yourself by striking and withdrawing your labour?

 

For Christ's sake, stop with this freedom of expression crap. Go to a Syrian protestor and tell them your freedom to expression is being infringed upon because you can't use a website which was being used by a minority of its users to host pirated material. Bring a camcordor because I would love to the see their reaction.

 

I go back to my previous point too. Magazines and newspapers aren't allowed to publish copyrighted material either; are they censored? Only the most paranoid of folk would argue they are.

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Just because there are other means to do something doesn't mean removing an entire website that allows uses to share stuff and thus express themselves does not infringe upon your right to that expression in some way. Yes it is not totally annihilating your power to do such actions, but no-one said it was. And yes in the grand scheme of things its very much a 'first world problem' rather than a major humanitarian or third world crisis of human rights.

 

Plus it does still hold interest as it does kinda go against previous precedent, in which the on-line service provider cannot be held liable for their users crimes (as long as they are actively trying to stop misuse) and setting a new precedent could still lead to future issues which do have greater impact upon freedoms.

 

I don't see the point at all of the logic of trying to belittle or deride opinions (and for that matter the fact that it does indeed infringe freedom of expression in some ways) just because there are bigger, unrelated things happening in the world; by that reasoning we should never ever have an opinion or discuss anything at all other than the big global issues that have the biggest impact.

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Operation Gold Sparkles :: Chompy Kills ::  Full Profound :: Champions :: Barbarian Notes :: Champions Tackle Box :: MA Rewards

Dragonkin Journals :: Ports Stories :: Elder Chronicles :: Boss Slayer :: Penance King :: Kal'gerion Titles :: Gold Statue

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You've noticed in both examples, people making silly references to "freedom of expression" or "bad business sense" for pirated music and RS hiscores respectively in order to justfiy them receiving something for free. You're not the only one. I'm willing to bet the majority of people who illegally download pirated music don't give a rat's backside about freedom of expression, they're just abusing a practice which has gone unpoliced for years without fear of ramifications.

 

 

No-one at all on this thread is arguing that it infringes freedom of expression etc. because they can't get stuff for free illegally any more. They are arguing it because MU had many legal and legitimate uses outside of illegal content and they did make efforts to take down illegal content and under existing law fault and liability is supposed to lie with the user perpetrating the act; not the service provider whose terms they violated in doing so. These laws are in place specifically for online services because it is so free and open it is entirely impossible for any sort of hosting/sharing service to exist without someone abusing it with illegal materials.

 

 

They didn't take appropriate measures to remove copyrighted content though. Someone posted an article a few pages back. It was from a "internet-friendly" website, so if it was biased, it would be towards megaupload. Anyways, apparently when someone contacted megavideo with a copyright claim to certain content, they removed the link in question, but not the content itself. There are multiple links existing for this content if multiple people tried to upload that. Therefore, in most cases even after a copyright complaint, everyone was still easily able to access the content.

 

From what I've seen, Megaupload didn't give a damn about having copyrighted content on their servers. They did enough against it so that hopefully they wouldn't be sued because of it. Turns out they were wrong.

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  • 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?

 

ok lets take your logic to its conclusion and prosecute walmart the next time someone makes explosives from chemicals bought there, after all they are providing access to these chemicals so are responsible for whatever happens to them.

and dont forget to prosecute the mailman who unknowingly delivers the next ransom note or letterbomb, hes responsible for aiding crime too!

What a ridiculous exaggeration. If walmart was selling bombs that would be be a more apt comparison; but they aren't.

 

megaupload isnt selling copyright material, theyre providing a service that some misuse, just like in my example walmart isnt providing bombs, theyre providing things that some misuse to make bombs. if youre going to hold people accountable for the actions of others at least be consistant about it...

Yes, they are selling copyrighted material. When they charge users to download copyrighted material and make little or no effort to remove said copyrighted material; they're selling copyrighted material.

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"It's not a rest for me, it's a rest for the weights." - Dom Mazzetti

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You've noticed in both examples, people making silly references to "freedom of expression" or "bad business sense" for pirated music and RS hiscores respectively in order to justfiy them receiving something for free. You're not the only one. I'm willing to bet the majority of people who illegally download pirated music don't give a rat's backside about freedom of expression, they're just abusing a practice which has gone unpoliced for years without fear of ramifications.

I'm not going to discuss freedom of expression because I too think it's a little far-fetched. Bad business sense, on the other hand, is a little more complicated. I think the big record labels are smart enough to know what they're doing isn't particularly effective in combating piracy, but if bills like SOPA are ever passed, they would dramatically reduce the power of smaller record companies and artists. The unfettered pursuit of private self-interest, through lobbying and the creation and maintenance of an oligopoly (the Internet is great for smaller record companies, but the big ones did better without it, and a hit to FB, Google, etc. is a hit to the competition) by entertainment giants is actually great business sense, and its consequence is cultural destruction and stagnation. Ideally, an artist would publish their work without having to bow to the will of an executive who thinks art is a commodity and cut out the parts that won't sell, yet manage to make enough to sustain this as his livelihood, and the Internet brings us closer to that than ever. Even if I can buy it, on the rare occasion an album I'm interested in is released on a major label, I'll pirate it. If not, I just won't get it.

 

Also, how trustworthy is that indictment? Can the evidence they found be forged?

Matt: You want that eh? You want everything good for you. You want everything that's--falls off garbage can

Camera guy: Whoa, haha, are you okay dude?

Matt: You want anything funny that happens, don't you?

Camera guy: still laughing

Matt: You want the funny shit that happens here and there, you think it comes out of your [bleep]ing [wagon] pushes garbage can down, don't you? You think it's funny? It comes out of here! running towards Camera guy

Camera guy: runs away still laughing

Matt: You think the funny comes out of your mother[bleep]ing creativity? Comes out of Satan, mother[bleep]er! nn--ngh! pushes Camera guy down

Camera guy: Hoooholy [bleep]!

Matt: FUNNY ISN'T REAL! FUNNY ISN'T REAL!

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Also, how trustworthy is that indictment? Can the evidence they found be forged?

Any evidence can be forged. This is a pretty groundbreaking case in the US though, so I don't think they'd risk it.

 

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I know this is no argument, but who names something "funny chat-log"? The whole thing felt dubious to me.

Matt: You want that eh? You want everything good for you. You want everything that's--falls off garbage can

Camera guy: Whoa, haha, are you okay dude?

Matt: You want anything funny that happens, don't you?

Camera guy: still laughing

Matt: You want the funny shit that happens here and there, you think it comes out of your [bleep]ing [wagon] pushes garbage can down, don't you? You think it's funny? It comes out of here! running towards Camera guy

Camera guy: runs away still laughing

Matt: You think the funny comes out of your mother[bleep]ing creativity? Comes out of Satan, mother[bleep]er! nn--ngh! pushes Camera guy down

Camera guy: Hoooholy [bleep]!

Matt: FUNNY ISN'T REAL! FUNNY ISN'T REAL!

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Guest jrhairychest

You've noticed in both examples, people making silly references to "freedom of expression" or "bad business sense" for pirated music and RS hiscores respectively in order to justfiy them receiving something for free. You're not the only one. I'm willing to bet the majority of people who illegally download pirated music don't give a rat's backside about freedom of expression, they're just abusing a practice which has gone unpoliced for years without fear of ramifications.

 

For Christ's sake, stop with this freedom of expression crap. Go to a Syrian protestor and tell them your freedom to expression is being infringed upon because you can't use a website which was being used by a minority of its users to host pirated material. Bring a camcordor because I would love to the see their reaction.

 

I go back to my previous point too. Magazines and newspapers aren't allowed to publish copyrighted material either; are they censored? Only the most paranoid of folk would argue they are.

 

Ginger, you've summed this up absolutely perfectly. In terms of freedom of expression, we all still have that. We can all pretty much comment/write what we want to. The crap we're seeing in these shows of disgust and protest are exactly what you've stated in the first quote - They want the ability to continue to view and use copyrighted material without the sanctions of paying and they don't like being told they can't anymore. :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

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Racketeering and money laundering? How are those related to copyright infringement?

 

Methinks there's more to this whole thing than meets the eye.

 

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THE place for all free players to connect, hang out and talk about how awesome it is to be F2P.

So, Kaida is the real version of every fictional science-badass? That explains a lot, actually...

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Racketeering and money laundering? How are those related to copyright infringement?

 

Methinks there's more to this whole thing than meets the eye.

 

Racketeering is a pretty general term for doing something illegal in a for-profit business.

 

Money laundering... Maybe the mafia runs megaupload?

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203750404577173243494465660.html

 

Tried to remove all the embedded crap, WSJ might read easier.

 

Kim Schmitz legally changed his surname to Dotcom at some point over the last decade, a homage to the technology that made him a millionaire and that has now landed him in a New Zealand jail.

 

New Zealand authorities arrested MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom at his own birthday party, Geoffrey Fowler reports on digits. Photo: AP.

 

The 38-year-old Internet entrepreneur was arrested Thursday at his birthday celebration inside a 25,000-square-foot mansion in Auckland. When police entered the property, Mr. Dotcom fled to a safe room, where he was found with a loaded shotgun, officials said.

 

Mr. Dotcom was charged with criminal copyright infringement and conspiracy to commit racketeering. The Federal Bureau of Investigation shut down his Hong Kong-based website, which it claims was used to pirate half a billion dollars worth of entertainment content.

 

The husky Mr. Dotcom is a kingpin in a little-exposed side of the Internet economy, who profited by tapping changes in technology, roiling the entertainment industry.

 

His company, Megaupload Ltd., and similar online storage sites known as cyberlockers, have many legitimate uses, such as allowing people to share large presentation files and home movies.

 

Kim Dotcom made a name on the Web, literally by changing his name to Dotcom.

 

Kim Dotcom owned at least 18 luxury cars.

 

But U.S. authorities and entertainment executives say in court documents and interviews that cyberlockers are at the vanguard of online piracy. On Friday, the U.S. Congress abandoned two controversial antipiracy bills.

 

Despite the legal controversy brewing around his website—and a previous conviction for insider trading—Mr. Dotcom didn't lay low or hide anonymously behind his computer.

 

Rather, Mr. Dotcom openly enjoyed a lavish lifestyle. He owned at least 18 luxury cars—including a 1959 pink Cadillac and three cars with vanity license plates that read "HACKER," "MAFIA," and "STONED," according to U.S. officials—flew helicopters, and personally funded the city of Auckland's 2010 New Year's fireworks celebration.

 

He also raced cars in the Gumball 3000 Rally, a Cannonball Run-like global competition on public roads in locations that change every year. In at least one Gumball race, Mr. Dotcom was videotaped driving a black Mercedes sedan in which he zipped past a police officer. Referring to his nickname, Mr. Dotcom smiled into the camera, saying, "Dr. Evil is always getting away with it."

 

While operating Megaupload, Mr. Dotcom both fought with Hollywood and embraced its celebrity, last year convincing several rappers, actors and musicians to record a promotional video for his site.

 

 

Before the site was taken down by authorities on Thursday, Megaupload also listed as its CEO hip-hop super-producer Swizz Beatz, also known as Kasseem Dean and the husband of singer Alicia Keys.

 

A spokeswoman for Swizz Beatz on Friday confirmed her client had been named CEO, but added: "We're trying to clarify" whether the appointment actually went into effect.

 

Mr. Dotcom couldn't be reached for comment on Friday in Auckland, where he appeared at the North Shore District Court for a bail hearing and awaits extradition to the U.S. His local lawyer, Paul Davison, didn't return a call seeking comment.

 

In the U.S., Megaupload's case was taken up on Thursday by Washington, D.C., lawyer Robert S. Bennett, known for representing President Bill Clinton when he was accused of sexual harassment by Paula Jones. "We will vigorously defend against the charges," Mr. Bennett said.

 

Mr. Dotcom has boasted about his past. In an autobiographical piece he penned for the blog TorrentFreak.com in December, he wrote, "Find me a Wikipedia profile of a person that is worse than mine and I will buy you dinner." He shared photos of himself carrying a rifle and standing in front of a luxury car with a license plate that reads "GUILTY."

 

He continued: "I made mistakes when I was young and I paid the price. Steve Jobs was a hacker and Martha Stuart [sic] is doing well after her insider trading case." He said he was married with "three adorable children with two more on the way."

 

German by birth, Mr. Dotcom first came to prominence in Berlin for his computer hacking skills, according to Andreas Bogk, a hacker and member of the Chaos Computer Club. Mr. Bogk said he didn't know Mr. Dotcom personally, but that Mr. Dotcom was on the scene in the 1990s.

 

Police in New Zealand arrested Kim Dotcom, the founder of the website Megaupload.com, on accusations of making hundreds of millions of dollars off internet piracy. (Video: Reuters/Photo: Getty Images)

 

At the time, Mr. Dotcom set up a software-hacker community and a computer system used to upload pirated software from others, Mr. Bogk said. Mr. Dotcom charged people for access to the system and the pirated software, which was mostly games, Mr. Bogk adds.

 

Mr. Dotcom then went on a German television news show and exposed the scheme, which led the telephone monopoly at the time to shut it down, said Mr. Bogk.

 

Munich-based photographer Peter Schinzler, who shot photos of Mr. Dotcom once in the late 1990s, describes him as a "funny guy." Part of the shoot involved a high-speed car chase into the mountains, in which Mr. Dotcom swerved into oncoming traffic and went off road. "We didn't drive into the mountains, we flew," Mr. Schinzler said.

 

In 2001, Mr. Dotcom got in legal trouble when he offered to rescue an ailing online shopping club, Letsbuyit.com NV. He promised to invest $50 million in the company, which boosted the stock—but then he sold his shares after investing little more than $1 million.

 

As a result, he was found guilty of insider trading in 2002 after being extradited from Thailand to Germany, according to a spokeswoman for the court. He was given a suspended prison sentence and fined, according to press reports.

 

Mr. Dotcom later started a new life in Hong Kong, where he was the mastermind behind Megaupload, among other businesses.

 

It's not clear when or how Mr. Dotcom came to befriend hip-hop stars like Mr. Dean, known as Swizz Beatz. But the musician thought he could persuade Mr. Dotcom to transform Megaupload into a legitimate, licensed music service, according to a person familiar with the matter.

 

While Megaupload was based in Hong Kong, Mr. Dotcom lived in New Zealand. There, he was arrested at his sprawling property, worth some $24 million, situated in Auckland's outskirts.

 

The home, with a sign in front that reads "Dotcom Mansion" and a large giraffe and rhinoceros sculpture, also has an extensive security system including three gates, manned security guards and security cameras, said New Zealand Police detective inspector Grant Wormald.

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♪♪ Don't interrupt me as I struggle to complete this thought
Have some respect for someone more forgetful than yourself ♪♪

♪♪ And I'm not done
And I won't be till my head falls off ♪♪

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It was shut down at a really poor time. If they had done this before/long after the SOPA/PIPA bills had been around, it wouldn't have caused as big of a stir. I think it's such a huge deal right now because people are already concerned that websites are going to be shut down en masse, so this is just a sort-of confirmation on that.

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Surely it would be smarter for rights holders to work with upload sites and build a system or create an agreement whereby rightsholders are able to flag up copyright-infringing files for quick deletion rather than fighting a losing battle and having upload sites taken down? Now that MU is down people will just move to another upload service and when that goes down another will get used and it won't make a difference in the long run. Seizure and prosecution of course will have to be used as the bargaining chip to coerce the upload sites to act but it really shouldn't be the first course of action.

 

If that point has been made already then I'm sorry but I don't have time to read over the rest of the thread :P

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and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

- Aeschylus (525 BC - 456 BC)

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Surely it would be smarter for rights holders to work with upload sites and build a system or create an agreement whereby rightsholders are able to flag up copyright-infringing files for quick deletion rather than fighting a losing battle and having upload sites taken down?

MU did have a tool like that. The problem lies in the fact that MU only deleted the URL to the content, and not the content its self.

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.

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