Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

[TritioAFB]

All the material is gone

Then what's next?

[Mr. Fuzzyflippers]

All the material is gone

Then what's next?

Hopefully not mediafire, because that's where I download all of my music.

[TritioAFB]

Man I was thinking the same. If MU is gone, I just hope FileServe, MediaFire and the rest of host servers might not have the same luck

[EvaFan]

All the material is gone

Then what's next?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMfGmCLQRic

They come for you.

[Jadecavy]

http://rt.com/usa/news/crippled-fbi-meg ... ymous-239/

[aesling]

Should be an interesting case with some interesting 4th amendment violation claims coming from it.

Um, why 4th Amendment? They seem to have warrants and cooperation from the authorities of the other nations involved. Have you seen more details somewhere on this?

So it's finally gotten to the point that they are charging service providers instead of the users that commit the said copyright crimes? ffs...

Just because they provide hosting doesn't mean they provide hosting for copyrighted stuff. I'm sure they even have rules and regulations in their ToS, I haven't used megaupload in forever though and haven't read it.

Actually, it's pretty standard practice to go after hosting sites rather than users/downloaders. It's easier to meet the criteria for criminal infringement, and it's easier to prove intent. Users might get sued, but the FBI doesn't typically go after them unless they upload or own/operate the site, supply the original material to be cracked/copied, etc. As for the second part of your post, what they basically have to prove in court is that the people who ran megaupload had the intent to infringe - so they either had to encourage users to do it and/or have knowledge it was occurring and not take sufficient measures to stop it (which from what I'm reading is what the FBI is arguing). This could be pretty hard to prove, however, it really doesn't help their case that they benefited financially from infringing material through ad revenue and premium accounts, and they paid uploaders monetary rewards as well.

The other issue here is that Megaupload has to disprove that the copyrighted material uploaded outweighed the legitimate uses that Megaupload had. Generally, the precedent set by Sony Corp. v Universal Studios is that if the service or product has significant legitimate uses, the company that produces/owns it is not liable for any infringement. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that this does not protect a company from liability if, as I said, they encouraged infringement, didn't do enough to stop it, and benefited financially from users uploading copyrighted material. It's going to be difficult for the prosecution to meet their burden of proof here probably, but it's not really clear cut enough to be able to say at this point who's going to win the case. The FBI is obviously doing this to make a point, though. With as large, high-profile, and misused as Megaupload has been it was really only a matter of time.

Also, the FBI seems to have email proof that there was money-laundering going on as well. They may very well be screwed on those charges.

[Prodigi]

If you havn't already seen it making the rounds on Facebook:



And my response to a few friends re-sharing it:

[aesling]

I would have to agree law makers and law enforcement are taking the wrong approach to solving the piracy problem, but that image seriously makes me want to smash my face against the keyboard. People should not be lumping SOPA/PIPA in with what is happening to Megaupload. SOPA and PIPA are very harsh laws that violate our rights and would basically end the internet as we know it. Megaupload indisputably made millions of dollars off of people uploading and downloading copyrighted material. Whether or not that was their intent is for the courts to determine, but it's really hard to argue that morally they are in the right, much less legally.

[Prodigi]

I would have to agree law makers and law enforcement are taking the wrong approach to solving the piracy problem, but that image seriously makes me want to smash my face against the keyboard. People should not be lumping SOPA/PIPA in with what is happening to Megaupload. SOPA and PIPA are very harsh laws that violate our rights and would basically end the internet as we know it. Megaupload indisputably made millions of dollars off of people uploading and downloading copyrighted material. Whether or not that was their intent is for the courts to determine, but it's really hard to argue that morally they are in the right, much less legally.

Unfortunately a lot of Australians don't seem to understand the difference.

[aesling]

Unfortunately a lot of Americans don't seem to understand the difference.