Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

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Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

Postby Amaterasu » Thu Jan 19, 2012 4:34 pm

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Lat ... Megaupload

One of the world's largest file-sharing sites was shut down Thursday, and its founder and several company executives were charged with violating piracy laws, federal prosecutors said.

An indictment accuses Megaupload.com of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. The indictment was unsealed one day after websites including Wikipedia and Craigslist shut down in protest of two congressional proposals intended to thwart online piracy.


The Justice Department said in a statement said that Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz, and three others were arrested Thursday in New Zealand at the request of U.S. officials. Two other defendants are at large.

What are your thoughts on megaupload being shut down?
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Re: Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

Postby AceD » Thu Jan 19, 2012 5:19 pm

Anonymous are currently attacking Universal Music and the department of justice over this
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Re: Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

Postby BasharOfTheAges » Thu Jan 19, 2012 5:45 pm

Should be an interesting case with some interesting 4th amendment violation claims coming from it.
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Re: Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

Postby AceD » Thu Jan 19, 2012 5:54 pm

MPAA and RIAA been taken out as well now lol
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Re: Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

Postby Brad » Thu Jan 19, 2012 5:55 pm

Amaterasu wrote:Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz


This...


But in any event, this is one of those situations where timing is everything. I can't imagine that reaction to this news would be nearly as bad had it not been directly on the heels of the SOPA/PIPA controversy. The DOJ has most certainly had a hand in taking down several piracy-driven sites before (namely torrent sites) in the past, and most people just said "Well, guess that was inevitable." Though one big difference here is that MegaUpload, ON THE SURFACE was certainly not set up to be a "get your pirated content HERE!" sites. It was simply a file upload service, that got considerably abused. Now granted, I hope nobody's naive enough to believe that the site owners didn't know fully well that the majority of the files they were serving were illegal. Nevertheless, a better course of action would probably have been to send some form of C&D or something to them, demanding any infringing files be taken offline. If those orders were then ignored (and it's possible that IS what happened and I just don't know about it) then law enforcement would then be required to step in.

The weird thing about this situation though is the fact that this (and most of these sites) are operated outside of U.S. jurisdiction. I don't really know how the law works in regards to foreign businesses breaking U.S. laws, though the article does say that the arrests were made by New Zealand law enforcement. So it would stand to reason that the site was also taken offline by whoever operated their servers/internet connection in NZ.

So yeah, I dunno. It's weird. I'm not outright PRO-Piracy (it'd be hypocritical of me to say), but at the same time, if due process WAS taken and warnings were issued and protocol was followed all along the way, then I just don't see how people can be overly upset about this. The big problem with SOPA/PIPA is that they're taking due process off the table, and any site which gets a complaint from copyright holders can be taken down without the site's owner being questioned. If that's what happened here, then yes, I take major issue with that.

(if all my questions have been addressed in formal articles, forgive me. Still at work, haven't taken the time to research the story fully)
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Re: Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

Postby Chained(E)Studio » Thu Jan 19, 2012 6:25 pm

https://twitter.com/#!/YourAnonNews

You can follow "Anonymous" on Twitter if you aren't already, lol. Apparently they've taken down more sites?
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Re: Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

Postby CodeZTM » Thu Jan 19, 2012 6:34 pm

I just hope that this doesn't hurt all the SOPA protests with anon's attacks.
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Re: Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

Postby Chez » Thu Jan 19, 2012 6:44 pm

unsure of where this will go now that anon is involved I understand why they are taking action now, but if it helps is the question that should be asked. Time will tell just set back and watch the lawls.
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Re: Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

Postby HalOfBorg » Thu Jan 19, 2012 6:53 pm

Ach, me poor, wee AMVs sitting there with nowhere to go now.
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Re: Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

Postby Chained(E)Studio » Thu Jan 19, 2012 6:59 pm

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Re: Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

Postby Chez » Thu Jan 19, 2012 7:06 pm

Spoiler :
AmberLyon Amber Lyon CNN
by YourAnonNews
Source within Anonymous: More than 27,000 computers involved in DOJ attack. "Average ppl participating in DDOS attack from living rooms"


Just sitten back watching the twitter feed for anon news.
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Re: Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

Postby EvaFan » Thu Jan 19, 2012 7:36 pm

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.
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Re: Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

Postby Emong » Thu Jan 19, 2012 8:06 pm

I think it's time for the good ol' Plunder Propaganda!

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Re: Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

Postby GloryQuestor » Thu Jan 19, 2012 8:55 pm

Brad wrote:The weird thing about this situation though is the fact that this (and most of these sites) are operated outside of U.S. jurisdiction. I don't really know how the law works in regards to foreign businesses breaking U.S. laws, though the article does say that the arrests were made by New Zealand law enforcement. So it would stand to reason that the site was also taken offline by whoever operated their servers/internet connection in NZ.


This pretty much sums up what happens when sites and persons think they are outside U.S. jurisdiction (the original news article is here):

"Many question whether O'Dwyer should face trial in the US, considering that he's never been to the states and TVShack didn't use US servers. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, however, maintains that any internet domain ending in .com or .net is fair game for US authorities as the company that provides those particular suffixes falls under US jurisdiction."

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Re: Federal Government Shuts Down Megaupload

Postby Castor Troy » Thu Jan 19, 2012 9:30 pm

Words cannot describe how insanely pissed off I am since I had so much stuff hosted on there and I got a premium lifetime subscription which was the best thing ever.

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