FBI Closes Megaupload and arrests several of their employees

Technology and Gaming
#61

I’m not going to bother quoting all the silly posts directed at me, so I’ll just write a general reply to try and address all of them.

It’s indeed impossible to trace and remove all of the copyrighted material on websites like Megaupload, Rapidshare, YouTube, etc. Nobody (not even the US government) expects the internet to be piracy free, it’s impossible. What is expected, however, is that website do everything in their power to actively battle piracy. YouTube does it by having report buttons, technology to track the copyrighted material, staff that deals with piracy, etc. Someone in this thread said it himself; he listens to music all the time on YouTube. Why is YouTube up and running if he can do that? Well obviously they’re doing something right by actively combating piracy, enough at least to please those that are hard to please.

Megaupload could’ve invested in technology to track down/lock down sinister looking files, they could’ve invested in developing different ways for people to report or claim copyright infringement. In general they could’ve invested in combating piracy, but they chose to waste it on Kim Kardashian and P Diddy.

Megaupload is offline because they fucked up along the way. Megaupload is not offline because the evil US government (grr, shake fist) is out to get the poor poor businessmen that did everything in their power to make the world a better place.

By the way, none of you are helping when you cry about Megaupload being offline and how unfair it is, and then end the same sentence with " how will I be able to download movie/series/music now".

And Anon sure did show the US government how unhappy they are. They were so loud yesterday that… none of the global news sites reported on it and nobody even knew about unless you’re an active followed of Anon’s Twitter account. Hell, I’d be surprised if the targeted sites even noticed anything wrong (they’ll probably notice next day, when the webmasters sees a sudden explosion of visits in Google Analytics).

#62

???

edit: I don’t think it’s working anymore

#63

Yes, taking down Megaupload should have been illegal. There are plenty of legit and not legit uses for the tech, and it’s very useful for high bandwidth file transfers that you just can’t do reliably through an email or instant messaging client.

First up: Fansubbers inhabit a grey area of legality where they translate Japanese anime programs to english and release “fansubs” (portmanteau of Fan and Subtitle, which is Exactly What’s On The Tin). They use “Fair Use” to release the subs, as being “for educational purposes.” Admittedly this is nebulously legal at best, but some anime production companies actually use fansub communities as a barometer of how likely a studio-done localization would be to turn a profit. It also acts as free publicity, as having an established fanbase of the associated work would allow them to have a market for a studio translation. Megaupload and other fileshare sites are utilized to upload such fansubs fairly often, but to MU’s credit, they take them down when people serve takedown notices on them.

The other big thing is the fact that people can in fact use fileshare sites for legitimate traffic. I for one use 4shared to transfer in-progress cuts between myself and Eric for the purposes of a collaborative workflow. If I’d been using MU instead, I’d be up shit creek because suddenly my fileshare would be gone. Email attachments can only hold so much data, and cuts of an in progress film regularly hit hundreds of MB, and in HD a full cut would easily hit the 10GB range.

Taking down a whole fileshare site because some people utilize it to pirate copyrighted material is very much unconstitutional and uncalled for, and undermines the rights of people utilizing it’s paid service lawfully.

#64

Well I’ll be damned

#65

bolteh:

first of all, I’m pretty sure the TOS of megaupload exempts them from any responsibility of copyright infringement

that is how every single one of these sites works
you let users upload shit, there’s bound to be copyrighted stuff with it, so what you do is release yourself from responsibility

not every single website is even able to “invest” in stuff to prevent these things
if it’s legally required to do everything you can, small websites have no chance of succeeding
it’s completely unreasonable to expect a website to be 100% responsible for what their users do, not matter how many silly similes you come up with

also, the only reason they went with megaupload is because it’s a popupal website that is an easy target
if they had gone after youtube, they wouldve had google on their asses, and google is fucking huge

another point is, they just up and arrested the owners and shut down the site, without any direct involvement from the copyright holders, and without any form of warning, or removal request

#66

Which leads me to believe that there’s more going on than meets the eye. For all we know those 7 guys had been part of an international crime syndicate that actively makes a living from piracy through their website. I know, it sounds crazy, almost as crazy as people believing that Megaupload did nothing wrong and that the FBI has no right to arrest the owners.

And hey, it’s still possible that this action was uncalled for and if so they’ll run free within a year or so, ready to reboot Megaupload. But right now I’ll go with what my brain tells me, and it tells me that the FBI won’t terminate a company and arrest its owners for false reasons or no reason at all.

Also, Megaupload was able to “invest” in stuff to prevent, they just chose to waste the money on washed up celebs.

#67

I’m suprised they didn’t take down thepiratebay first

#68

They’ve tried to in the past and failed numerous times.

#69

And yet there are people who wonder why businesses move their jobs overseas.

All this action will do is give a boost to Megaupload’s competitors, and if those competitors are worried of those parasitic government goons kicking down their doors they’ll just dump their stuff in foreign countries where it’s still legal to start a fucking business.

#70

You know, at least Nazis cared about their own people. America is a fucking prick of a country and I’m embarrassed to live there.

#71

The majority of Megaupload’s servers were outside the US. I think there were a few in Virginia though.

#72

55 fucking years in jail? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING? If this happens… it would have confirmed my views on the American government and America in general…

SERIOUSLY, more time locked up in a shit hole than murderers. I fucking hate some people, torturers in particular.

Surely this supposedly Christian country should learn to forgive a little. But wait, the people in power are hungry for more power and more money. Even though they don’t need it. Like getting pointless points in a game.

#73

Nobody said no reason… we all know the reason: copyright infringement on the part of megaupload’s users. You’d be stupid to believe some deeper stranger plot than the obvious, oh wait you are stupid. The problem isn’t that there is no reason, the problem is that A) fair or not, that’s a disturbing amount of power on the part of my shitty government, and B) They shouldn’t have the right to take down the sight based on user’s actions (they were forced to take down kiddy pronz on their site, but that’s a much more serious action than copyright infringement and because it’s all image based media, much easier to handle). 4chan is stuffed full of illegal shit and it doesn’t go down. Youtube. Tumblr. Veoh. Fileshare. Dropbox. The list goes on. Where there’s user uploaded content there’s piracy, and there’s not much the sites can do and there’s not much that the government should do.

#74

And, like I already mentioned but the ranters ignored, the FBI didn’t just show up and kick their doors down willy-nilly CIA style. They got a court order, which means they were able to make a case that significant illegal activity was happening there, and that it fell under U.S. jurisdiction (apparently the dipshits hosted a bunch of illegal content in Virginia). Due process was followed completely. And now they get a trial.

This is how it should work.

#75

To make matters worse, megaupload/megavideo/megaporn was partially DMCA compliant, which means they took down links that were reported to be copyrighted material, but other links to the same file always remained/were re-uploaded.

But that was better than nothing, now all the MU users will migrate to other fast file hosts which are even slower at taking down links for copyright.

#76

Megaupload was not based in the United States.

#77

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/supreme-court-rules-congress-can-re-copyright-public-domain-works.ars

Apparently Congress can now put copyrights on public domain stuff. This is getting ridiculous.

#78

WTF, how is that even legal!!!?

#79

Yeah, that is totally insane. I’m all for protecting the IPs of the living, but the way America bends over backwards to make sure descendents can continue leaching off something great-grandpappy did 20 years before they were born is fucking ridiculous.

Public domain should kick in no more than 25-30 years after the death of the creator and it should be irreversible. I might be talked into making a short extension for companies who depend on the IP, but none of this essentially indefinite crap we have now. Disney should not be able to have exclusive rights to cartoons that were made before its CEO’s parents were born.

#80

While I do not agree with it because like gibbelin said it’s a bit silly to have someone draw money from something an ancestor created, it’s not like it’s so shocking, vulgar or outrageous. Just yet another case of the derpternet freaking out over something that the US government is doing (if this was done a year ago, before the PIPA/SOPA shitstorm, nobody would’ve given a fuck about this).

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.