This is kind of a big deal. Of course there are pirated stuff on Megaupload but how can they claim they've lost X amount of money because of it, how can they prove something like that?
I have not used it since they implemented subscriptions/limits for non-subscribers. It will be interesting to see how many others go down in the future and whether or not the small fry sites will be targeted.
This comes as a bit of a surprise. The worry is that the reasons given for shutting down Megaupload could also be used to shut down YouTube, it's equally full of copyrighted content that's being used without permission. I guess it comes down to Google being too big fish bite so they have to go for the slightly smaller ones.
The only time I ever used Megaupload was to download some Fallout 3 saves after losing my own. Using the full force of our International Justice system to hunt down, arrest, and press frivolous criminal charges against legitimate Website owners. Instead of trying to catch real criminals like arms dealers, drug smugglers, extremists, etc. Fucking ridiculous
Patrick Leah is an idiot. That's been confirmed a long time ago.
But yeah, this is a little scary, especially 1 day after the protest. MegaUpload has always been pretty spikey about their status, and this happened hours before The Pirate Bay gave their official "fuck you" statement to the US government and hollywood.
MegaUpload is a little bit of a special case because there was SO much illegal content contained within their servers. But an example was definitely made.
Well, we may have done enough to stop SOPA/PIPA and they lay this shit on us? Man, the U.S. government sucks.@Anwar said:
@Vexxan: Hehe, oh boy, do I have a nice link for you, mostly the same text as the second article which I posted already, but some other stuff was added.
Online piracy from China and elsewhere is a massive problem for the media industry, one that costs as much as $250 billion per year and costs the industry 750,000 jobs, according to a 2008 statement by Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
Hypothetical dollars are the best dollars.
$250 billion? 750000 jobs? I can make up shocking statistics too!!!!
Shutting down megaupload is causing the death of 300 baby rabbits every second.
@Anwar: @Video_Game_King: Ah, ok. Sounds like limewire or whatever it was called. Ya those services suck and are big uses of pirated content due to their sharing nature (or at least they were before torrents became the thing, probably still are). Interesting.
Reason I didn't click the link is im at work and at the time was on a call so wasn't sure if I wanted to read it haha. Sorry.
How can they even shut this down? Megaupload is always taking down pirated material, so I guess Rapidshare, Z-Share, Filesonic and so on are all at risk too?
Honestly it's surprising its taken this long when you consider what went down with Napster- it's very similar. I don't know the legality's here, but it is interesting to see what is happening now with them trying to stop the wide scale piracy issues the internet poses. On one hand I just find it weird as I grew up sharing tapes and burning CDs for friends and getting games from BBS' or whatever else. On the other hand, when I consider how much larger it is as a thing being done on the internet it does pose larger concerns.
I have a hard time saying whether its bad or not how they are doing this as I don't feel I have all the facts- I mean to us these are just major companies with a lot of money trying to find ways to make more money- but I can't help but feel there's more to it then that.
Honestly it's surprising its taken this long when you consider what went down with Napster- it's very similar. I don't know the legality's here, but it is interesting to see what is happening now with them trying to stop the wide scale piracy issues the internet poses. On one hand I just find it weird as I grew up sharing tapes and burning CDs for friends and getting games from BBS' or whatever else. On the other hand, when I consider how much larger it is as a thing being done on the internet it does pose larger concerns. I have a hard time saying whether its bad or not how they are doing this as I don't feel I have all the facts- I mean to us these are just major companies with a lot of money trying to find ways to make more money- but I can't help but feel there's more to it then that. I don't know. It's kinda strange.
Thing is though you can technically upload pirated material to anywhere that allows you to upload files. So they could go after any website in theory, that's dumb.
I could upload albums to Dropbox and give people access via private links, does that mean the feds should be targeting Dropbox? I don't know where this is heading, they should accept they will never beat piracy unless they censor the Internet entirely.
This is just giving the country a bad image, people think America want to control everything as it is.
Thing is though you can technically upload pirated material to anywhere that allows you to upload files. So they could go after any website in theory, that's dumb.
This. It is a very dangerous road we're heading down here...
@Sooty: I agree. It's a very strange way to handle it, but I also don't have any answers to a real problem (whether people want to argue the legitimacy of piracy or not is not really my point just for clarification). It's not really going to stop it, I mean realistically the way the internet is (basically a means to share info/data across the world easily) you can never totally stop this kind of thing from happening but more and more Corporations are making serious pushes to stop it. They don't do that unless there is serious call for alarm most times.
I don't know, it's just really weird to me as I am kind of conflicted on piracy as it is. I don't condone it but at the same time- when I did what is technically pirating- it was seemingly normal. I didnt even think anyone could care as it wasn't on the scale that kind of stuff is now.
Yo guys, Anonymous is DDOSing Universal and justice.org or something like that in response. Since I know how much this site appreciates them and what they do, you should feel great about this.
This is just giving the country a bad image, people think America want to control everything as it is.
As far as I understand it: The Americans are forcefully shutting down on a Hong Kong-based company, run by a German national, who lives in New Zealand.
Nowhere in those latter 3 nations do I hear any mention of America or why the Americans are doing this instead of the New Zealanders.
I think the difference between this site and Youtube for example, is that Google will listen to your copyright woes, and remove infringing content upon request. Megaupload seemed to deliberately not doing this, and that's probably illegal in some way.
Dammit, megaupload can't die! Without it everyone will just upload all of their porn to rapidshare, or depositefiles, or oron or some other shit site. And I know people aren't just going to switch to mediafire!
This is just giving the country a bad image, people think America want to control everything as it is.
As far as I understand it: The Americans are forcefully shutting down on a Hong Kong-based company, run by a German national, who lives in New Zealand.
Nowhere in those latter 3 nations do I hear any mention of America or why the Americans are doing this instead of the New Zealanders.
Which is why it's weird, and it's time for other countries to really start questioning America's extradition requests. Between this and the UK extradition suit, this is really REALLY odd. Something tells me all of these guys will be out of there as soon as they lawyer up.
But in the meantime, DDOS attacks against the DOJ, Universal Media and the RIAA are in effect.
Edit: I just educated Ice-T on the situation. ::glee::
I certainly hope this is not a trend. There are plenty of legitimate uses for file uploading sites like Rapidshare, Mediafire, Filesonic etc. Not to mention that Megaupload is actually pretty good about removing copyrighted material when it is flagged.
Anonymous @YourAnonNews 44m Reply Retweeted Favorite · Open The government takes down #Megaupload? 15 minutes later #Anonymous takes down government & record label sites. #ExpectUs
I think the difference between this site and Youtube for example, is that Google will listen to your copyright woes, and remove infringing content upon request. Megaupload seemed to deliberately not doing this, and that's probably illegal in some way.
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