MegaUpload Dares RIAA To Sue Them

Dangerous_Minds writes "Yesterday, there were reports that the RIAA and MPAA were working with Mastercard to cut off payments to so-called 'rogue-websites' like MegaUpload. Today, a spokesperson from MegaUpload issued a response to the RIAA on ZeroPaid. Bonnie Lam of MegaUpload said, 'the vast majority of our revenue is coming from advertising.' She also said, 'Megaupload is a legitimate business operating within the boundaries of the law. In five years of operation we have not been sued by a single content owner. If the RIAA or MPAA would have legal grounds they would have taken us to court by now. We suggest that they attack us within the legal system and stop labeling us until they have something to show.'"

Not a safe move.

[EWAdams]

People don't sue because they have legal grounds. They sue because they think they can force the other side to spend so much money that they'll cave. Most lawsuits are settled in favor of whoever has deeper pockets. Being in the right isn't enough; you have to be in the right and rich. Otherwise it's better to keep your head down... sadly. If the US ever gets around to tort reform (yeah, right), this situation may change.

Re:Wikileaks

[Anonymous Coward]

The ruling class doesn't mind racism. "When white working people and black working people are fighting each other, they're not fighting us."

Re:Interesting story behind MegaUpload

[Anonymous Coward]

...and most Americans seem proud of the violent, racist prison system they have.

That's better?

Re:Wikileaks

[icebraining]

But that's the point, they have set the precedent with Wikileaks. If they close some accounts despite their legality, we must assume they actively support those they don't shut down.

Re:Interesting story behind MegaUpload

[Gerzel]

No our prison system is indeed violent and racist to what can be categorized as an astonishing degree.

Our prisons are violent relative to others in first world nations with more reported incidents per capita.

Our prisons do indeed have gangs split on racial lines and are havens to a certain extent for racism.

riaa/mpaa have no balls

[arbiter1]

When it comes to other big companies like megaupload that have money to fight. They turn to dirty crap like this. they go after torrent indexer's, why haven't they hit Google? You can search out torrents on Google just like any other torrent search site.

Re:Wikileaks

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

When I was a kid, I was taught that the Government existed, in America, as a reflection of the people, and the Constitution and Bill of Rights were a reflection of those goals.

If the Government is malevolent, cruel, vile, and evil, maybe that's not the Government's fault.

Re:Interesting story behind MegaUpload

[Local ID10T]

Maybe we should put fewer criminals in prison and more law-abiding citizens. I'm sure they'd be much nicer places.

Just a thought.

That's how we manufacture the criminals needed to keep our prison system going.

Re:Why should the RIAA even bother with a response

[cheekyjohnson]

Megauploads is for one thing: piracy.

Odd. I thought it was for uploading files. I guess the only purpose of a knife is too kill people, then.

I thought everyone wanted these big corporations to start acting ethically.

You act like everyone believes that copyright infringement is 'wrong'. This is not so.

Oh really?

[rudy_wayne]

Bonnie Lam of MegaUpload said, 'the vast majority of our revenue is coming from advertising.'

A quick check of Megaupload's website shows that their prices are about the same as all the other companies this same business. If the "vast majority" of their revenue comes from advertising then why aren't their prices significantly lower, undercutting the competition and bringing in even more customers? I have a feeling someone at MegaUpload has a big ego and is saying things they may regret later.

Not about copyright infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not about copyright infringement this is about media company's attacking the internet. They want you to be watching TV, going to the movies and renting DVD they don't want you entertaining yourself on the internet.

Re:Actually

[Lehk228]

napster was designed for the purpose of infringing music copyrights, rapidshit, megaupload, etc. are generic file hosts like any free web site company, if you upload a blacklist file (checks by some hash function) it is instablocked, if a file gets a DMCA takedown it gets pulled.

in order to find megaupload liable for infringement the court would be overturning the entire DMCA notice and take down system, and going back to hosts liable for user content. The entire internet industry would flip out over this and laws would be passed very quickly.

Re:Why should the RIAA even bother with a response

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been an online merchant for about a decade. Historically, MC cards have been about 30% of sales. The lion's share is on Visa cards. MC has always been a self-righteous pack of assholes, cutting off merchants right and left over "content damaging to the MC brand" and other such bullshit. Their company policy is to piss in the face of consumer choice every chance they get. I've had 5-figure fines over content issues in the past and if it ever happens again, I'll dump their worthless asses purely out of spite. I would absolutely love to tell customers "we don't accept that piece-of-shit card, and you shouldn't either". It would be a mild inconvenience, but nothing close to "chaos". Keep in mind that the demographic merchants care about (i.e., disposable income, not living paycheck to paycheck) normally have 2 or more cards in their wallet. Nobody ever went bankrupt just by telling MC to go fuck themselves.

Re:Interesting story behind MegaUpload

[Stiletto]

And no matter how hard it is, these same idiots will keep claiming the prison system isn't hard enough. Isn't it time we start ignoring people who don't make any sense.

Re:Interesting story behind MegaUpload

[GooberToo]

The US prison system makes very little effort to rehabilitate; contrary to popular myth. Its well known for making prisoners more violent and more proficient criminals. Furthermore, it creates a clearing house of criminal contacts for criminal activity on the outside.

And it gets even worse. The US system is set up to punish criminals for the rest of their life helping to ensure that once you enter the criminal system you have very little chance of ever making it out. Worse, they illegally strip their Constitutional rights so as to ensure they have no say in changing the system for the better; even after they've paid their price.

As first world industrialized countries go, the US prison system is one of the absolutely worst on the planet. And the US prison systems is the largest growing US government service to date. The US prison system houses more people than some countries have in total population - and growing. The US prison system has a huge chunk of those are there for minor drug charges where they are trained to be become better, more violent criminals on the inside and continuously punished on the outside so as to ensure they are forced to re-enter the prison system at a later date. The US prison system has one of the highest reviticism rates of any first world, industrialized countries. Many argue the high reviticism rate is by design.

Notice the steep rise in incarcerations after declaring the war on drugs. [wikipedia.org] Anyone in support of the war on drugs is willfully supporting murder, sex trades, slavery, and yes, even terrorism (much comes from the middle east - like Afghanistan), and turning some of the most worthless humans ever born into some of the most powerful humans on the planet - while taking it out on the US' (and other countries') civilian populations. By every measure and every statistic, the war on drugs has been lost almost as soon as it started. And every year, the US tax payer pays billions to fuel paramilitary training and growth of our police forces while create a professional, criminal, industry on the other side, while paying billions more to imprison the very "criminals" which the first billions created.

Re:Interesting story behind MegaUpload

[Xest]

"Lots of people don't like their tax money is used like that, but that's the way it is - being in jail in most of Europe is like taking a relaxing holiday."

You're overstating this ability particular with regards to your earlier comments about TVs and game consoles- tax payers do NOT pay for these, the criminals are made to pay for these themselves if they choose to.

Re:Interesting story behind MegaUpload

[SuricouRaven]

Sarcasm aside, that's what happens. Send a minor offender to jail - someone convicted of one of the lesser drugs offences, or petty theft. During his few months he'll make criminal friends, learn new skills, and be exposed to a culture of criminality and violence. When they do get out, non-criminal society is largely closed to them - it's extremally hard to find work, because most workplaces arn't going to hire a convict unless they are very desperate. So the only way they have to make a living is to put their new skills to use. Prison just makes more criminals. Rehabilitation programs do exist, but they are extremally expensive per-prisoner, and taxpayers are loathe to see any money spent on helping the 'criminal scum.'