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Piracy

Gabon Suspends Me.ga Domain, Dotcom Says "We Have Alternative Domain" 212

hypnosec writes "Kim Dotcom's plan to launch a 'bigger, better, faster, stronger, safer' Megaupload successor, Mega, is already in peril as Gabon's government has suspended the domain me.ga . Announcing his decision, Gabon's Communication Minister Blaise Louembe said 'I have instructed my departments... to immediately suspend the site www.me.ga' in a bid to 'protect intellectual property rights' and 'fight cyber crime effectively.' Dotcom revealed through a tweet that he is in possession of an alternative domain name and that the recent suspension 'demonstrates the bad faith witch hunt the U.S. government is on.'"
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Gabon Suspends Me.ga Domain, Dotcom Says "We Have Alternative Domain"

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  • by agentgonzo ( 1026204 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @08:54AM (#41906797)
  • Witch-hunt (Score:5, Insightful)

    by agentgonzo ( 1026204 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @08:59AM (#41906839)
    I know that he is trying to sound extreme and provocative, but for Gabon to shut-down a domain name of a yet-to-be-launched service that has only said that it plans to store things online is very-much a Witchhunt. Nothing is really known about me.ga and so the only reason they have to shut it down is because it's a 'successor' to megaupload and they have a vendetta against Kim Dotcom.
    • Re:Witch-hunt (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @09:06AM (#41906921)

      Or maybe it's simply the easiest way to avoid lengthy and annoying conflict with the USA.

    • Re:Witch-hunt (Score:4, Informative)

      by FriendlyLurker ( 50431 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @09:08AM (#41906937)
      ...and no real surprise given Gabons political history [wikipedia.org] of servitude to foreign interests under the PDG.
    • Something's really fishy here. I mean most third world countries simply do not care if you're making copies of Hollywood movies without written permission from someone with Esq. after his name.

      Someone (MAFIAA) must have leaned on the US Ambassador to Gabon to, ahem, facilitate something or another.

      If anybody disagrees, please tell me what's in it for Gabon to ban me.ga, preemptively even ?

    • Nothing is really known about me.ga

      Seriously?

      and so the only reason they have to shut it down is because it's a 'successor' to megaupload

      Doesn't that say quite a bit about it? See, quite a bit is known about me.ga.

      and they have a vendetta against Kim Dotcom.

      Because the only way anyone would object to megaupload is if they don't like Kim Dotcom? Seriously?

      Grow up.

    • Do you even know what a vendetta is? Please explain this vendetta Gabon has.

    • by Tom ( 822 )

      I wouldn't give him an e-mail address at my domain if he asked, because he's an egomaniac asshole and a criminal. Same with Gabon, except that they own a TLD and not just a domain.

      It's theirs. They can decide to give him a domain within it or not. They've decided not to. Witchhunt? Please. Stop listening to cheap rhetorics. This was a trap from the start, the fucker is just in desperate need of publicity, that's all.

    • Countries make their own laws, so legally they can shut down whoever they want; so we're just talking about ethics here. I don't find anything ethically wrong with pre-emptively shutting down an enterprise they (very reasonably, given the history and public comments of the proprietor) consider to encourage intellectual property piracy.

  • Minority Report (Score:5, Insightful)

    by scotts13 ( 1371443 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @09:02AM (#41906863)

    Wow. PreCrime is here. Apparently, you don't even have to be open for business or host any files to be a 'cyber criminal' who violates 'intellectual property rights.' Once you're accused by the US governments masters, you're done for, worldwide.

    • Gabon in West Africa?
    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @09:49AM (#41907389)

      Mr Fox objected to the ban, saying "I don't intend to eat any hens this time! I just want to visit the hen house. My business there is totally legitimate. Judging foxes for what they did in the past is just fascism, man."

    • Re:Minority Report (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ledow ( 319597 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @10:13AM (#41907715) Homepage

      If you had a legal right to a domain name, you might be right. But you don't.

      Similarly, you don't have a legal right to enter random countries, and they are quite welcome to tell you to go away (whether on the basis that they think you're there to work contrary to your visa, or you have previous convictions, or whatever)

      It's not illegal to deny someone a domain name. No more illegal than denying them a trademark, or a particular phone number (or even phone access at all!).

      The whole DNS system is a collection of private contracts to hand out naming rights within a virtual space. Hence why ICANN etc. can get people to pay them more money just by saying "Okay, let's have a new TLD!". Nobody is FORCING them to pay them money. Nobody has a legal obligation to buy those domains. And nobody has a legal obligation to fulfill those demands for domains if their contracts say so (and it hasn't been established to the contrary in a court of law).

      This is like saying that me not giving you an email address at my domain is just as prejudicial. Er, no. It's my domain, my rules, and you either agree with them or not. Unless you have it in writing that I *guarantee* you those services, you can't do anything if I don't allow you to use them and/or stop you getting them in first place.

      So let's not be stupid here. If you try to register a *car* with a rude number plate (licence plate to the Americans), it will get blocked in most countries (and they pre-filter those lists, but still will take yours away if it's deemed to be rude and they missed it!). Hell, some countries decide what you can put on a birth certificate. And places like Italy, it's almost impossible to get a domain name without a certified business presence in the country itself.

      In comparison, a copyright infringer being denied a domain name in a country he has ZERO affiliation to is nothing.

      I actually find it hilarious that people think that the US has involvement, if I'm honest. Chances are Gabon just doesn't want his type around. If he applied for a .uk, for instance, it would be denied the second he announced his intentions for it without even bothering to wait for the Americans to ask - it's a breach of Nominet policy.

      • by PRMan ( 959735 )
        So, it's okay for the government to follow an ex-con around and make sure that he doesn't buy any property? It's basically the same thing.
        • If he is not actually legally entitled, i.e., has the right to own property ... what's the complaint then?

          It's not basically the same thing, because at least in the USA, we have the right to own property. I don't have the right to own a domain name, explicitly. Furthermore, this isn't even in the USA, this is in Gabon. Wherever that is. ;)

          This would be more similar to a convicted drug dealer trying to buy a marijuana dispensary. Or maybe a pharmacy.

      • If you had a legal right to a domain name, you might be right. But you don't.

        In any democratic country, you have the right of free enterprize.

        It seems that in Gabon, one doesn't. Well, it's their choice, and their problem.

  • by Type44Q ( 1233630 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @09:02AM (#41906865)
    Undiclosed sources close to minister stated that the "fee" paid by representatives from US Media conglomerates was a new Toyota Camry, a Czech slavegirl and ten boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts.
    • All at once, or in installments? Ten boxes at once is too much, even if you share it with your Camry, and donuts don't keep.

  • Say what? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @09:02AM (#41906869)

    Wow, preemptively shutting something down on the basis that it might be used to infringe copyright before it's even launched?

    Philip K. Dick and (to some extent) Scott Frank and Jon Cohen must be proud [imdb.com].

  • by biodata ( 1981610 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @09:14AM (#41906991)
    If I lived there I wouldn't be very pleased to know that another country pwned my government.
  • Time to go native? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aaaaaaargh! ( 1150173 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @09:18AM (#41907029)

    Wouldn't a native cross-platform app alleviate all these problems with domain names? Use a UDT based file transfer protocol with NAT traversal to connect to servers based on IP numbers that can be updated via bootstrap server or software update. Sure, at some point the user must download the app, but that would not be a big problem in this case, and afterwards the app can update itself. As a bonus you get huge perfomance benefits, at least if you do it the right way.

    Just an idea. All this fuzz about domain names, really makes you wonder why people are so obsessed with web-pages.

    • by slim ( 1652 )

      DNS isn't just for web pages, and having a layer of indirection between the app and the IP address is useful.

      Wouldn't it be better to run a parallel DNS (or DNS-like) system that's not run by The Man?

      • by rs79 ( 71822 )

        Look at Pirate Bay DNS. The challenge is user adoption. We never hit more than 10% with alternative root servers in the 90s.

        Course, that's 10X higher than the libertarian vote in yesterdays election...

    • Key management would also be better, both easier and safer.

    • by lee1026 ( 876806 )

      I doubt you get large performance benefits. Downloading is by and large network bound.

  • Did the communication minister of Gabon seriously put quotation marks around the official stated intent of his actions? Have we truly reached the era of unapologetically naked horseshit?
  • "...be a shame if something happened to it."

  • no (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @01:15PM (#41909885) Homepage Journal

    No, it is a sign that the game he's been playing for many years now is finally over. You know, that of moving your operations to a different country each time the one you are currently in finally catches up with your crimes.

  • What about http://mega.co.ck/ [mega.co.ck] The Cook Islands could do with some publicity. They must have chosen .co.ck as their public suffix for some reason.

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