Megaupload Drops Lawsuit Against Universal Music 439
bs0d3 writes "Not so long ago, a legal video was taken down by repetitive DMCA requests to YouTube. In response, Megaupload filed a lawsuit against Universal Music. This past week, Megaupload was raided by U.S. authorities and forced offline, which is costing Megaupload millions of dollars in damage. Today; while employees are in U.S. custody, Megaupload has mysteriously dropped their lawsuit against Universal Music."
Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Informative)
Not only did MegaUpload not delete the actual files when sent DMCA notices (but did when sent abuse letters about illegal content like child porn), they also paid the uploaders cash in exchange to send downloaders to their site. This was almost all the times used for spreading copyright infringing material and MegaUpload was notoriously known for being good site for such use. As the internal emails show they were also fully aware of this fact. It also seems like the feds are now in possession of the top affiliates on the site which most likely will lead to more arrests for criminal copyright infringement, as they made lots of money by doing it.
Also another fact: not only did MegaUpload staff know about this activity and try to get around DMCA notices and laws, they did copyright infringement themselves. For example they used to populate their MegaVideo site by downloading and adding videos from YouTube. This was also videos created by people like you, not only mega-corps. This and much more was revealed in the arrest and their internal emails.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes, but when you operate servers you have to comply with the laws in the countries you have servers. In this case Megaupload had equipment in the US and as a result falls under American law. They most certainly should be extradited as that's the only way in which it can be determined if they broke the law.
We don't do in absentia bullshit in the US like they do in some other parts of the world, so this is really the only way that it's going to be resolved. They could easily have avoided this by not having a
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Informative)
Any Extradition from NZ will be under the terms of the Extradition Treaty and won't be for DMCA violations, but for other charges - such as the Money Laundering and so on which is indeed covered by the Treaty.
Some interesting reads:
Provision Warrants: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1999/0055/latest/DLM26216.html [legislation.govt.nz]
Extradition Offenses http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1999/0055/latest/DLM25681.html#DLM25681 [legislation.govt.nz]
How Extradition Request must be made http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1999/0055/latest/DLM26211.html?search=ts_act_extradition_resel&p=1#DLM26211 [legislation.govt.nz]
Minister may request warrant http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1999/0055/latest/DLM26215.html?search=ts_act_extradition_resel&p=1 [legislation.govt.nz]
The Extradition Treaty Itself http://newzealand.usembassy.gov/uploads/images/o16y8MOyHW2l-jJTxaMpeQ/ExtraditionUSNZ.pdf [usembassy.gov]
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Insightful)
But as the grandparent points out, the other charges are dependent on the alleged DMCA violations. If that's not a crime in New Zeeland, then the money they got from it are legal, and there's no money laundering.
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Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure they are, but that's not a crime covered by the Extradition Treaty.
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Promoting copyright infringement is a crime in quite a few countries (hence one reason why MegaUpload was blocked in a few countries even before this happened). The DMCA is just a specific law that attempts to set rules for what is and isn't copyright infringement on the Internet.
Also, it depends on the exact circumstances. It doesn't necessarily have to be illegal in the extraditing country (although it usually is), but that would be determined on a case by case basis, I believe.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Insightful)
Promoting copyright infringement is a crime in quite a few countries (hence one reason why MegaUpload was blocked in a few countries even before this happened). The DMCA is just a specific law that attempts to set rules for US citizens for what is and isn't copyright infringement on the Internet.
There, fixed that for you.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Insightful)
There are lots of people under the jurisdiction of US law who aren't US citizens. So no you didn't fix it.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:4, Insightful)
Promoting copyright infringement is a crime in quite a few countries
If "promoting copyright infringement" was a crime, then all broadband providers would be shut down long ago. There needs to be a criminal intent, which is very hard to prove.
Also, it depends on the exact circumstances. It doesn't necessarily have to be illegal in the extraditing country (although it usually is), but that would be determined on a case by case basis, I believe.
It's not decided on a case-by-case basis; the extradition treaty outlines exactly which crimes may lead to extradition even if they're only criminal in the country requesting extradition.
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MegaUpload doesn't openly promote copyright infringement either. They provide a service which promotes copyright infringement - just like the broadband providers do.
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The grandparent is right in that extradition is normally not granted if the alleged act is not a crime in the country extradition is requested from.
I.e: If what they did is not illegal in New Zeeland, it's unlikely New Zeeland can extra dite them.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that Dotcom is not originally New Zealander. Countries sometimes refuse to extradite people born in their country, but such usually isn't the case with foreign nationals.
Doesn't matter - the alleged act still needs to be a crime in the country granting the extradition.
And I'm pretty surprised you would support him either
I'm not supporting the person, I'm supporting a company that provided a valuable service to the public. MegaUpload helped people all over the world to exercise their fair use rights.
For example, in my country, I could rip my music CDs and put them on MegaUpload, and then listen to them anywhere, since format shifting is legal here.
Of course, the American media companies didn't like that, so they demanded that MegaUpload delete all copies of a file, even the copies that were uploaded legally.
I'm pretty tired of American corporations who like to pretend American law applies to the whole world. They have no right to ask a New Zeeland company to delete a Swedish users files, just because the files happen to be illegal for Americans.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty tired of American corporations who like to pretend American law applies to the whole world. They have no right to ask a New Zeeland company to delete a Swedish users files, just because the files happen to be illegal for Americans.
A thousand times this. It's about time the rest of the world stands up and tells the Americans to go fuck themselves.
Re:Good luck with that... (Score:5, Insightful)
2 weak neighbors?
No. You have a neighbor to the north which is not an imperialistic war machine.
There is a difference. We don't have to pour an insane amount of money into our military budget because we don't practice insane foreign policy just to line the pockets of the men that own the politicians.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty tired of American corporations who like to pretend American law applies to the whole world..
As an American, I'd like you to know that most of us are tired of this, too. The same goes for our government.
Unfortunately far too few of us have yet to make the connection that we put those assholes there in the first place and maybe we should do something about it. But we're working on it, really. A lot of us are trying very hard.
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Were you asleep during the fiasco over whether Julian Assange was wearing a condom or not in Sweden? There's also a chemical supplier in the UK who is facing hard time in a Louisiana tent prison for allegedly breaking a law that doesn't exist in the UK.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Interesting)
Most mature western countries have very similiar copyright laws designed with the same notion: protect the property rights of a creator of an artistic or intellectual work. Check NZ and Swedish law before you blame the US
I'm very familiar with Swedish copyright law. It explicitly allows people to make a limited number of copies for individual use if they have a licensed original, and share them with close friends and family. Something which is usually illegal in the USA. That means a Swede and an American can upload the exact same file to MegaUpload, and only the American's copy is illegal. If a Swede loses his/her files on MegaUpload, it's definitely because of American corporations.
I admit I don't know what New Zeeland law has to say on the matter, but in any case, it was American corporations who initiated the shutdown and arrest.
(unless you've bought that big-Satan thing from Iran, or that big running dog thing from N Korea, or that...).
I'm perfectly capable of judging US international policy on it's own merits, thank you very much. The so-called Cablegate papers, released by Wikileaks, showed in painful detail how the United States systematically lobbies other countries to adopt their copyright policy. The Swedish government was described in the documents as "very cooperative". Give it a decade, and chances are we'll have lost the fair use rights we still have left.
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The problem is that several countries can't have jurisdiction over the same matter at the same time. Or to put it in simpler terms: MegaUpload can't be tried for the same crime in both American, Dutch, Hong Kong and New Zealand courts. One jurisdiction has to "win" and the others have to "lose".
Therefore, it's not enough to have a claim on jurisdiction; you need to have the strongest claim.
Basing jurisdiction on where the servers are situated is absurd. It would mean a Canadian who shares a file copyrighted
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Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this even a criminal case? Why not leave it to the civil courts. When the music industry was ripping off artists in Canada, all that happened was a settlement. No people were arrested and extradited.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Insightful)
Because you can't extradite people over civil matters and you can't confiscate property on foreign soil to cover the award.
In this case though, the money laundering and other charges are pretty much always going to be felonies. And apparently if you distribute one or more work worth $1 000 or more during a 180 day period you're committing a felony. I don't agree with it, but that is what the law says.
Considering that nobody forced them to locate a server in the US, I'm not sure whom they can reasonably blame other than themselves. It remains to be seen whether the allegations lead to any convictions, but the US certainly does have the right to try them for those felonies.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:4, Insightful)
"In this case though, the money laundering and other charges are pretty much always going to be felonies."
But its only money laundering if the first place if the civil copyright issues are treated as criminal issues. You can't 'launder' money that didn't come from criminal activities, even if that money was supposedly made from an activity which gave you civil liability.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry but you are mistaken. Money laundering is BY DEFINITION processing funds from a criminal activity and making them appear to come from a legal activity. Here is one of many sites giving a legal definition and ALL of them agree that the funds must be illegal or illicit. If you engage in the same process but with the intent of committing the crime on the other end, like for tax evasion then that is just tax avoidance not money laundering.
http://definitions.uslegal.com/m/money-laundering/ [uslegal.com]
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Better than the legal definition is the statute.
18, U.S.C., Section 1956, shown here:
"
1956. Laundering of Monetary Instruments
(a)
(1) Whoever, knowing that the property involved in a financial transaction represents the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, conducts or attempts to conduct such a financial transaction which in fact involves the proceeds of specified unlawful activity—
"
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As someone else pointed out, you quoted a section saying the proceeds have to come from unlawful activity. The funds can come from illegal activity or the source and destination hidden for illegal intent but you can't have money laundering without another crime.
Your definition is incorrect:
"Money laundering is the process by which funds from source A are made to appear as if they came from source B."
You omitted the fact that there must be illegal activity happening at some point aside from disguising the so
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"Considering that nobody forced them to locate a server in the US, I'm not sure whom they can reasonably blame other than themselves. It remains to be seen whether the allegations lead to any convictions, but the US certainly does have the right to try them for those felonies."
What a load of bollocks. Most people have no idea where their hosts server's are located, it's been pointed out many a time, that if you had broken Iranian law would you thus be happy to be extradited to Iran? If you signed up for a w
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Having servers widely distributed is key to any large web site performing well all over the world. Rather than worrying about where servers are we should only consider the location of the operator in potential civil and criminal matters. US servers could still be shut down for violating local law, but merely operating them should not make people in other countries guilty of a crime in the US.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this even a criminal case? Why not leave it to the civil courts. When the music industry was ripping off artists in Canada, all that happened was a settlement. No people were arrested and extradited.
Exactly.
In almost no other case does the US government get involved in protecting private property to the extent they rush in and protect the music and film industry. Have your patent ripped off, or your house broken into, they won't even listen to you. Its up to you to defend your patent at your own expense, and you can file a police report about the burglary, but you will likely never see your property again.
Why is the US government acting as a mob enforcer for the Media Giants?
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In almost no other case does the US government get involved in protecting private property to the extent they rush in and protect the music and film industry. Have your patent ripped off, or your house broken into, they won't even listen to you. Its up to you to defend your patent at your own expense, and you can file a police report about the burglary, but you will likely never see your property again.
Civics 101.
In the American federal system, almost all crimes are defined and prosecuted under state law.
Crimes with an interstate or foreign dimension and crimes with a federal Constitutional dimension tend to become a federal responsibility.
CHINESE NATIONAL PLEADS GUILTY TO ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE AND THEFT OF TRADE SECRETS [cybercrime.gov]
The federal government defends copyrights as a federally granted property right.
In a sense, all property can be defined as a set of rights and privileges the state is willing to defen
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Just because you have a customer (even a preferred customer) in a given country, doesn't mean you must be subject to that country's laws.
That's silly.
You can absolutely be prevented from doing business in that country, but you cannot be arrested for violating that country's laws if you do not commit crimes there
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It's not silly at all, they've been arrested for activities connected with operations in the US. Any criminal activities that they've allegedly committed with those servers represent criminal activities in the US.
It would be a completely different matter if the servers were all outside the US as they wouldn't have any control over the location of the people downloading from those servers.
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It's not silly at all, they've been arrested for activities connected with operations in the US. Any criminal activities that they've allegedly committed with those servers represent criminal activities in the US.
That's up to the New Zeeland courts to decide. If they rule that the alleged crime was committed in the country where the company is based (i.e New Zeeland), then the operators should be tried on New Zeeland under New Zeeland law.
It doesn't matter if American courts believe the alleged crime was committed in the USA. The extradition is tried by New Zeeland courts according to their interpretation of the extradition treaty.
I don't know the specifics of New Zeeland law, but in my country (Sweden), the crime i
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Exactly correct. It's funny that people always point out that The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites are hosted in Sweden and therefore it's Swedish law that applies to them, but now it's somehow different when they hosted in the US.
You're quite correct that US law applies to the servers which are situated in the US. If you want to raid or shut down those servers, it's US law that applies.
However, the person(s) operating the servers normally fall under the jurisdiction of their country of residence. Since the "person" in this case is a company, MegaUpload, based in New Zeeland, it's likely that the alleged crime will be considered to have taken place in New Zeeland, and New Zeeland law will apply.
Basing jurisdiction on where the server
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Informative)
MegaUpload is a Hong Kong company. One subsidiary (MegaStuff) is a New Zealand company.
And for the love of all that's holy can you learn to spell our country's name right.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Interesting)
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The point is that neither the servers NOR the operators were in the US and this didn't stop the US from hunting them down like dogs and finally bribing Swedish officials to get the job done.
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"Of course they would. How does that contradict also prosecuting people that do business with US companies and host their servers in the US?"
Other than completely contradicting the argument that legitimate jurisdiction belongs to the nation where the servers are located? Attempting to prosecute cases where the servers AREN'T located in the US is a direct contradiction to this argument.
It doesn't contradict their real intention of using any flimsy excuse as a thin mask for strong arming the nations and peopl
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who did MU piss of really.
As has been pointed out before:
I think what really happened is that UMG realized how powerful our message was, how potent it would become, and how positively it would affect Mega's image. From rogue to vogue. They decided to stop us at all costs, that becomes clear when you see the defense strategy of UMG in court. They have nothing and they don't even care.
UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations direct to consumers and allowing artists to keep 90% of earnings.
We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free. Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works. You can expect several Megabox announcements next year including exclusive deals with artists who are eager to depart from outdated business models.
Source [torrentfreak.com]
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But only if NZ actually extradites them. Please also note the DMCA is valid for the US only., the rest of the world (rightfully) wipe their asses with this piece of legal sh**.
Hah... you're silly because you think that the US seems to accept that their laws don't apply universally. Most of the US government seems to be of the attitude that if it's on the internets, then it's US jurisdiction.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:4, Insightful)
And most of the world's governments agree with them.
Oh... :( you made me sad.
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But only if NZ actually extradites them. Please also note the DMCA is valid for the US only., the rest of the world (rightfully) wipe their asses with this piece of legal sh**.
New Zealand has extradition treaties with the United States. So does most of the "rest of the world".
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:4, Insightful)
For all the nerd-rage it caused at the time, the DMCA was a remarkably balanced and far-sighted law. Some other nations have copied it, and others haven't, I don't know if NZ has such a law or not, but it doesn't matter much - the MegaUpload guys are also accused of plain old copyright infringement, which is certainly illegal under laws and treaties NZ has signed.
Oh, and they're also accused of money laundering, which again would be considered an extraditable crime. I don't personally pay much attention to accusations of money laundering because those laws are extremely vague, poorly thought out and there's no distinction between actually hiding the sources of illegally gained funds and simply failing to follow the byzantine regulations intended to make value flows trackable - they are both considered "money laundering", although plenty of innocent people with no criminal intentions can fall foul of the latter. As a result convictions purely for ML and nothing else are very rare and have often been overturned by courts. That's one reason it usually comes attached to accusations of other crimes.
Re: the DMCA. Like I said, in hindsight I think it's actually worked out very well for the net. The lightweight framework of copyright enforcement it created kept huge workloads away from the courts without creating unworkable levels of abuse (there is some, but there's abuse of the regular legal system too). It has made copyright enforcement available to the little guy, again without huge legal fees. It has protected sites like YouTube and search engines. And whilst measures like making circumvention systems illegal caused a lot of fuss, their impact was trivial - last time I checked this part of the law has neither prevented circumvention software being readily available nor wiped out Linux. In fact its impact on both sides of the copyright fights have been negligible.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Informative)
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The part of the DCMA that you mention is not the part that I object to - it is the lack of ability to crack encryption that gets folks around here riled up.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:4, Interesting)
The only flaw with the DMCA is the ability for the content owners to use infringement notices with impunity. There needs to be a provision to allow content sites such as YouTube to start ignoring abusive notices.
The simple fact that a DMCA notice is submitted automatically causes content to be removed immediately and subject to lengthy proceedings regarding the rights of that content.
Various members of the RIAA have been notorious in submitting DMCA takedown letters for content that is very clearly covered by things such as fair use and sometimes even for content they don't even remotely have the rights to. But the creative individuals creating these parodies, or even original material, have limited recourse and the recourse they do have is time-consuming, difficult and sometimes expensive, not to mention it destroys their business (if the content is related to a business).
There is little argument for a business conglomerate having the power to shut down smaller competitors for a short period by simply writing a letter.... and for there to be no recourse for these smaller competitors from it happening repeatedly other than lengthy legal arguments and possibly litigation. That's absurd and anti-competitive.
But the remainder of the DMCA... yes, not bad, not great, but not bad.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:4, Interesting)
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Who are you going to jail? Do you pierce the corporate veil and order the person that signed off on it? They'll just point to their boss who ordered them to do it or they'd be fired. If you say they shouldn't have complied, there's 10,000 people waiting just outside the building to fill in their position when they get fired. If you go for the boss they'll point to their boss, right up to the CEO who simply gave the vague order to profit.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll just point to their boss who ordered them to do it or they'd be fired.
If they can prove the boss did that then the boss did so he should be jailed too.
If you say they shouldn't have complied, there's 10,000 people waiting just outside the building to fill in their position when they get fired
Will there be that many people waiting just outside the building to file bogus DMCA notices after a few people are in jail for doing so?
Yeah it sucks for the peons who are put in between a rock and a hard place but ultimately to stop psychopaths (and there will always be a certain portion of psychopaths in society) doing something it it necessary to make the punishment for doing it outweigh the benefit of doing it. That applies whether it's filing bogus DMCA notices or fitting dodgy parts to aeroplanes.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Funny)
In the beginning was the plan, and then the specification.
And the plan was without form, and the specification was void.
And darkness was upon the faces of the programmers.
And they spake unto their project leader, saying:
"IT IS A CROCK OF SHIT, AND IT STINKETH."
And the project leader went to the manager, and he spake unto him saying:
"IT IS A CONTAINER OF EXCREMENT AND IT IS VERY STRONG,
SUCH THAT NONE MAY ABIDE BEFORE IT."
And the manager went unto the Director, and he spake unto him saying:
"IT IS A VESSEL OF FERTILIZER, AND NONE MAY ABIDE ITS STRENGTH."
And the director went unto the vice president, and he spake unto him saying:
"IT CONTAINS THAT WHICH AIDS PLANT GROWTH AND IT IS VERY STRONG."
And the vice president went unto the president, and he spake unto him saying:
"IT PROMOTETH GROWTH, AND IT IS VERY POWERFUL."
And the president went unto the board of directors,
and he spake unto them saying:
"THIS POWERFUL NEW PRODUCT WILL PROMOTE THE GROWTH OF THE COMPANY."
And the corporate board of directors looked upon the product,
and saw that it was good!
(courtesy of some random *nix fortune file, somewhere, that I remember from long, long ago.)
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Insightful)
This SOPA thing must be really awful if it's making people say the DMCA is good!
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Insightful)
The lightweight framework of copyright enforcement it created kept huge workloads away from the courts without creating unworkable levels of abuse
Lightweight framework of enforcement? You mean like having the entire DOJ work for the media giants leaning on every country in the world to violate their own laws and arrest people and surrender them to US authorities?
No unworkable levels of abuse? You mean like millions of take down notices filed every day against thing that have no pirated content what so ever, beyond simply mentioning a word in the title?
Tell me, what hole have you had your head in for the last 5 years?
They will come gift wraped. (Score:2)
NZ won't have any problem extraditing them.
General piracy and making a profit of it are two very different things here.
Combined with the fact dotcom was let in despite his criminal convictions making the government look bad.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1201/S00059/peters-calls-for-dotcom-immigration-inquiry.htm [scoop.co.nz]
We might have been sympathetic if he was making a small profit off file sharing but its a more than that and its little embarrassing hes in the country.
Re:its not a piece of legal shit (Score:4, Insightful)
the only people who complain about the 'draconian DMCA' are fucktards who never actually create or build anything themselves.
Actually, they usually are objecting to the criminalization of hacking encryption schemes.... that is the part that gives the whole law a "piece of legal shit" rap.
which has absolutely 0 to do with megaupload, (Score:5, Informative)
or with pirate bay, or with any of these other sites.
beyond that, when Geohotz and failoverflow got attacked by Sony for jailbreaking the PS3, he was accsed of the following:
Violating the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. 1201)
Violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2)(c))
Contributory copyright infringement (17 U.S.C. 501)
Violating California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act ( 502)
Breach of Contract (related to the PlayStation Network User Agreement)
Tortious interference
Misappropriation
Trespass
----
the Computer Fraud and Abuse act is far worse - its what they are using against Bradley Manning, its what they used against Thomas Drake, its basically criminalizing 'anything we dont like, when done on a computer'.
but since it has almost nothing to do with some 25 year old man-childs ability to download free copies of Transformers 8, the moronic fat assholes of the warez-o-sphere dont give a shit about it, and they wouldnt dream of writing endless tirades against the CFAA or its provisions.
Re:its not a piece of legal shit (Score:5, Informative)
This is not true. The DMCA has a few flaws.
As I posted previously..
The simple fact that a DMCA notice is submitted automatically causes content to be removed immediately and subject to lengthy proceedings regarding the rights of that content.
Various members of the RIAA have been notorious in submitting DMCA takedown letters for content that is very clearly covered by things such as fair use and sometimes even for content they don't even remotely have the rights to. But the creative individuals creating these parodies, or even original material, have limited recourse and the recourse they do have is time-consuming, difficult and sometimes expensive, not to mention it destroys their business (if the content is related to a business).
There is little argument for a business conglomerate having the power to shut down smaller competitors for a short period by simply writing a letter.... and for there to be no recourse for these smaller competitors from it happening repeatedly other than lengthy legal arguments and possibly litigation. That's absurd and anti-competitive.
But the remainder of the DMCA... well, it's not terrible, but I'm not sure it accomplishes a ton either. Going after kids on YouTube seems to be the greatest use of it and repeated studies have shown it doesn't help (and may hurt) their business model and revenues.
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only did MegaUpload not delete the actual files when sent DMCA notices (but did when sent abuse letters about illegal content like child porn)
This is not necessary. If you read the DMCA it is enough to simply remove *access* to the content.
This was almost all the times used for spreading copyright infringing material and MegaUpload was notoriously known for being good site for such use.
The Internet is notoriously known for being a good method of transporting such material. What is your point? I've used megaupload many times over the years but never to download movies or cracked software.
As the internal emails show they were also fully aware of this fact.
This is problematic...
not only did MegaUpload staff know about this activity and try to get around DMCA notices and laws, they did copyright infringement themselves
Very problematic...
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Insightful)
When they got a complaint about the file, they only removed the URI in the complaint, when they knew or reasonably could have known they were still making the same content available on another part of their site.
Child pornography is illegal, in the sense that nobody is legally allowed to have it or distribute it. Copyrighted material, on the other hand, isn't inherently illegal. Just because one person is not legally allowed to distribute a copy doesn't mean that nobody else is. Nor is this hypothetical, given the number of musicians who are noting that they distribute their own work via Megaupload.
That's not to say that those who ran Megaupload didn't deliberately bend and/or break the law. Just that this, taken by itself, is arguably neither illegal nor morally wrong.
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Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Informative)
RE the removal of the file.
Mega upload used a hashing function so if a file was uploaded 5 times, they only stored it once. When CP was flagged the file is removed because CP is always CP. Copyright however is only a violation when the person uploading it does not have authority to do this. EG if I make a song and upload it, and you upload it too. Then I can send a DMCA to take down your upload, with the expectation that mine will be the only one there.
Here is the kicker, we aren't talking about hypothetical or edge cases here. Artists were uploading their own tracks since they would get 90c in the dollar of the advertising revenue: http://rapfix.mtv.com/2012/01/20/swizz-beatz-megaupload-case-diddy-busta-rhymes-tweet-support/
If you want to know why big media hated megaupload so much re read that link. Artists were by-passing their publishers. Add to that the announcement of licensed media streaming and purchases being available on megaupload from February, and you can see why action had to be be done swiftly before hand.
Cheers
Kactus
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r.
On or about February 5, 2007, VAN DER KOLK sent an e-mail to ORTMANN entitled âoereward paymentsâ. Attached to the e-mail was a text file listing thefollowing proposed reward amounts, the Megaupload.com username, and the contentthey uploaded:
100 USD [USERNAME DELETED] 10+ Full popular DVD rips (split files), a fewsmall porn movies, some software with keygenerators (warez)
100 USD [USERNAME DELETED] 5845 files in his account, mainly Vietnamesecontent
100 USD [USERNAME DELETED] Popular DVD rips
100 USD [USERNAME DELETED] Some older DVD rips + unknown (Italianserries?) rar files
1500 USD [USERNAME DELETED] known paid user (vietnamese content)
On or about February 21, 2007, VAN DER KOLK sent an e-mail toORTMANN entitled âoe2 reward payment files.â Attached to the e-mail was a file containingMegaupload.com usersâ(TM) e-mail addresses and reward payments for that time period, whichranged from $100 to $500. For one user that was paid $300, VAN DER KOLK wrote, âoe30849files, mainly Mp3z, some copyrighted but most of them have a very small number of downloadsper file.â For other users, all of which were selected for reward payments of $100 by the MegaConspiracy, he wrote the following: âoeOur old famous number one on MU, still some illegal files but I think he deserves a paymentâ; âoeLoads of PDF files (looks like scanned magazines)â; âoelookslike vietnamese DVD ripsâ; âoeThis user was paid last time has mainly split RAR files, howevermore than 50% deleted through abuse reports.â
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:5, Informative)
First, let's not confuse the recent raid with MegaUploads lawsuit against Universal. Universal took down MegaUpload's advertising video from YouTube by abusing YouTube's system for DMCA takedows. When faced with the fact that MegaUpload's ad contained no infringing material, Universal turned around and denied that it was a DMCA takedown. Clearly, Universal does not want to take responsibility for its actions.
Second, MegaUpload is right to keep the actual files when being sent DMCA takedown notices, since some of the copies may belong to non-infringing users. In many countries, it's legal to download and share media files for private use. Contrary to what the American media corporations want us to believe, American law does not decide what a Swedish user can do when they upload files to a Dutch server owned by a New Zeeland company. Their greedy corporations have no right to delete my perfectly legal files, just because an American user happened to upload the same files illegally.
Third, the internal e-mails mentioned in the news so far only prove that MegaUpload knew about the existence of infringing material on their servers. They cooperated fully with the media corporations to delete the infringing links as they were made aware of them (while keeping he non-infringing links, as they should).
Re:Not Surprise for MegaUpload (Score:4, Insightful)
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The first part of that is actually reasonable behavior.
First, you're talking about content that is probably de-duplicated, and deleting the actual content (as opposed to the reference to it) would make legal uploads of that same content go away. Remember, it's invariably legal to m
Extortion by UMG? (Score:2)
It wouldn't be surprising for that be the case.
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And justice for all. (Score:2)
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has to make you wonder who Universal has in their pocket to make that happen
Hollywood was and still is the most powerful propaganda weapon that the US government has at its disposal. What makes you think they can make their voice herd only by paying money?
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Filesonic next in line? (Score:2, Informative)
Message from their site:
"All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.
If this file belongs to you, please login to download it directly from your file manager."
Raided or just scared?
A link in the article (Score:5, Informative)
A link in this article goes to a rather thoughtful discussion of the MegaUpload indictment [techdirt.com]. To tell it short, although the indictment sounds bad, almost none of the alleged activities are in fact illegal. The few that are require "state of mind" which is a rather difficult thing to prove, and harder to get a jury to convict on.
Since in America we have trial by jury, if it goes to court it seems unlikely there will be able to find a jury willing to convict.
Together that seems to make the whole thing very scary.
Re:A link in the article (Score:5, Interesting)
Since in America we have trial by jury, if it goes to court it seems unlikely there will be able to find a jury willing to convict.
Ahhahahahhaaha... when you've got juries willing to convict people to $1.5-2 million in damages [wikipedia.org] for sharing 24 files as a plain normal P2P user, then the Megaupload guys will be lucky to not see the death penalty.
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Re:A link in the article (Score:5, Insightful)
If politicians weren't corrupt media cartel cronies this would be a civil case as well.
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Not in US custody (Score:5, Informative)
Let the vilification begin.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Te MegaUpload take down, not quite carefully timed to give Congress some balls regarding SOPA, is likely to become a circus act of the most grandiose proportions.
Not only did the Feds seize a foreign company, but they did so in the face of several SCOTUS decisions that held harmless the operators of sites that might contain user uploaded content which might violate copyright, in addition to billions of files that did no such thing.
With the government forced withdrawal of Megaupload's attorney Robert Bennett [nationalpost.com], citing rather insincere claims of conflict of interest, and the Justice department seizing a Foreign company [npr.org] this is far from the normal pattern for these cases. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Chinese government step into the fray any day now.
When the dust clears on this battle there will be some major revelations about how much pressure the DOJ used all over the world to affect this arrest and take down. Eight countries, big and small like New Zealand were leaned on to act, for largely theatrical effect as SOPA goes down to public pressure. The timing couldn't be accidental. But the DOJ miss timed it by three days, and their case is far from certain.
I predict this will drag out for a long time.
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Wow, you folks sure see conspiracy where there is none. The timing was actually quite perfect - the same time as Kim was having a birthday party which resulted in nearly the entirety of his executive team being in one place! Nothing to do with SOPA or any of that shit (especially since the DoJ doesn't pick the raid time, the New Zealand Police do).
There is no conspiracy (Score:2)
Megaupload is dead! Long live Megaupload! (Score:2)
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That man symbolizes dot.com bubble profiteering like no other fraudster.
Not to ripoff your download client software without changing the about box which still contains the name of the original company that developed it.
Not to have a "premium service".
Not to buy a huge villa with money that came from god knows where. (hence the money laundering allegations)
Megaupload was the fat kid that didn't only piss into the pool but also shat into it.
The real bummer
F*ck with American Corporations (Score:3, Insightful)
... And the American governments Fs you in the A.
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Kim Schmitz goes down and we should be glad for it (Score:4, Informative)
Kim Schmitz is a German serial fraudster and wouldn't be allowed to open a business in Germany again. The "millions of damages" are a stately home in NZ with a ton of expensive cars, a golf course and of course Schmitz' globulous ego. This is not the fight you want to fight. If that scumbag gets sent back to prison then that's good. He knows the drill. He'll feel right at home. Only this time he will not get probation and a 100000 Euro fine for making 1.5 mil in fraud.
He's been convicted for a pump&dump racket involving his company Kimvestor and letsbuyit.com. Made a cool 1.5 mil on that. Then there was that thing with monkey.com. And with Megaupload there was that Mega Manager that was a ripoff of some other software(forgot the name), the "premium service" and other highly shady things he did from his golf-course attached villa in NZ that he wasn't allowed to purchase himself because he didn't pass a most basic character test.
there was that Mega Upload song thing that was unjustified. Copyright law still needs reform. There is the problem of US caliming jurisdiction in NZ, but frankly NZ gladly handed him over since he shouldn't have been there in the first place.
no it isnt enough. (Score:5, Insightful)
Schmitz' globulous ego
i prefer schmitz's globulous ego. because, schmitz's globulous ego is not buying laws to restrain MY freedoms for HIS profit. schmitz can queue up to 100 mercedes, bmws if he wants to. as long as he doesnt interfere with my freedoms for the sake of his own profit.
i doubt it. (Score:3)
legions of bastards are holding office in congress. one former bastard is just in the heat now for telling other bastards to do their masters' bidding. everyone's hands in everyone's pockets. and these are all legal.
maybe the understanding we need to shatter about this, is the one that makes people believe that what the real bastards are doing, are acceptable.
Raid is because of the lawsuit (Score:4, Interesting)
Am I the only person who thinks that mega got raided because of the lawsuit they have against universal? While we will never know, it did seem like they had a good case against them.
but it doesn't matter now, because they (Mega) will probably never recover even if they were to win this case.
What about innocent users? (Score:5, Interesting)
As PJ, at Groklaw asked: what about innocent folks who have placed their files on the service? Who restores their property to them when the entire site goes down? They have property rights too, which are not currently being addressed, that I've seen.
Re:Not Censorship! (Score:4, Informative)
I love how slashdot chose to classify this megaupload story as "censorship". How about putting this in the piracy section?
Because the original legal case was about censorship. That megauploads was also engaged in piracy and such is besides the point. UMG used YouTubes tools to take down a video supporting megauploads without proper due process or anything like that. It was totally about "censorship" (in the wider notion beyond just governments chilling free speech).
Re:Not Censorship! (Score:5, Insightful)
Only in the eyes of misguided fucktards like yourself Princess. The original legal case was about illegal use of the DMCA to take down material. It had nothing to do with "censorship" nor "free speech", despite what you and the tinfoil hat brigade may like to think. Why don't you leave the legal and technical discussions to the men who know what they are talking about instead of getting your pretty little head confused about such basic concepts?
BTW, shouldn't you be in the kitchen baking?
Oh see, it's funny, because it's intentionally sexist. Now, ignoring all the sexist bullshit, because it's just not worth getting into, because it's a total tangent to the real issues at matter...
Illegal use of the DMCA is considered a form of censorship in colloquial speech. I noted in my post that it wasn't about "pure" censorship, which is a government making specific speech illegal. However, it is colloquial censorship in that it is someone blocking access to someone else's content with or without legal authority.
Also, the original filing of the suit commented that it were an abuse of the DMCA, but Universal Music Group the original defendant in the case, pointed out that not only were they not actually responsible for the offending action, (it was UMG which is a subsidiary company of Universal Music Group, but not jointly-liable) but as well, it wasn't even an abuse of the DMCA, as UMG was making use of the tools that they were granted access to by contract with YouTube, that allowed UMG to bypass even the DMCA process. Thus, the whole situation was chalked up to, "YouTube granted UMG that access, and the only injured party in this abuse of tools provided was YouTube, and thus MegaUpload has no valid standing to file suit in the first place in a breach of contract between UMG and YouTube."
But getting back to the point, colloquially "censorship" is used by the general public, and in this case the slashdot categories to refer to anything where a non-first-party effects the removal of speech of another person without their consent. But you know, enforcing legal definitions of words on an informal forum such as slashdot seems like a way much better idea than using the same jargon, dialect and register as the audience of that forum.
You are ignorant. (Score:5, Insightful)
Megaupload paid to create a video promoting/defending their site and posted it on YouTube. Universal Music (who had no legal claim to the video) abused the take-down agreement they had with Google (and possibly the DMCA) to pull this video off of YouTube simply because they didn't like it. That is a cut-and-dry case of censorship if I have ever heard it.
If the information in the indictment is true then Megaupload is guilty of copyright infringement and should be held accountable for it. However, Universal Music should also be held accountable for their abuses of the law.
Yes it is (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it isn't a first amendment violation, but it is censorship. The word and concept has never been limited to the government. Universal Studios used their power to censor what Megaupload had to say, and anytime those with power use it to silence other it is a big problem, not just when the government does so.
Re:You are ignorant. (Score:5, Insightful)
Censor [reference.com]
an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds.
I don't understand why you libertard types can't understand that not only government can violate civil rights. Corporations do it on a daily basis and we have essentially zero recourse against them in most cases, especially when a cartel or monopoly decides to violate them (like ISPs). Yet, you go around saying things like "the government didn't, as a matter of policy because of the content, take down the video," which not only missed the definition of censorship, but totally absolves private organizations of violating your rights. We are increasingly corporatist because of this bullshit line of thinking.