Megaupload charged with piracy, shut down
The New York Times reports that the indictment accuses the company of costing over $500 million in lost revenue due to pirated films, TV shows, music and other content.
Strangely, the timing of the takedown comes after websites across the internet, such as Wikipedia and Reddit went down for up to 24 hours in protest of SOPA/PIPA, which would endanger the internet. It appears the timing is just a coincedence, however, it's concerning that the feds don't even need SOPA to make a move like this. The site is run out of Hong Kong but hosted in part in Ashburn, VA where the indictment was made.
Megaupload founder and operator -- Kim Dotcom (formerly Kim Schmitz) -- was arrested along with three others in New Zealand on Thursday at the request of US officials. A total of seven were arrested globally, and their charges include conspiracy to commit racketeering and criminal copyright infringement for running the "the Mega conspiracy websites" according to the DOJ.
Dotcom is no stranger to the wrong side of the law, previously being convicted for credit card fraud, hacking, insider trading and embezzlement.
Just before the site was taken down today, it posted a statement on its homepage saying that claims they facilitated copyright infringement were "grotesquely overblown" and went on to say "The fact is that the vast majority of Mega’s Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay. If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch."
The move will provoke mixed emotions amongst users of the service, many used it to host legitmate files, such as images for smartphones over on XDA-developers. With the service gone, a lot of this work has been lost, and users who paid for the service are already up in arms over the news. Reports suggest that at the time of its take down, the site was the thirteenth most popular file sharing website.
Posted:
Source: http://www.neowin.net/news/megaupload-charged-with-piracy-shut-down
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Comments
Come_Touch_MePosted:
soaffb1337 Weird how copyright laws in the USA are somehow exempt from the sixth amendment. In any other case they would have to convict them in a speedy trial by jury...they couldn't shut it down based on the fact they have infringing materials hosted on the site, that has to be decided in the trial(i.e. innocent until proven guilty).
The FBI had to obtain a court order prior to shutting it down. Not that it even means anything, though. How hard would it be to convince a judge of piracy.
soaffb1337Posted:
Weird how copyright laws in the USA are somehow exempt from the sixth amendment. In any other case they would have to convict them in a speedy trial by jury...they couldn't shut it down based on the fact they have infringing materials hosted on the site, that has to be decided in the trial(i.e. innocent until proven guilty).
ImHumbledPosted:
I agree with this move, but I dont like it. The only reason I went on MU was to download movies and Im guessing its about the same for at least 1/4 of the other visitors. I agree with it because that is one of the main file sharing sites used by uploaders for illegal content. I dislike it because I had a subscription to the MU Premium
Billy431Posted:
Hmmm, the US government can shutdown a site that people use worldwide without SOPA....... I'm scared.
____Posted:
lisinski269____ I think I may want to kill myself right now.
thats sad
I guess you cannot tell a joke from reality.
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