MegaUpload shut down by US government, four execs arrested

Matthew DeCarlo

Matthew DeCarlo

Posts: 5,271   +104
Staff

The US government has shut down one of the world's largest filesharing destinations, calling the service an "international organized criminal enterprise allegedly responsible for massive worldwide online piracy." In cooperation with the United States, New Zealand arrested four MegaUpload executives including founder Kim Dotcom today, while authorities are pursuing three other site operators.

The charges stand "among the largest criminal copyright cases investigations ever brought by the [US]" and investigations are underway in the Netherlands, Philippines, UK, Hong Kong, Germany, and Canada. The DOJ issued over 20 search warrants in the US and eight other countries, seizing more than $50 million in assets, including a luxury car collection as well as 18 MegaUpload-related domains.

The filing says Dotcom and his associates are responsible for $175 million in criminal proceeds (I.e. income via subscription fees and advertising) on top of costing copyright owners more than $500 million in lost revenue. Ironically, TorrentFreak notes that only a few weeks ago, Dotcom boasted that his ventures had nothing to worry about (legally speaking) because they complied with the law.

Dotcom, his workers, MegaUpload Limited and Vestor Limited (another firm associated with Dotcom) are charged with two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement, engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, as well as conspiring to commit copyright infringement and money laundering. If convicted, they could face 50+ years in prison for the combined charges (TorrentFreak offers a breakdown).

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/47113-megaupload-shut-down-by-us-government-four-execs-arrested.html

 
SNGX1275 said:
Who needs SOPA/PIPA when this can happen already?
Click to expand...

Yea, because we should have the right to get movies, tv shows, and games illegally.

RIP Ice Films. It was a fun ride while it lasted.
 
T.T NO MORE ICEFILMS T.T
Anyways, the evidence can be found in this indictment:
scribd.com/doc/78786408/Mega-Indictment
(assuming this comment nor the indictment gets taken down)
 
Not sure why you'd think your comment would be deleted lalaman. Thanks for sharing. I was going to include a few DOJ links but they either yanked the pages or their site can't handle the current load. Hopefully Scribd's entry stays up.
 
hahahanoobs said:
chazz said:
Holy ****. That's some very serious claims, I wonder what type of evidence they have.
Click to expand...

The type of evidence that gets you arrested and your website shut down.
Click to expand...

Yes, exactly. It seems like something more sinister than I could've imagined was going down. Hence, I wonder what evidence they have.
 
What is the difference between megaupload and Amazon Cloud drive? One didn't give campaign contributions last year and the other did. Otherwise they are the same, providing sort of a digital locker.

P.S. If the exec's are found guilty then we can kiss the "cloud" industry good bye.
 
****. This is starting to get really serious and out of hand. What the hell is gonna happen to the rest of the pirating site i.e piratebay, isohunt, etc.
 
hahahanoobs said:
SNGX1275 said:
Who needs SOPA/PIPA when this can happen already?
Click to expand...

Yea, because we should have the right to get movies, tv shows, and games illegally.

RIP Ice Films. It was a fun ride while it lasted.
Click to expand...
The point SNGX1275 was making was they didn't need SOPA/PIPA to stop this site.
 
Guest said:
****. This is starting to get really serious and out of hand. What the hell is gonna happen to the rest of the pirating site i.e piratebay, isohunt, etc.
Click to expand...

Wave goodbye to them.

If SOPA/PIPA passes, even mentioning them on some sites would see them swiped offline. That is the problem, where do you draw the line?

Is linking illegal content hosted on another server an offence that warrants the shut-down of that site and treatment identical to the server that hosted it to begin with?

Its a very fine line. Though in this case I would imagine considerable evidence has been collected that justifies the warrants and seizures that have taken place. Time will no doubt tell though.

SOPA/PIPA will make existing legal steps even shorter, and the wielded power greater. Yes it was taken down without SOPA, but having that tool in the legal arsenal would make the process even faster and more damaging.
 
Unlike SOPA they at least had a ton of actual evidence to support their case. ^_^ I've read the indictment and here's the result: "They are in MEGA DEEP ****!"
 
inventix1136 said:
What is the difference between megaupload and Amazon Cloud drive? One didn't give campaign contributions last year and the other did. Otherwise they are the same, providing sort of a digital locker.

P.S. If the exec's are found guilty then we can kiss the "cloud" industry good bye.
Click to expand...

I think you are confusing just what the "cloud" is. You store your files, personal information, run your programs from "the cloud." You know, things you actually have paid for, are legally licensed to use, etc. At the worst, you are storing illegal stuff in the cloud, but that's storing. As in personal. Private use, with the ability to share or collaborate some content (provided it does not break the terms of the agreement you entered into when establishing your cloud account).

If you think for a second that this accurately describes Megaupload's operational model, I think you missed some key points in how they worked.

The cloud industry is safe. Violators of cloud policies on copyrighted materials will not be. And with the cloud, it's not as anonymous as P2P or other forms of sharing.
 
freedomthinker said:
Holy crap. Happy day ! Taking down websites for no good apparent reason ! US government is amazing , no'?
Click to expand...

Riiiiiiight... Cause, you know, there were no other governments involved in this at all. Well, except for New Zealand, who must have agreed with the charges enough to back and assist in the seizure and arrests... Oh, and the Netherlands, Philippines, UK, Hong Kong, Germany, and Canada, who are all investigating the same group for the same illegal activities... Oh, but by all means, make it out to be the US doing stuff "for no good reason."
 
Rapidshare is bigger than Megaupload. These websites and bussiness are covered. They don't out front encourage corighted material to be uploaded and even take down links when requested by the owners or companies. MU must have been involved in other illegal activities to be taken down like this. Of course, it is been twisted so that it seems like their regular business model is illegal( which is not)so that it scares users off from websites like these. (Fileserve, Rapidshare, Filesonic, etc, ect , etc).
 
What I find funny is they probably think that this will have an impact on the pirating community.

Sure a couple of pirates will get upset because they paid for a subscription and others because their links are now dead.

But Uploaders will be notified, find another Hosting Site and upload there.
Even if you take down all the obviously guilty Content Providers Uploaders will just start making accounts from Content Providers like Amazon S3, Dropbox, Box.net etc... And failing that there is still Torrenting.

I can understand the importance of standing up against Piracy but Megaupload is one out of a huge array of similar sites.

Megaupload has been up for a very long time and just imagine the effort they put in to co-ordinate with countries, Investigate and collect evidence. All this effort to take out one site out of hundreds is the wrong way to go.

Personally I think providing a better service than the pirates will be more effective than what they are doing now.
 
Vrmithrax said:
inventix1136 said:
What is the difference between megaupload and Amazon Cloud drive? One didn't give campaign contributions last year and the other did. Otherwise they are the same, providing sort of a digital locker.

P.S. If the exec's are found guilty then we can kiss the "cloud" industry good bye.
Click to expand...

I think you are confusing just what the "cloud" is. You store your files, personal information, run your programs from "the cloud." You know, things you actually have paid for, are legally licensed to use, etc. At the worst, you are storing illegal stuff in the cloud, but that's storing.

...

The cloud industry is safe. Violators of cloud policies on copyrighted materials will not be. And with the cloud, it's not as anonymous as P2P or other forms of sharing.
Click to expand...

Trust me, all it takes is ONE file in the cloud that is in violation and that is it. If they can sue and terminate websites like piratebay, which is only storing LINKS to content but not the actual content, then actually STORING the content would be much worse -- regardless of the cloud policy or what the cloud user did.
 
Terribl

Holy crap. You know what?
The major leaders are citizens of Germany and Finland, they live in New Zealand, but they are captured just because they violate the US laws.
This nation is becoming a terrorist now.
 
Time to get rid of the US Gov by force. They won't listen to the people and do what the people want, then the people will destroy them. This IS the American Way!!
 
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