Megaupload down

[jirisys]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16642369

Megaupload, Megavideo and Megaporn shut down. (Though I only used the first )

The founders are charged with racketeering and money laundering. (according the article in spanish, http://www.eleconomista.es/empresas-...el-mundo-.html)

It's complete chaos. Hordes of people on the streets protesting. Molotov grenades are being thrown. Cars set on fire.

Also, I didn't know FBI agents had any jurisdiction on NZ, or any country outside the US, for that matter.

~Jirisys ()

[Montmorency]

The charges included copyright infringement, conspiracies to commit racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering.

Heh, was that intentional?

[Hooahguy]

This truly sucks. Though I didnt even know the third existed.

[jirisys]

This truly sucks. Though I didnt even know the third existed.

Me neither. Sucks that I won't be able to "experience" it's existence.

Heh, was that intentional?

It seems.

~Jirisys.

[drone]

I saw this earlier, the first thing that ran through my head was: "Don't some people put TW mods/tools on Megaupload?"

[Lemur]

I've never used any of those sites, so I've got only the foggiest notion of what the heck they are. I am surmising, based on my incredible brain powers (which border on spookiness), that they involve uploading and video and porn. No, this is not magic, this is just the infinite powers of my mind.

[Husar]

This is the owner.

So uhm, while this probably hurts some of you a bit, it may be a good thing because it was owned by a huge fraudster who just wants to get rich no matter what it takes to get there.

I'm sure most people knew this and neither did I, but he owned a lot/all of these "Megaxxxx" sites and probably didn't mind whether their content was legal at all.

[jirisys]

This is the owner.

So uhm, while this probably hurts some of you a bit, it may be a good thing because it was owned by a huge fraudster who just wants to get rich no matter what it takes to get there.

He basically made a whole lot of useful (yet, annoying until you pay) sites to get rich, like any other internet businessman. I didn't really like the site to download/upload, but I can't say it wasn't useful at all. It's similar to any webhost that charges payment for a decent service. Except he was loose with the piracy thing.

And yes, many TW modders will have an extreme headache with this. And not just them. But regular users who share their (legal, for moralist) stuff.

I'm sure most people knew this and neither did I, but he owned a lot/all of these "Megaxxxx" sites and probably didn't mind whether their content was legal at all.

I don't really mind if it was pirated content, I'm more concerned with the alleged racketeering and money laundering. Hell, you can find non-Vevo songs that are copyrighted on youtube.

Also, it seems anonymous is attacking whole US entertainment/government websites in either, a response to this, or SOPA/PIPA (websites down: MPAA.org, copyright.gov, justice.gov, riaa.com)

~Jirisys ()

[Moros]

Twitter accounts associated with Anon clearly state the Fed's taking down Megavideo and associated sites was the cause. Justice.gov was targeted as the department of justice released a press explanation on the taking down of the afore mentioned sites for one.

Wasn't the least bit surprised. I was actually surprised there hadn't been attacks yesterday.

[jirisys]

fbi.gov down. Prepare your internet guns.

~Jirisys ()

[Crazed Rabbit]

Also, I didn't know FBI agents had any jurisdiction on NZ, or any country outside the US, for that matter.

~Jirisys ()

We're the USA. We have jurisdiction wherever the corporations paying to politician's campaign funds demand we have jurisdiction.

This site was taken down without due process and people arrested on the other side of the globe without SOPA at that.

CR

[The Stranger]

damn... where should i get my pr0n now??? anyone suggestions? :O i might have to climb into my gf's bed again now... how embarrasing..

[Husar]

He basically made a whole lot of useful (yet, annoying until you pay) sites to get rich, like any other internet businessman. I didn't really like the site to download/upload, but I can't say it wasn't useful at all. It's similar to any webhost that charges payment for a decent service. Except he was loose with the piracy thing.

Selling your soul to the devil is also useful!!!!

The more money he gets, the more power he gets over us.
And people obviously made themselves dependant on him.
Plus he's not the type of man I'd want to have any sort of power.

The making themselves dependant on a criminal bites people in the butt now as well, but as I said I had no idea who owned the service(and didn't really use it either), may not hurt to check that sort of thing in the future.

I also suppose you don't take a paycheck for your work as you seem to believe that the fruits of anyone's labour should be enjoyed by everyone for free?

And CR, that's the responsibility you bear for being the world police.

[naut]

We're the USA. We have jurisdiction wherever the corporations paying to politician's campaign funds demand we have jurisdiction.

This site was taken down without due process and people arrested on the other side of the globe without SOPA at that.

CR

Without due process is the scary part.

It's also back up at a new IP.

[rajpoot]

This is what the Mayans were talking about.
The world will end due to a war fought for Internet rights.
POPA and SIPA are just the beginning.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Selling your soul to the devil is also useful!!!!

The more money he gets, the more power he gets over us.
And people obviously made themselves dependant on him.
Plus he's not the type of man I'd want to have any sort of power.

The making themselves dependant on a criminal bites people in the butt now as well, but as I said I had no idea who owned the service(and didn't really use it either), may not hurt to check that sort of thing in the future.

I also suppose you don't take a paycheck for your work as you seem to believe that the fruits of anyone's labour should be enjoyed by everyone for free?

And CR, that's the responsibility you bear for being the world police.

I don't believe that uploading of TV actually harms the industry, it's mostly US shows uploaded so everyone else can watch them 24 hours later, people will still then watch the show when it comes to their country. How do you think GLEE went viral straight after the pilot and became a sensation? Because online pirate sites said, "w think this is awsome".

Films, on the other hand, I do think pirated copies of those probably do hurt the industry, but stupid ticket prices hurt it more.

Looking at this case, my first response was, "racketeering, why?" but after reading your link maybe it is true. Even so, the charge seems suspect, because both Megavideo and "pirate tv" sites, which are now pretty mainstream, use advertising as their primary revenue suplemented by memberships, so I don't see the benefit in Megavideo paying sites to upload there when those sites will anyway unless Kim has patsies who upload illegal material and then link it to the "third party" sites, so he's basically laundering illegal content. That seems like a lot of effort for what has become a fairly organic process though.

The key will be to see if pirated tv episodes dry up on other hosting sites as well.

[Husar]

I don't believe that uploading of TV actually harms the industry, it's mostly US shows uploaded so everyone else can watch them 24 hours later, people will still then watch the show when it comes to their country. How do you think GLEE went viral straight after the pilot and became a sensation? Because online pirate sites said, "w think this is awsome".

Films, on the other hand, I do think pirated copies of those probably do hurt the industry, but stupid ticket prices hurt it more.

I don't think it's a bad idea for companies to make some content available for free to draw in new customers, I hesitate to buy games I never played a demo of myself.
And making things more international in business instead of constantly shutting other countries out is not helping either, I even found a song that I simply wasn't allowed to buy as a german, no link to german shops and amazon.co.uk's digital download store told me I can't buy it because of my location... That's silly, they don't even want my money.

What I don't think however, is that people should use other peoples' work for free all the time just so they can spend more money on booze and other things that are harder to copy/steal.

And concerning the machinations and effort that go into some illegal sites, you might be surprised, they took down a site called kino.to here. Basically the site just linked to some video sites that offered illegally uploaded movies, but in the end it turned out that the owner of kino.to owned most of the sites he linked to and had staff to upload the movies to different sites according to schedules to avoid takedowns and whatnot. And the owners earned a lot of money with it. All they did was open some websites and then use other peoples' work to attract customers and get rich. Of course they put in some work themselves, but that was not why the people came to their site, that was other peoples' work who didn't get paid a cent for it.

It's interesting because wikipedia's model is similar, letting other people work to draw "customers" in, the difference is that people volunteer here so a closer "equivalent" would be a site that offers space for people to upload movies they made themselves, like youtube.

[Greyblades]

Personally I don't care very much that people download and/or view digital media without paying, I do it every day just from youtube, and I allways thought that attempts to stop it has been wasting more money than all the sales/reparations could ever be gained from it. But actively making money of other people's work without consent is just being a [expletive relating to a vital part of male anatomy].

Also, the 50 minute viewing for one hour waiting thing on megavideo was annoying, good riddence.

[gaelic cowboy]

there is quite literally only two ways out of this whole paying/pirating content arguement, they will either have to charge for data over the internet or reduce the price of content to such a low level that people dont bother to pirate it.

If films were very cheap and I'm thinking no more than 2 or 3 quid then who would bother spending an evening downloading a fuzzy copy of the next holywood blockbuster with annoying subtitles.

Basically costs will have to come down so that money can be made back on 5 euro cinema ticket or 2-3 euro download.

[Greyblades]

I was under the impression that the only movies that anyone bother downloading are either crystal clear HD-DVD footage or camera-hidden-in-the-cinema copies of new releases.

Also there's generaly a reason they dont release movies for internet viewing, anyone with a little technical savvy can easily record whats going on on thier screen. It would be the compaines giving pirates free HD DVD's while forcing the honest public to wait months for overpriced copies.

Edit: Whoops, I misread the last post, and the last two sentances are pointless. Still, by the time the companies are selling the DVD's the pirates would already be circulating HD versions of the movies, so unless the filmmakers were giving away movies for free most pirates would not even bother paying that 2-3 quid.

[Lemur]

Feh. The most effective way to combat piracy, based on actual data and usage, is Netflix, not heavy-handed policing. Naturally, since Netflix is a tangible, provable tonic to the curse of piracy, the studios are doing everything in their power to kill it.

[Vladimir]

Yea, I wondered what was up with that. I love this quote:

In response, the hackers group Anonymous has targeted the FBI and US Department of Justice websites.

Brilliant gentlemen.

We're the USA. We have jurisdiction wherever the corporations paying to politician's campaign funds demand we have jurisdiction.

This site was taken down without due process and people arrested on the other side of the globe without SOPA at that.

CR

Really people. Did you even read the article? See the above comment.

[Greyblades]

Feh. The most effective way to combat piracy, based on actual data and usage, is Netflix, not heavy-handed policing. Naturally, since Netflix is a tangible, provable tonic to the curse of piracy, the studios are doing everything in their power to kill it.

Heh, 10 years ago the best way to fight piracy was not to call attention to it and keep the public ignorant that there was a free, easy and painless alternative to DVD's. Naturally they went balls to the wall, batsmack crazy and yelled "pirate! pirate!" at anyone who watched thier films, bought thier videos or even watched adverts on TV.

[Husar]

Personally I don't care very much that people download and/or view digital media without paying, I do it every day just from youtube, and I allways thought that attempts to stop it has been wasting more money than all the sales/reparations could ever be gained from it.

It's easy on Youtube, and it got me interested in some things as well, only to find out that getting them here is either impossible or horribly expensive in some cases.
I would often listen to a song on youtube and then go and look where I can buy it online. As I said a free demo is always a good thing. Similar to how a business wants to know what they get before hiring me, I want to know what I get before buying their products.
What I find problematic are people who have to have a library of music and movies and whatnot scattered over many HDDs without paying for any of that, they don't just test stuff, they want to have all of it and pay for none of it. Not all people go to such extremes but quite a few people have a large amount of songs on their mp3 players that they listen to often and never paid for etc.

[gaelic cowboy]

I was under the impression that the only movies that anyone bother downloading are either crystal clear HD-DVD footage or camera-hidden-in-the-cinema copies of new releases.

and the camera in the cinema one hurts cinema ticket sales as there gernerally new realease and not on dvd yet.

Also there's generaly a reason they dont release movies for internet viewing, anyone with a little technical savvy can easily record whats going on on thier screen. It would be the compaines giving pirates free HD DVD's while forcing the honest public to wait months for overpriced copies.

naturally but as Tommy Tiernan pointed out we have heard all that before with the taping of the radio crisis. It was rubbish then and it's still rubbish now.

The solution is as Lemur has pointed out is some kind of Netflix thingy, then we can dispense with DVD/Bluray and with paymovie channels like sky movies.
Your still paying for a service but you get to watch what you want and crucially when you want, the revenue now pays for what you recieve over the internet and not for flim flam boxsets or exclusive deals with sky.

People are inherently lazy if it's cheap enough they wont bother filling dvd discs and hard drives with films recorded of there PC/TV

[Greyblades]

naturally but as Tommy Tiernan pointed out we have heard all that before with the taping of the radio crisis. It was rubbish then and it's still rubbish now.

Tell that to the Studios.

[gaelic cowboy]

Tell that to the Studios.

Half the time it is there own fault reinventing massively exspensive 3d in the hopes it would generate cinema sales (it wont) or remaking stuff that is hardly old in order to have a know brand.

Plus overpaying various actors to such an extent they dont make there money back etc etc is another one, again purely to have a know brand on board even when it makes no sense economically.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/12...pomerantz.html

[rvg]

Half the time it is there own fault reinventing massively exspensive 3d in the hopes it would generate cinema sales (it wont) or remaking stuff that is hardly old in order to have a know brand.

Plus overpaying various actors to such an extent they dont make there money back etc etc is another one, again purely to have a know brand on board even when it makes no sense economically.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/12...pomerantz.html

That does not justify stealing their intellectual property though.

[Lemur]

Yah, the issue is not how the studios create their products. Rather, the problem is their refusal to adapt to new delivery technologies. They can market 3D and smell-o-vision all they like. They can overpay Tom Cruise 'till the cows come home. But since their entire business was created at the turn of the last century by new technology, it's deeply ironic that they refuse, flatly refuse to modify their delivery methods to accept the new technical reality.

What's more maddening is that Netflix showed them how to do it, and all they can think to do is destroy Netflix. They should just buy Netflix, for crike's sake, not strangle it in the crib.

We've been here before. When MP3s first became a technical reality, the music industry was presented with dozens of new business models. They rejected every single one, crushed the start-ups, and generally growled to keep the other dogs away from their food bowl. It was only after years of this behavior that Napster happened. (I was a music industry journo at the time, so I had a box seat for the circus. I interviewed music execs and tech start-ups, and I watched the labels carefully, methodically dig their own graves. I asked them about it, on-record, several times. It's not as though they did not understand what was going on. They just couldn't bring themselves to make any alteration in their business model. They got what they deserved.)

Gah. I could write a 20,000 word essay on this subject, but I will spare the Org the ordeal. Let's just say that smart people do astonishingly stupid things when all of their incentives point toward stasis.

[gaelic cowboy]

That does not justify stealing their intellectual property though.

I didnt say it was but the reality is they need to change there idea on how much the content is worth.