Indictment Charges Megaupload Site With Piracy

Originally posted by Nyiah
I hope New Zealand puts up a fierce fight, they have no reason to roll on their backs for the US.

Why would New Zealand "put up a fight"??

New Zealand law provides for extradition in appropriate circumstances - which do include the charges actually being illegal in NZ. AFAIK the charges include money laundering - which is certainly illegal there.

New Zealand Govt extradition act summary

Any request for extradition from New Zealand must relate to an “extraditable offence” which
is defined as an offence that:
• Carries a maximum penalty of not less than one year’s imprisonment in the requesting
country; and
• Involves conduct that would be regarded as criminal had it occurred in New Zealand, and
would have carried a similar penalty.
• Is specified by the extradition treaty, if there is one.

There are exemptions for political "crimes", if the alleged offender might suffer the death penalty and various other things. It looks like being a NZ citizen would be irrelevant, and in any case these people are not citizens - they are residents - which means they are allowed to live there and have not taken out NZ citizenship.

Apart from the publicity and the nature of the alleged crime this is just a pretty normal extradition request.

NZ police have reported finding 2 sawn off shotguns on the property which is highly illegal ther - New Zealand is a gun control society - rifles and shotguns are widely owned, but IIRC any firearm less than 18" is considered a pistol & those are extremely strictly controlled - only bona fide licenced members of pistol clubs are allowed to own them, they have to be in lock boxes when not actually being used, etc

I've also used megaupload, and I've also seen every now and then, files that have been removed due to copyright claims, etc.

Interesting.

This is pathetic, nobody wants to pay for this trash they try and shove down our throats. So instead of actually making something worthwhile they call it "art" and start prosecuting people in other countries.

I'll call it like it is, just about every big budget movie and music that has been released in last decade is nothing but trash, why should we be forced to pay or be prosecuted for trash?

You want an example of artistic theft, watch the show "Wipeout" then watch "Ninja Warrior", I don't see Japanese companies filing any butthurt applications over it, do you? That is theft, so what is being done about it? Or does that only apply to people providing and downloading stuff in the privacy of their homes?

What a bunch of rich, whiny babies. They can't get their way so they cry and cry and whore out our federal government. What a joke, somebody needs to put a stop to this garbage one way or another.

Anonymous apparently retaliated against the FBI's crackdown on Megaupload
#OPMEGAUPLOAD

January 19, 2012 One day after many popular websites went dark to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and the same day as a major U.S. raid on filesharing website Megaupload, various Twitter accounts claiming to represent the "hacktivist" group Anonymous have taken credit for bringing down several websites, including UniversalMusic.com and Justice.gov - the site of the U.S. Department of Justice - in an action they're calling #OPMEGAUPLOAD. At about 6:30 pm, Twitter user @AnonDaily tweeted "Take Down Any Website, Any Owner, in No Time Flat! #Anonymous". Another apparently Anonymous-related Twitter account, @YourAnonNews, Tweeted this at 7 pm: "Good thing it's National Popcorn Day, everyone grab some and sit tight. "The Internet Strikes Back" is showing all night long! #megaupload", and earlier brought SOPA into the conversation: "Let's just say, for #SOPA supporters their #SOPAblackout is today. #Anonymous." A DoJ spokesperson told CNN "we are having website problems, but we're not sure what it's from". An Anonymous operative named Barrett Brown reportedly told British website RT.com that the DoJ's site was pulled down "in retaliation for Megaupload". Another website that appears to be affected at press time is the Recording Industry Association of America. Today's crackdown on Megaupload included four arrests in New Zealand and at least 20 search warrants being served across the globe. Co-founders Kim Dotcom (formerly Kim Schmitz) and Mathias Ortmann were arrested in Auckland along with two other employees and charged under piracy laws. Gawker has a different take on the #OPMEGAUPLOAD situation - writer Adrian Chen states that by clicking on certain links distributed by Anonymous, internet users may be inadvertantly aiding the hackers' attacks. You can read his story here.

I did post this in another thread but fully sure on linking it is the same for linking normal sites.

yea i just read an article saying that Anon is on the attack now..... Time to grab some popcorn to see how this unfolds....

mashable.com...

Anonymous Sweden@AnonOpsSweden

#OpPayBack Target: DOWN justice.gov - 15 minutes after feds announce arrest of Megaupload 7, #Anonymous strikes #svpol

They have been on the attack last few hours

gizmodo.com...

not posting link but they just released personal info on
MPAA CEO Chris Dodd his home address, property values, phone numbers and children's names

Originally posted by RSF77
This is pathetic, nobody wants to pay for this trash they try and shove down our throats.

That's kind of illogical - if no-one wants it then how do download sites manage to make money??

reply to post by zorgon

They have stolen all the analog communication systems, everything else is on digital including the hard wired telephones, in the event that the government makes their move, they will lock all access including HAM/CB signals, so you will only have hard wire/telegraph or smoke signals to put the word out,
unless your buddy's live next door???

This isn't fun and games, they have every intention on following through, and have all the means to do so, paid for by your tax dollars and anything they could steal behind everyones back

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul

Originally posted by RSF77
This is pathetic, nobody wants to pay for this trash they try and shove down our throats.

That's kind of illogical - if no-one wants it then how do download sites manage to make money??

Most of their revenue come donations, ads, and for those that offer, premium accounts. No one pays to pirate.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


People pay the site for premium accounts, increased download speeds and removal of "countdown" timers.
Garbage content will still be watched by those who would never think of buying it... look at x-factor for an example.

If you are told a movie is utter garbage it's unlikely you would be willing to yawn for 2hours in the cinema. Thought you may be enticed to watch it elsewhere with the insurance that your money won't be wasted in the event it actually is uter garbage.

No one loses. People who cannot afford movies, games or music will not buy it anyway... so downloading it does not hurt the record label or the artist or thr producer at all...

People who love a piece of art will be willing to buy it so they can hold on to it and listen to or look at it in phsyical form.

In fact, piracy makes more money for producers believe it or not. I'm not saying i entirely agree with it, but as the example above with movies. The more people that find a movie will be junk, others will be intrigued to go and watch it or buy it for the sake of finding out themselves. Whereas before they would have never heard of or even thought of watching it.

SOPA/PIPA isn't even about piracy though. It is the suppression of free information.

A lot, if not the vast majority, of this stuff is already free if I remember to set my DVR or is available for free and legally on 10000 other sites...it's simply a matter of convenience as to when and where I will watch. The corporations fighting this for the most part aren't losing billions or even millions...they're just being deprived of squeezing every last nickel out of the consumer because they're greedy for more more more. They won't provide commercial-free or on-demand material because they are GREEDY. Clearly that is not what the people want...to be enslaved to their times and their commercials and their exorbitant profit margins.

They don't have or control the highway or the willingness and are too bull-headed to partner reasonably, so I don't have an ounce of sympathy for them. Their business models are obsolete. Their payment paradigms are old (not to mention GREEDY) and they've ripped off plenty of artists and consumers over the years, so I'd call that karma. In some cases, the artists suffer a bit, but contracts should be changing by now, as information and the world is. Maybe if their high-priced legal teams could get the dollar signs out of their eyes they could work out some compromises and really define fair use fairly.

And to have the government doing their dirty work for them because they're throwing a hissy? Intolerable. Go Anonymous!

As for MegaUpload, torrentfreak.com...

As for SOPA/PIPA? Parts of the bill I like...as in the privacy parts of my not-for-profit content that corporations like Google and others make billions from by using and mining OUR data. But that's a whole other story, and of course it's not us that the corporment wants or is paid to protect.

Originally posted by boncho

I wonder if this is going to cause more support for SOPA in the long run?

hacking is not piracy
but yea who knows they could use as an excuse

This is extremely bad. If the Feds win this case it sets the precedent for all future legal cases and that precedence is that website owners are responsible for all content on their sites regardless of who submitted the content.

Looks like it's time to start hacking federal websites and uploading copyrighted content to them, then taking the government to court for copyright infringement.

Megaupload sucked anyway.

That 72min limit thing on watching movies was the worst. And getting around it was just a pain.

Originally posted by Thought Provoker
The recording/movie/book/whatever industries know the following:

1: People pirate things because they either can't, or don't want to, buy them.
2: If all piracy worldwide were stopped, those people still wouldn't buy them.
3: Therefore, piracy does not cost those industries one damn cent.

So since they have to know all that, why do they still spend millions of dollars "fighting piracy?" Are we supposed to believe that politicians are so ignorant that they don't realize piracy doesn't cost anyone anything?

And leave it to the NY Times to describe Megaupload as "an international criminal enterprise." They know all of the above, too. There's no way Megaupload cost anyone even $5, let alone $500 million, and those jackasses know it. They all know it... but they'll pretend it isn't true until the end of time. Is this what Orwell meant by "Newspeak?"

While its true that no one who could afford them would buy them, so it doesnt cost them a penny, that is true. But it actually makes them money,because some of those without the funds still fall in love with good stuff support the artist.

In addition, it actually equalizes and allows alot more people to promote themselves as independents without the Empire's backing.

This is about CONTROL.

Originally posted by randyvs
This should have been your heading Boncho.

From Megaupload to Megaexplode.

Unfortunately, the BAN forum only allows the exact article headline.

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by boncho
If Scrib'd analyzed its customer files daily than I suppose they would be responsible. But if you bring something illegal to the gym, put it in the locker, is your gym responsible? or you?

The gym is storing it unknowingly, not redistributing thousand of copies. However Scribd CAN see inside that locker and if they then knowingly redistribute it, yes they are responsible

A pawn shop someone mentioned earlier is required to take clear rights of ownership ie drivers license of the person pawning. If they get caught with stolen goods that they cannot account for... then yes they are liable and will lose their license

In practice there is however no way for cops to police all of their activities.

With the internet however it would take me 10 minutes to find a hundred violations with an address attached

Okay, point taken. But because the idea of Megaupload is hosting, and not distribution, technically they are more like a warehouse rather than a pawn shop.

So they are a warehouse that does not check their inventory and lets anyone come in or out.

I did hear from someone though that the Feds have emails which indicates they were aware and they took part in uploading content. So far just a rumor but I'll look for supporting articles.

You loan a DVD to a friend, or willfully choose to upload your copy to the Web for many others to download, or watch the online video file. Only difference is how much revenue the out of touch corporations potentially loose.

There is no stealing involved at any point in the process, this is just a case of people needing to get with the times and accepting digital technology as throwing a financial curve ball that they're just going to have to adapt to and live with.

Originally posted by boncho

I did hear from someone though that the Feds have emails which indicates they were aware and they took part in uploading content. So far just a rumor but I'll look for supporting articles.

That's absolutely impossible unless the Feds are hacking into email servers now...

Here's why.

Within an email system all emails that go from-to the same domain stay within that server. if [email protected] sends an email to [email protected] the software will recognize it's going intranetwork and WILL NOT SEND THE EMAIL THROUGH THE INTERNET.

The only way this could be different is if they're not using VPN access to their servers but even at that -- the person would have a direct connection to the server through either an email client (outlook/thunderbird/etc) or through the web-interface itself.

Yes,They are Frantically trying to put up a fight in the last moments of their fall from their dictatorial power over the masses.The are feeling the vibrations and energies of the heat of the Fires of Creation which is starting to burn the very essence of their existence.We must all rally to remove their powers to stop them from misusing and abusing it.The owner and employees of megaupload are being wrongfully held for what they not responsible for,as they are not the ones who uploaded the files in question. It is the start of the ending of the greed of money and power to mislead the world into the pursue of money to live.
They are being marked for termination of their universal existence as they are being exposed.
Are those of you who do not believe willing to take the chance that there is no combined power beyond your known universe that can remove your very existence.