Mega upload shut down

[Rabid]

A while ago I was thinking about acquiring storage space in Russia, but I have a... distrust... vis-a-vis the commercial practices of Russian-owned companies. It may just be some kind of stupid prejudice on my part, though...

[K. A. Pital]

There's no particular problem with acquiring storage space in Russia other than the lackluster internet infrastructure which might cause bandwidth issues. But as I heard Switzerland recently repealed the idea that downloading stuff for personal use is piracy in the courts, which means there's a much smaller chance of a website based in Switzerland to come under attack.

[His Divine Shadow]

There's no particular problem with acquiring storage space in Russia other than the lackluster internet infrastructure which might cause bandwidth issues. But as I heard Switzerland recently repealed the idea that downloading stuff for personal use is piracy in the courts, which means there's a much smaller chance of a website based in Switzerland to come under attack.

You know it'd be a good business model, one in which the siberian climate would come in handy for once. I believe Finland has taken advantage of the very same thing.

[K. A. Pital]

Heh, there's not much storage in Siberia (see lackluster infrastructure), and in any case European Russia is probably almost just as cold. But sure.

Russia's internet freedom is not coming from good legislation, though, rather from lack thereof. I dread to see what they'll do after the idiotic WTO ascension. I guess China and parts of Europe will remain the last great bastion of free filesharing. Which would be rather surprising given China's Great Firewall censorship thing. But awesome in a way.

[Faqa]

Aside from the shutdown-before-trial-and-verdict?

OUTSTANDING. This is how copyright holders SHOULD be acting - investigating an organization, finding actual evidence of wrongdoing, then proceeding to trial on the matter.

Tech companies should be falling over themselves to condemn the anon attacks and point this out. Because, otherwise, they get associated with supporting MU, and let's face it guys - there's no grey area here. These folks were knowingly hosting the actual bytes of pirated material, and directly encouraging it. If the tech community supports them, they're basically saying that they are completely unreasonable, and will not support copyright in any form. Which will not exactly do wonders for the case that SOPA-style laws are not needed.

[Executor32]

Well, crap.

So much for sharing data with researchers on the other side of the world who are not-PC savy and don't know how to operate ftp servers.

Like someone else said, there's still like a million other free file hosts. I'd suggest Mediafire, personally, since even without an account there are no captchas, no wait periods, no limitations on simultaneous downloads or speeds, and you can resume failed/paused downloads.

[K. A. Pital]

If the tech community supports them, they're basically saying that they are completely unreasonable, and will not support copyright in any form.

Standing on pure copyleft positions does make sense. It could force the entire industry into a copyleft mode. The effects thereof were already discussed on this board several times in detail. Nothing too drastic.

[K. A. Pital]

Hmm... Let's be more precise. Copyleft is a form of copyright which explicitly allows and encourages sharing. It also has built-in protections against non-acknowledgement of author contributions. Creative Commons, etc. are subsets of the greater copyleft direction (use licensing as means to explicitly encourage sharing and forbid the prohibition of sharing).

In essence, copyleft is a form of copyright (uses legal mechanisms of copyright) but it is a complete antagonist which, if it shall become the most widespread and generally acceptable form of copyright, would simply mean the destruction or oblivion of classic copyright as we know it.

If you express support for breaches of classic copyright (aimed to curb sharing), that could mean that you support breaking classic copyright just out of spite, or that you support such breaches because you think classic copyright should not exist or be replaced by something else, another form of copy law. Which is copyleft. Hence why supporting breaches of copyright can be conducive to development of copyleft. After all, if classic copyright is so often broken, perhaps its replacement by copyleft is the solution.

[Faqa]

It can be abstractly logical to support it, as you say - assuming the copyleft model is desirable.

However, on a practical level, trying to force people into this licensing system doesn't sound terribly productive. The GPL wasn't forced on the software industry, after all - it grew organically through it's own viral nature and the fact that a lot of tech leaders licensed under it at the right time. To declare that you're going to support breaking the system until they are forced to replace it with one of your choosing is an effective declaration of war that can only give ammunition to the side that had said war declared on it.

[Thanas]

Well, crap.

So much for sharing data with researchers on the other side of the world who are not-PC savy and don't know how to operate ftp servers.

Like someone else said, there's still like a million other free file hosts. I'd suggest Mediafire, personally, since even without an account there are no captchas, no wait periods, no limitations on simultaneous downloads or speeds, and you can resume failed/paused downloads.

Guys, I pretty much know about all the other webhosters. Problem is now I have to write a new instruction on how to do this. (Yes, some people are that old and slow).

[K. A. Pital]

It can be abstractly logical to support it, as you say - assuming the copyleft model is desirable.

However, on a practical level, trying to force people into this licensing system doesn't sound terribly productive. The GPL wasn't forced on the software industry, after all - it grew organically through it's own viral nature and the fact that a lot of tech leaders licensed under it at the right time. To declare that you're going to support breaking the system until they are forced to replace it with one of your choosing is an effective declaration of war that can only give ammunition to the side that had said war declared on it.

Arresting people for the crime of say downloading a movie gives more ammunition to those who say copyright advocates are crazy and copyright itself is deeply flawed. I'm not sure, but if you have not noticed, the copyright industry basically wages a neverending war against the other side from Day 1. From the attempts to undermine GPL programs like Linux through SCO, etc., using the mechanisms of copyright, to the takedowns using DMCA, witch hunts against torrent users in Europe (fuck you, German copyright minions) and torrent tracker closure attempts, the SCPP lawsuit against fucking sourceforge of all places (on the ridiculous claim that hosting the install files of a program like Bittorrent itself consistutes a crime against copyright).

The fuckers have been in a state of nuclear war against filesharing, copyleft and information exchange freedom since day one. They, not the "copyleft people" or the "high tech industry" have dropped the first bombs, they continue the onslaught in an Orwellian fashion (witness the mass deletion of Orwell's books from Kindle in one of the most ridiculous cases of copyright idiocy), and they have no intention to back down at the sign of weakness.

Google, Youtube for example since long cooperate with ugly shit like MPAA and RIAA in taking down stuff. In fact Youtube's censorship is so strong I can't view many music videos just because I'm in Germany and "the rightsholder organiaztion has not bought rights for this video", the fuckers. They were licking the copyfuckers assholes since mid-2000s, and what did they get in return for cooperation, a call to "lay down arms" and generally friendly attitude towards right-"holders" and DMCA?

SOPA and PIPA on the Senate floor in 2011.

So in fact, the more friendly you are, the more you encourage the fuckers to push for even worse acts. It was not the failure of DMCA to pass or be enacted which prompted SOPA and PIPA, it was the success of DMCA that caused this shit to continue and take even uglier forms.

Make no mistake as to who started this shit and who continues to make war on information exchange with nothing but a scorched earth policy.

[Faqa]

Dude, I follow the tech-geek news, same as I'm guessing you do. Half the sites I go to were blacked out in protest of SOPA. I have read countless essays on why the condemning of every single member of the RIAA and MPAA to a lifetime of fluffing in anal horse porn would be incredibly generous in light of what they deserve. They're dipshits and assholes, this I know thoroughly. I agree, even.

They still exist. They're still buying lunches for Congresspeople, still donating generously to campaigns, still demanding that laws be passed to suit them. They have a certain advantage in the fact that people are, in fact taking their product without paying for it. That ain't right, in the eyes of a lot of folk. The tech industry has a LOT of PR to do in explaining that restricting them is not the answer, a lot of it to people who view computers as magic boxes that randomly break and sprout gibberish.

So when this problematic industry, does, in fact, come out on the side of supporting all-out complete pirate-enablers, they just made their PR problem exponentially harder. They just decided that the concerns of these people are not reasonable at all, that their position is completely wrong. That they will not try to address the concerns of rightsholders, the rightsholders will just have to come over to this new, better model. They've made this WAR!!!!!! between the nerds and the suits. The people who have the power wear suits. How do you imagine this ends?

If you want a future in which the Internet remains free and open, you need to work with the legislation. To do that, you need to show the legislators that working with you is not antithetical to working with their other constituents. Whether you like it or not, you're addressing an entrenched model and mentality, and that means that declaring it invalid and stupid gets you labeled as the troublemaker who needs shutting down.

[S.L.Acker]

I tend to take the view that most pirates won't pay for a product that they can get for free unless the company goes above and beyond to wow them with the product. Even then it comes down to what they can afford, or if they can even pay for the product they like directly. Example, there are a few channels I would watch, but I'd never pay the retarded price for basic cable + some poorly laid out packages. If I could pay for just the channels I wanted directly to the company that runs them I would. I also don't much care if the music and film industry as we know it crashes and burns, I watch more hours of streamed E-sports and Channel Awesome videos than I do mainstream movies, most of the music I listen to is older anyway and the newer bands I'll support with merch and buying tickets. Who am I hurting if I grab a movie I missed in theaters, but don't care enough to rent?

[K. A. Pital]

I understand your concerns, Faqa, but let me reiterate the point which you missed behind my picturesque characterizations of MPAA and RIAA.

The point that Google and Youtube cooperated with them. Worked with the legislators. Implemented DMCA.

And the result was the creation of SOPA and PIPA. So cooperation was not really productive as well. I mean, people in Congress and White House probably know that Google is a serious corporation, it cooperates with the authorities, etc. So what? That did not stop them from drafting and pushing for atrociously bad pieces of legislation which are a lot worse than the DMCA could ever be.

Cooperation makes you sound reasonable, but it does not guarantee the other side will be reasonable at all.

[Thanas]

Doesn't mean all cooperation is useless. In fact, Google's cooperation now allowed itself enough political clout to be able to say "we are not pirates but this legislation is stupid".

[Faqa]

No, but the in-betweens who actually hold the power to do anything - the government - might be. You have no grounds to explain how unreasonable the other side is being if you put yourself in the position of being the guy trying to smash the whole system you're working in. Similarly, how much of the general public is going to be on your side if you're not only trying to educate them about the finer points of Magic Boxes and why stuff to keep them from stealing is Bad, but at the same time trying to force society into some fucking Commie shit?

You don't need the other side to be reasonable. You need the moral high ground so you can explain to everybody else why they aren't. Otherwise, the next time the *AAs want to pass SOPA, you won't have the ear of the public to bend in your favor.

[K. A. Pital]

I don't think either Google or anyone else voiced public support of the Anonymous hacking attack on the *AAs, so I'm not sure how their reputation is damaged in any way. Or?

[Faqa]

The original context of my statement was that Google should be condemning the attacks - drawing the line and saying "here is OK" at the side that Megaupload's seizure is on (thus giving them more context to say what isn't OK).

You responded by saying that it makes abstract sense for them to take a hard stand on forcing the industry to move to a "copyleft" style. Since, I presumed we were debating on the hypothetical of them doing so.

[K. A. Pital]

I thought that a corporation such as Google should not be condemning individual activity (like hacker attacks). Though considering the Megaupload case is ridden with possibly illegal stuff done by the authorities, I'm not sure it wouldn't pay to issue a statement in a general "Piracy is bad, blah blah, but the activities of the authorities leave much to be desired".

[Faqa]

The whole thing is mixed together with the fight against SOPA - MU's demise was seen as being a response to the internet blackout over SOPA, which Google was a part of. They ARE associated with the whole movement unless they try otherwise.

[Simon_Jester]

Russia's internet freedom is not coming from good legislation, though, rather from lack thereof. I dread to see what they'll do after the idiotic WTO ascension. I guess China and parts of Europe will remain the last great bastion of free filesharing. Which would be rather surprising given China's Great Firewall censorship thing. But awesome in a way.

The Chinese oligarchs rose through political means, so they can dominate politics without needing to dominate the economy to stay in power. American oligarchs rose through economic means, so they need to dominate both.

[bobalot]

Before anybody hops on the Internet nerd rage bandwagon, these guys look guilty.

But the government asserts that Megaupload merely wanted the veneer of legitimacy, while its employees knew full well that the site's main use was to distribute infringing content. Indeed, the government points to numerous internal e-mails and chat logs from employees showing that they were aware of copyrighted material on the site and even shared it with each other. Because of this, the government says that the site does not qualify for a “safe harbor” of the kind that protected YouTube from Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit.

For instance, the “abuse tool” allegedly does not remove the actual file being complained about by a rightsholder. Instead, it only removes a specific Web address linked to that file—but there might be hundreds of such addresses for popular content.

In addition, the government contends that everything about the site has been doctored to make it look more legitimate than it is. The “Top 100” download list does not “actually portray the most popular downloads,” say prosecutors, and they claim that Megaupload purposely offers no site-wide search engine as a way of concealing what people are storing and sharing through the site.

Megaupload employees apparently knew how the site was being used. When making payments through its “uploader rewards” program, employees sometimes looked through the material in those accounts first. "10+ Full popular DVD rips (split files), a few small porn movies, some software with keygenerators (warez)," said one of these notes. (The DMCA does not provide a "safe harbor" to sites who have actual knowledge of infringing material and do nothing about it.)

In a 2008 chat, one employee noted that "we have a funny business... modern days [sic] pirates ," to which the reply was, "we're not pirates, we're just providing shipping servies [sic] to pirates ."

Employees send each other e-mails saying things like, “can u pls get me some links to the series called ‘Seinfeld’ from MU [Megaupload]," since some employees did have access to a private internal search engine.

Employees even allegedly uploaded content themselves, such as a BBC Earth episode uploaded in 2008.

Employees also had access to analytics. One report showed that a specific linking site had “produce[d] 164,214 visits to Megaupload for a download of the copyrighted CD/DVD burning software package Nero Suite 10. The software package had the suggested retail price of $99.” The government's conclusion: Megaupload knew what was happening and did little to stop it.

[S.L.Acker]

Before anybody hops on the Internet nerd rage bandwagon, these guys look guilty.

But the government asserts that Megaupload merely wanted the veneer of legitimacy, while its employees knew full well that the site's main use was to distribute infringing content. Indeed, the government points to numerous internal e-mails and chat logs from employees showing that they were aware of copyrighted material on the site and even shared it with each other. Because of this, the government says that the site does not qualify for a “safe harbor” of the kind that protected YouTube from Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit.

For instance, the “abuse tool” allegedly does not remove the actual file being complained about by a rightsholder. Instead, it only removes a specific Web address linked to that file—but there might be hundreds of such addresses for popular content.

In addition, the government contends that everything about the site has been doctored to make it look more legitimate than it is. The “Top 100” download list does not “actually portray the most popular downloads,” say prosecutors, and they claim that Megaupload purposely offers no site-wide search engine as a way of concealing what people are storing and sharing through the site.

Megaupload employees apparently knew how the site was being used. When making payments through its “uploader rewards” program, employees sometimes looked through the material in those accounts first. "10+ Full popular DVD rips (split files), a few small porn movies, some software with keygenerators (warez)," said one of these notes. (The DMCA does not provide a "safe harbor" to sites who have actual knowledge of infringing material and do nothing about it.)

In a 2008 chat, one employee noted that "we have a funny business... modern days [sic] pirates ," to which the reply was, "we're not pirates, we're just providing shipping servies [sic] to pirates ."

Employees send each other e-mails saying things like, “can u pls get me some links to the series called ‘Seinfeld’ from MU [Megaupload]," since some employees did have access to a private internal search engine.

Employees even allegedly uploaded content themselves, such as a BBC Earth episode uploaded in 2008.

Employees also had access to analytics. One report showed that a specific linking site had “produce[d] 164,214 visits to Megaupload for a download of the copyrighted CD/DVD burning software package Nero Suite 10. The software package had the suggested retail price of $99.” The government's conclusion: Megaupload knew what was happening and did little to stop it.

It really doesn't matter, this whole thing is already meaningless as the site is back up and they didn't go after any other sites that do the exact same thing. You also have to wonder what semi-legal route they took to get this evidence.

[bobalot]

It really doesn't matter, this whole thing is already meaningless as the site is back up and they didn't go after any other sites that do the exact same thing.

The people that were arrested maybe actually guilty doesn't matter? Why?

You also have to wonder what semi-legal route they took to get this evidence.

Where did this speculation come from?

[S.L.Acker]

It really doesn't matter, this whole thing is already meaningless as the site is back up and they didn't go after any other sites that do the exact same thing.

The people that were arrested maybe actually guilty doesn't matter? Why?

Sure it matters to those people, it doesn't matter to the internet at large. It does nothing to stop companies from looking at this and saying, 'Hey, we'll just host in places where we can't get in shit for it.'

You also have to wonder what semi-legal route they took to get this evidence.

Where did this speculation come from?

The US is sort of known for doing scummy things to get evidence.