Megaupload.com has been shutdown by US federal prosecuters

[ToneKnee]

Just seen it pop up on the BBC News ticker, cannot connect to Megaupload.com either.

APNewsBreak: Feds shut down file-sharing website

By MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press ? 21 minutes ago

McLEAN, Virginia (AP) ? Federal prosecutors have shut down one of the world's largest file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, and charged its founder and others with violating piracy laws.

The indictment accuses the company of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. The indictment was unsealed Thursday, one day after websites shut down in protest of two congressional proposals intended to thwart the online piracy of copyrighted movies and TV programs.

Megaupload.com has claimed it is diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material.

The indictment says at one point, Megaupload was the 13th most popular website in the world.

Source: Google/AP http://www.google.co...11fc307d67b674d

Source: FoxNews (Thanx neofuse)

[metallithrax]

Saw it on foxnews as well

[Gaffney]

How did it cost lost revenue? How did they break the law, I'm quite sure they followed the rules of the DMCA.

Well this is clearly going to backfire like every other time. Companies need to adapt to the modern media and realise that there is a lot more competition that their use to be. If people are using sharing to watch products for free then your products aren't delivering something. Site's like Netflix have shown that people aren't out there just to get free copies, it's to get them lots of them easily from a massive database.

The music industry is a big example they use, they say how much it's went down. First problem I have with the music industry is the Radio stations, they only promote popular music which the music companies probably pay a lot of cash to advertise, indie music hardly touches the charts. So why should I buy your music when you's make the decisions what I should buy, the music is generally quite poor while artists and employee's get paid more and more. One way to solve this again is to offer a massive database and remove the advertising, Spotify is a good example of this.

Personally they should be focusing on providing services designed for the internet and the 21st century instead of continually trying to stick to the old methods.

[ToneKnee]

It's unfortunate because Megaupload is pretty fast with me when I download files from XDA when devs don't use their own bandwidth when providing files. :(

[rijp]

How did it cost lost revenue? How did they break the law, I'm quite sure they followed the rules of the DMCA.

Well this is clearly going to backfire like every other time.

are you totally stupid? Lost revenue means they are letting people post COPYRIGHTED material .. what part of STEALING is any way unclear?

[ArialBlue]

phew stuff i want to download ain't on there :)

[paulbeattie87]

Why do legitimate sites have to be shutdown because of the few spoiling it. I'd like to see the US closing main roads and such because some criminals use them to escape on.

[c3ntury]

Rather shocked, the owner always spoke as if he was invincible.

[ArialBlue]

are you totally stupid? Lost revenue means they are letting people post COPYRIGHTED material .. what part of STEALING is any way unclear?

You are very ignorant to say that. YouTube and DropBox should die off by yout logic... and facebook.. et all

[ToneKnee]

are you totally stupid? Lost revenue means they are letting people post COPYRIGHTED material .. what part of STEALING is any way unclear?

Megaupload has been used for legit uses, Megaupload as far as I'm aware are always active in removing material. If someone uploads something and there is a complaint, it gets taken down.

[neufuse Veteran]

was just going to post this http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/19/feds-shut-down-file-sharing-website/?test=latestnews

[ViperAFK]

are you totally stupid? Lost revenue means they are letting people post COPYRIGHTED material .. what part of STEALING is any way unclear?

Its a file upload site. users can upload whatever they want legit or not. By this logic the internet should be shutdown because it hosts illegal files. I've downloaded various legal files from that site myself.

[+M2Ys4U Subscriber¹]

Megaupload staff have been arrested in New Zealand, apparently.

[Charisma Veteran]

And this is before SOPA/PIPA "passes" =/

[zeta_immersion]

i tried downloading the net so that I will make it free to everyone one day ... sadly, my plan has failed when all the pron occupied all my drives

now this gets taken down .... whyyyyyyy ... oh whyyyyyy do you mock me!!!!!!!!!!!

[yowanvista]

As usual the US, disrupting the Internet as always..

[ToneKnee]

was just going to post this http://www.foxnews.c...test=latestnews

Added it as a source, thanx.

[Rudy]

are you totally stupid? Lost revenue means they are letting people post COPYRIGHTED material .. what part of STEALING is any way unclear?

The part where I'm pretty sure nothing is missing from their warehouse :D

[neufuse Veteran]

The part where I'm pretty sure nothing is missing from their warehouse :D

the whole piracy isn't theft thing still baffles me...... sure you are not loseing a physical item, but you are still taking something from someone that they could of sold you, thus costing them money they could of made... yes I know there is no "physical" theft, but if I was drug into court for copying software and using it without a license, I'd still face charges of theft at least where I am at

[Gaffney]

are you totally stupid? Lost revenue means they are letting people post COPYRIGHTED material .. what part of STEALING is any way unclear?

Stealing costs money, downloaded a copied film isn't stealing and doesn't cost the Movie industry at all. If I'm download it, I won't buy it and if your wondering I pay ?15 per month for an unlimited card for Cineworld because it's a good product that's worth it.

Would I spend ?12 to see Transformers 3 and all the other crap films, no but I have an unlimited card so I can watch the crap for no extra charge. If I didn't have it I would just download it.

The lost of revenue doesn't come from megaupload.com it comes from the companies failing to offer a service people are willing to pay for. I don't get why animals like you don't get that, I'm either going to download it, or not buy it at all. But if I do download it and really enjoy it then there is a high chance I might pay to see it in the cinema, get the dvd, rent it and so on.

They make cash from people downloading, they will never make cash when people don't buy it.

[ESC@PE]

I think everyone needs to watch that video ^ Bravo good sir.

[Phouchg]

The part where I'm pretty sure nothing is missing from their warehouse :D

Or that part where it is missing but that is always an inside job. No one goes down to the warehouses with a crowbar just to put stuff on the internets.

[jakem1]

the whole piracy isn't theft thing still baffles me...... sure you are not loseing a physical item, but you are still taking something from someone that they could of sold you, thus costing them money they could of made... yes I know there is no "physical" theft, but if I was drug into court for copying software and using it without a license, I'd still face charges of theft at least where I am at

Not really. The only thing a copyright holder loses due to piracy is the chance to sell something to someone. They haven't actually lost any goods, just an opportunity.

[+M2Ys4U Subscriber¹]

Department of Justice press release

Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Justice Department Charges Leaders of Megaupload with Widespread Online Copyright Infringement

WASHINGTON ? Seven individuals and two corporations have been charged in the United States with running an international organized criminal enterprise allegedly responsible for massive worldwide online piracy of numerous types of copyrighted works, through Megaupload.com and other related sites, generating more than $175 million in criminal proceeds and causing more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners, the U.S. Justice Department and FBI announced today.

This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States and directly targets the misuse of a public content storage and distribution site to commit and facilitate intellectual property crime.

The individuals and two corporations ? Megaupload Limited and Vestor Limited ? were indicted by a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia on Jan. 5, 2012, and charged with engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement. The individuals each face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on the charge of conspiracy to commit racketeering, five years in prison on the charge of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, 20 years in prison on the charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering and five years in prison on each of the substantive charges of criminal copyright infringement.

The indictment alleges that the criminal enterprise is led by Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, 37, a resident of both Hong Kong and New Zealand. Dotcom founded Megaupload Limited and is the director and sole shareholder of Vestor Limited, which has been used to hold his ownership interests in the Mega-affiliated sites.

In addition, the following alleged members of the Mega conspiracy were charged in the indictment:

• 
  Finn Batato, 38, a citizen and resident of Germany, who is the chief marketing officer;
  
• 
  Julius Bencko, 35, a citizen and resident of Slovakia, who is the graphic designer;
  
• 
  Sven Echternach, 39, a citizen and resident of Germany, who is the head of business development;
  
• 
  Mathias Ortmann, 40, a citizen of Germany and resident of both Germany and Hong Kong, who is the chief technical officer, co-founder and director;
  
• 
  Andrus Nomm, 32, a citizen of Estonia and resident of both Turkey and Estonia, who is a software programmer and head of the development software division;
  
• 
  Bram van der Kolk, aka Bramos, 29, a Dutch citizen and resident of both the Netherlands and New Zealand, who oversees programming and the underlying network structure for the Mega conspiracy websites.
  

Dotcom, Batato, Ortmann and van der Kolk were arrested today in Auckland, New Zealand, by New Zealand authorities, who executed provisional arrest warrants requested by the United States. Bencko, Echternach and Nomm remain at large. Today, law enforcement also executed more than 20 search warrants in the United States and eight countries, seized approximately $50 million in assets and targeted sites where Megaupload has servers in Ashburn, Va., Washington, D.C., the Netherlands and Canada. In addition, the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., ordered the seizure of 18 domain names associated with the alleged Mega conspiracy.

According to the indictment, for more than five years the conspiracy has operated websites that unlawfully reproduce and distribute infringing copies of copyrighted works, including movies ? often before their theatrical release ? music, television programs, electronic books, and business and entertainment software on a massive scale. The conspirators? content hosting site, Megaupload.com, is advertised as having more than one billion visits to the site, more than 150 million registered users, 50 million daily visitors and accounting for four percent of the total traffic on the Internet. The estimated harm caused by the conspiracy?s criminal conduct to copyright holders is well in excess of $500 million. The conspirators allegedly earned more than $175 million in illegal profits through advertising revenue and selling premium memberships.

The indictment states that the conspirators conducted their illegal operation using a business model expressly designed to promote uploading of the most popular copyrighted works for many millions of users to download. The indictment alleges that the site was structured to discourage the vast majority of its users from using Megaupload for long-term or personal storage by automatically deleting content that was not regularly downloaded. The conspirators further allegedly offered a rewards program that would provide users with financial incentives to upload popular content and drive web traffic to the site, often through user-generated websites known as linking sites. The conspirators allegedly paid users whom they specifically knew uploaded infringing content and publicized their links to users throughout the world.

In addition, by actively supporting the use of third-party linking sites to publicize infringing content, the conspirators did not need to publicize such content on the Megaupload site. Instead, the indictment alleges that the conspirators manipulated the perception of content available on their servers by not providing a public search function on the Megaupload site and by not including popular infringing content on the publicly available lists of top content downloaded by its users.

As alleged in the indictment, the conspirators failed to terminate accounts of users with known copyright infringement, selectively complied with their obligations to remove copyrighted materials from their servers and deliberately misrepresented to copyright holders that they had removed infringing content. For example, when notified by a rights holder that a file contained infringing content, the indictment alleges that the conspirators would disable only a single link to the file, deliberately and deceptively leaving the infringing content in place to make it seamlessly available to millions of users to access through any one of the many duplicate links available for that file.

The indictment charges the defendants with conspiring to launder money by paying users through the sites? uploader reward program and paying companies to host the infringing content.

The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney?s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section in the Justice Department?s Criminal Division. The Criminal Division?s Office of International Affairs, Organized Crime and Gang Section, and Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section also assisted with this case.

The investigation was initiated and led by the FBI at the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center), with assistance from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement?s Homeland Security Investigations. Substantial and critical assistance was provided by the New Zealand Police, the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand (OFCANZ), the Crown Law Office of New Zealand and the Office of the Solicitor General for New Zealand; Hong Kong Customs and the Hong Kong Department of Justice; the Netherlands Police Agency and the Public Prosecutor?s Office for Serious Fraud and Environmental Crime in Rotterdam; London?s Metropolitan Police Service; Germany?s Bundeskriminalamt and the German Public Prosecutors; and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police ? Greater Toronto Area (GTA) Federal Enforcement Section and the Integrated Technological Crime Unit and the Canadian Department of Justice?s International Assistance Group. Authorities in the United Kingdom, Australia and the Philippines also provided assistance.

This case is part of efforts being undertaken by the Department of Justice Task Force on Intellectual Property (IP Task Force) to stop the theft of intellectual property. Attorney General Eric Holder created the IP Task Force to combat the growing number of domestic and international intellectual property crimes, protect the health and safety of American consumers, and safeguard the nation?s economic security against those who seek to profit illegally from American creativity, innovation and hard work. The IP Task Force seeks to strengthen intellectual property rights protection through heightened criminal and civil enforcement, greater coordination among federal, state and local law enforcement partners, and increased focus on international enforcement efforts, including reinforcing relationships with key foreign partners and U.S. industry leaders. To learn more about the IP Task Force, go to www.justice.gov/dag/iptaskforce .

Source

[Slammers]

I don't think they can prove that they weren't deligent enough. If anything, Megaupload was always the site that had taken down illegal file when I tried to downlaod them, they'll be fine.

edit: i hadn't read the press release, sounds like the company has been doing stuff on the side, tisk tisk