Why was MegaUpload really shut down?
Submitted by We the People on Wed, 01/25/2012 - 01:04In December of 2011, just weeks before the takedown, Digital Music News reported on something new that the creators of #Megaupload were about to unroll. Something that would rock the music industry to its core. (http://goo.gl/A7wUZ)
I present to you... MegaBox. MegaBox was going to be an alternative music store that was entirely cloud-based and offered artists a better money-making opportunity than they would get with any record label.
"UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings," MegaUpload founder Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz told Torrentfreak
Not only did they plan on allowing artists to keep 90% of their earnings on songs that they sold, they wanted to pay them for songs they let users download for free.
"We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free," Dotcom outlined. "Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works."
https://plus.google.com/u/0/111314089359991626869/posts/HQJx...
The continuing story...from IBT
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/292088/20120202/kim-dotcom-m...
"What is for certain is that this case is a watershed moment for the future of online freedom and copyright protection.
'In a lot of ways, it's like a showdown between two different generations,' Ifrah noted.
But as much as the Justice Department, the prosecutors and much of the media have tried to mark this case as unique, the Viacom v. YouTube case is applicable here.
And in that case, YouTube won."
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I find this ridiculous:
The DOJ is spending all this time, money, and effort on this international case, yet they ignore the Federal Reserve Bank counterfeiting our dollar to the tune of trillions, right under their nose, including the Fed passing out some of the counterfeit money to the very corporations complaining about copyright.
And, yet, Viacom v. YouTube was a similar case! Great article.
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MegaBox rips off people like me
In the long discussion with the OP, I wanted go make sure this didn't get lost, so made it a new comment. MegaBox uses something called MegaKey. The way it works is users install a plugin to their browser that replaces web ads with his ads, so all the ad click revenue goes to him and the artist. I've created a couple of websites that offer free content, and the only way to cover the cost of bandwidth and other fees is ad click revenue. The DailyPaul gets ad click revenue as well. With that plugin, the user gets my content and bandwidth, but all my revenue is stripped away and givento him, because now when they click an ad on my site, the fund gets deposited into his account. Could you imagine that plugin for smartphones? You could say bye bye to all the free apps funded by ad click revenue, cuz what's the incentive for me to put my blood and sweat into something with no reward.
Unless you ditch Google/Yahoo and sign up for their Ad program
Which could be much better.
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Bump for discussion
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An example of order out of chaos, which physicists (and corporat
This could be an example of order out of chaos, which physicists (and corporations) say cannot happen.
The criminal, wild west of the internet gradually orders itself by necessity into an entirely new, logical, functions system that proves itself more profitable than the dysfunctional piratical outfit from which it sprang. History is filled with such examples.
In 1640s China, for example, the whole Ming system was in total collapse. The last Ming Emperor was an extraordinary man: intelligent, strong, upright. But he could not stop the death of his dynasty through famine, disease, rebellion and piracy, no matter how hard he tried. Wild, unprincipled Manchu swept into the wreckage of the Ming, destroying it to its very foundations. And the rise of the Ch'ing dynasty proved to be far more powerful and filled with vitality than its Ming predecessor ever was.
Point is: efforts by the obsolete elitists to stifle or eliminate their replacements hardly ever succeed, nor should they. I seriously doubt the Megakey model will die with Dotcom's arrest. In fact, this may be the moment it spreads like a virus across the world and totally exterminate record labels once and for all.
"Cowards & idiots can come along for the ride but they gotta sit in the back seat!"
simply put
Rothschild does not allow competing curency.
sovereign
What about us Good Americans
That were using Megaupload for File Sharing? Files to large for e-mails, I had many Alex Jones podcasts, Ron Paul Videos, uploads of MY Personal music selections, complete seasons of tv shows, married w/ children, McHales Navy etc.
And Don't forget many people used Mu for their hard drive backup.
Come on you guys! Megaupload was very Useful...And Now because they leased some servers in Virginia.....The Police States have just spread their domain.I'm pissed
Should have a look at Mike Mozart here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tD1yaE0GfQ
Too late to go legit
The guy has made millions charging people for copyright material that he hosted. If any pirate site should've been shut down, it's definitely mega upload, they're one of the if not the largest violators.
I agree with you mate
The other people voting you down just do not want to accept reality that the majority of what was going on was illegal. The commenter below argues that it's only the person who commits the crime on one's property that should be held responsible, but that's just a way of trying to rationalize the fact that this person, who was doing something wrong, is not responsible for any wrong doing. If i permitted criminal activity to go on my property, criminal activity was the main activity occurring on my property, and i the owner knew and facilitated this, then i as the property owner should be held accountable.
I.e. If brothels were illegal and i as a property owner knew, allowed and facilitated someone to run a brothel on my property, is there any responsibility on me? Of course there is.
Megaupload facilitated activity and the majority of it was illegal. Trying to get around this fact is childish. Yes they helped people send files too big for emails, but if anyone tries to make the argument that this was the purpose of that site, they are living in a fantasy land. That's like saying Mitt Romney is running for president because he wants to help the people; yeah we all know he says that, but we all know he is full of it and has other intentions.
So did they deserve to be shut down? Yes. Am i happy with how they were shut down? Absolutely no. Those who shut this site down manipulated the rule of law to get what they wanted.
Thanks, glad
Someone else is looking at this for what it is. By the way, join the getting voted down club for making logically sound arguments lol.
Your arguments are illogical
And uninformed.
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This is my second and last post on this
Because i do not wish to pursue a long discussion as there has been with the other commenter who i agree with.
I accept the legitimacy of your argument (in a different post) where you say that the file host cannot possibly know everything that is hosted.
However, in saying that, the structure of this company is done in a way that helps facilitate piracy. There are other websites similar to megaupload in their function and yet, piracy is nowhere near the same issue and the amount of illegal activity is very different.
So to continue with a previous example you provided, let us suppose there are two storage facilities. In the first, the owner runs it in a way that minimal illegal items are hidden and in another most of what is in the facility (which is hidden) is illegal. Based on this alone, there is clearly a problem with how the latter storage facility owner runs their facility. Moreover though, not only is there more hidden illegal content in this latter storage facility, that same illegal content is far more easily accessible. Clearly there is something not right about how the latter owner operates his storage facility.
Freedom isn't easy...
Freedom isn't easy...
NOTE: I am not advocating violence in any way. The content of the post is for intellectual, theoretical, and philosophical discussion. FEDS, please don't come to my house.
Who is responsible for a crime?
The criminal or the property owner where the crime was committed?
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In this case... Both
The property owner is megaupload and they had copyrighted material on their property (servers). Read up more about this guy, he'll make your skin crawl.
Only the criminal is responsible for the crime
The property owner has no control over what the criminal does.
If I do something illegal on your property, do you become a criminal for my crime?
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That's a pretty far stretch
This property owner knew he had illegal material on his server, it was a blatant pirate site. That's like saying you have a house where people go and film kiddie porn, but since you as a property owner aren't in the room, but you're aware of it and offer your property up to criminals, then you are innocent. This logic doesn't compute
You're assuming he knew something he couldn't
Content which was reported was removed.
If you don't understand how a file host could be completely unaware of what is being hosted, then you don't understand the technology.
It's the users that upload, not the owner. The owner is merely providing a storage service and cannot possibly monitor millions of individual users, uploading millions of files, 24 hours per day.
If you want a more accurate example, it's more like blaming the owner of a storage facility for someone placing something illegal in their storage unit, unseen.
Further, I disagree that it is illegal to make a copy or backup of something with your own time and resources. Making a copy of something is not theft.
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Absolutely Agree
Megaupload always removed files Quickly when notified! Over the past 4 or 5 years of using them, they always replied to my e-mails about technology issues. They made money if You wanted faster download & upload speeds & unlimited services. I used megakey services free of charge which allowed a 4 or 6 hour Free Premium service every day. Now on alot of Download Movie, Music, Games, sites many posters will use various file sharing sites (many of which have come & gone) for "payouts" for the number of downloads. Megaupload was not like that in their payouts, it was extremely difficult to make money w/ them, therefore not many posters used them.
Megaupload was a quality, dependable, and to me a trusted business you could count on.
In my town the "piracy" is on the street, say when a movie premiers on a weekend, and a CAM copy is for sale on the streets on Monday. I know a few people selling the DVDs, they tell me the mafias, Chineese, Russians etc. have the bootleg industry under control in NYC. It seems Piracy is more like Crime Families that pay out for protection.
You're rationalizations are thin
YouTube is perfectly capable of removing copyrighted material. They didn't remove material, they just removed the links to it on their site, knowing full well other sites indexed and maintained the links. Seriously, if you really believe he thought his site was sun and roses with nothing illegal goin on, then there is no sense even discussing it further. Everyone that knows about or have visited megaupload know that they were primarily used to disseminate copyrighted material. Software that people spent hours writing, movies etc had their property ripped off, and he got paid to lay out the delivery mechanism. Please don't tell me I know nothing about technology, I've been writing software, and configuring network equipment for 15 years, I know a thing or 2 about a thing or 2.
Btw, I never said anything about backing up your own stuff, so I don't know who you are disagreeing with. I hope the few users that did use it as a cloud backup service can get their files back, unfortunately I think they're the ones that are gonna get screwed.
Youtube removes videos when they are reported
Exactly the same as MegaUpload.
Why don't you answer my question?
If you are the owner of a storage facility, and I place something illegal in my storage unit, and you don't see me do it, have you committed a crime?
Answer that, then we'll talk about "rationalizations."
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Straw men
I didn't answer you because you distorted what I said. To answer you, of course the storage facility owner did not commit the crime in that scenario. As I've stated several times, megaupload was aware of things illegal going on their site, so that totally changes the point. Now answer my question, if you own a home and knowingly allow people to film kiddie porn in it, but are not in the room or a participant, should you be held responsible for knowingly facilitating and providing property for criminal activity?
YouTube actually blocks and removes content, not at all the same as megaupload. Megaupload keeps the content, removes the link and let's other sites provide the links to get to the illegal content stored on their property.
You misunderstand the content storage
As far as providing links to the same file, that was merely a matter of efficiency. If two people uploaded the exact same file, the file would only be stored once to save space, but each of them would be given their own custom link. What an individual did with their specific link was another matter and could be resolved be removing a specific link without affecting others.
This is perfectly legitimate. And here's an example, say you bought a file and stored it on the server. And someone else bought the exact same file and stored it on the server. There's no point in storing the exact same file twice when you can store it once and provide different access links.
Now, if one person tries to use their link illegally, it can be disabled without affecting the other person's right to still use their file. The illegal access is disabled, the legal access remains.
Just because one person is violating copyright with their link does not mean all others are.
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Your example does not explain a storage facility
Ironically, you claim "straw man," yet it is actually your example that is the straw man.
The owner of the storage facility does not see what people are storing, so your 'kiddie porn' straw man example does not apply.
Of course it's wrong if you knowingly allow someone to store something which is illegal, but that's not what is happening.
Your argument is based on mere assumption. You are assuming that the owner knows everything that is being stored. We know that copyrighted material is uploaded to all sites, including youtube, but that does not mean that youtube allows it.
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Finally a breakthrough
Now you are finally seeing where the rub is. You believe the owner of megaupload thought his site was suns and roses, with nothing illegal, and he acted appropriately by only removing links, but not the physically stolen property in the cases where illegal content was pointed out.
I beleve he did know his site was rife with copyrighted content, and was negligible in his duties to keep others from being ripped off. We'll have to leave it at that, we'll never reach an agreement based on the rub we are basing our arguments from.
Wrong, that is not what I believe
And it's not what I just wrote either.
Youtube knows that 'illegal' content is being uploaded to their site too. But that doesn't make them responsible for it, nor automatically aware of specific cases.
To say that the owner of MegaUpload is guilty for what his customers uploaded is to say that any host is guilty for what their customers upload.
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Links
But don't you think he's skirting the law a bit by only removing the links, and not the copyrighted material itself, as YouTube does? Btw, let's both take a step back and relax a bit, being that we are both on the DP, there is probably a lot we have in common, just disagree on the finer details in thus case.
One link equals one right to access
It's merely a more efficient way to store data.
If I buy a song, and you buy the same song, and we both store our songs on MegaUpload, it's actually an ingenious way to store both of our rights to access the song in half the amount of space.
If you use your link to violate copyright, then it can be disabled, while still allowing me to legitimately access mine.
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You make
a legitimate point, but what about the stuff that's obviously copyrighted, such as movies with a cam corder. In those cases, I think they should've deleted the actual content.