jalaffa Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Federal prosecutors in Virginia 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. View: Original Article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shought Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Woah... Didn't see this one coming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jalaffa Posted January 19, 2012 Author Share Posted January 19, 2012 Lots of alternatives though. Multiupload should remove the megaupload.com mirror option.Maybe this article sparked it.http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/music_stars_in_upload_of_trouble_cpoHrLbEe7gr3Od5XcF9BL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shought Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Apparently the FBI in combination with local authorities arrested 4 people in New Zealand... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator Lite Posted January 19, 2012 Administrator Share Posted January 19, 2012 Too much crazyness apart here. The owner is German, Lives in NZ and the company is HK registered. Yet the FBI are getting involved?!SOPA and PIPA make acts make things like this apart of law.-------Megaupload, one of the internet's largest file-sharing sites, has been shut down by officials in the US.The site's founder have been charged with violating piracy laws.Federal prosecutors have accused it of costing copyright holders more than $500m (£320m) in lost revenue. The firm says it was diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material.Investigators denied a link to recent protests against proposed piracy laws, according to the Wall Street Journal.The US Justice Department said that Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz, and three others were arrested in Auckland, New Zealand at the request of US officials. It added that three other defendants were still at large."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," said a statement posted on its website.Third-party sitesThe charges included copyright infringement, conspiracies to commit racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering.A federal court in Virginia ordered that 18 domain names associated with the Hong Kong-based firm be seized.The Justice Department said that more than 20 search warrants had been executed in nine countries, and that approximately $50m in assets had been seized.It claimed that the accused pursued a business model designed to promote the uploading of copyrighted works."The conspirators allegedly paid users whom they specifically knew uploaded infringing content and publicised their links to users throughout the world," a statement said."By actively supporting the use of third-party linking sites to publicise infringing content, the conspirators did not need to publicise 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."Before it was shut down the site posted a statement saying the allegations against it were "grotesquely overblown"."The fact is that the vast majority of Mega's internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay," it added."If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch."BlackoutsOn Wednesday, thousands of websites took part in a "blackout" to protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa).Industry watchers suggest this latest move may feed into the wider debate."Neither of the bills are close to being passed - they need further revision - but it appears that officials are able to use existing tools to go after a business alleged to be inducing piracy," said Gartner's media distribution expert Mike McGuire."It begs the question that if you can find and arrest people who are suspected to be involved in piracy using existing laws, then why introduce further regulations which are US-only and potentially damaging." :view: Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beer Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 This is injustice. They better get a fair trial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRiM Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Lots of alternatives though. Multiupload should remove the megaupload.com mirror option.Maybe this article sparked it.http://www.nypost.co...Ee7gr3Od5XcF9BLWow didnt realise that the owner of megaupload was married to Alecia Keys? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shought Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 It's not so much the actual actions which surprised me, but the fact that the actions are taken on a company which is not subject to American copyright laws... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beer Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Lots of alternatives though. Multiupload should remove the megaupload.com mirror option.Maybe this article sparked it.http://www.nypost.co...Ee7gr3Od5XcF9BLWow didnt realise that the owner of megaupload was married to Alecia Keys?Thanks for linking that. I was wondering about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator Lite Posted January 19, 2012 Administrator Share Posted January 19, 2012 It's not so much the actual actions which surprised me, but the fact that the actions are taken on a company which is not subject to American copyright laws...Its probably to do with this Video.... Universal vs MegaUpload is an ongoing thing for quite some time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beer Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 It's not so much the actual actions which surprised me, but the fact that the actions are taken on a company which is not subject to American copyright laws...I assumed that was one of the main intent of PIPA/SOPA. Did they just decided to say screw it, and do it anyways? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CODYQX4 Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Goes to show SOPA is a moot point. Who needs new laws when the government is above the laws and does whatever it wants. I wouldn't be surprised if this is their way of showing who really runs the show.If only I had a magic button that would incinerate everyone who has sold themselves to the corrupt companies that are pushing this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beer Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Here is a copy of the indictment papers:<a title="View Mega Indictment on Scribd" href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/78786408" style="margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block; text-decoration: underline;">Mega Indictment</a><iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" src="http://www.scribd.com/embeds/78786408/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list" data-auto-height="true" data-aspect-ratio="" scrolling="no" id="doc_93327" width="100%" height="600" frameborder="0"></iframe> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myidisbb Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 yes this admin in the usa is breaking the law. what they ICE with the FBI is doing is illegal. if you are in teh usa and can vote. please vote one big azz mistake out and send his azz back to his home land Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeetPirate Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 So this is what they call sanctioned terrorism. Interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beer Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 This was a planned attack. They wanted to the public to think they were going to shelve SOPA so Mega employees wouldn't know the feds were coming.Reading the first few pages of the indictment, the allegations not only points to Megaupload.com, but also Megavideo.com, Megaclick.com, Megaporn.com. Megaupload by itself, does not break any laws, isn't that correct? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted January 19, 2012 Administrator Share Posted January 19, 2012 MegaUpload Shut Down by the Feds, Founder ArrestedMegaUpload, one of the largest file-sharing sites on the Internet, has been shut down by federal prosecutors in Virginia. The site’s founder Kim Dotcom and three others were arrested by the police in New Zealand at the request of US authorities. MegaVideo, the streaming site belonging to same company, and a total of 18 domains connected to the Mega company were seized and datacenters in three countries raided.Just a few weeks ago, MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom told TorrentFreak that his Mega ventures have nothing to worry about, as they operate within the rules of the law.“Mega has nothing to fear. Our business is legitimate and protected by the DMCA and similar laws around the world. We work with the best lawyers and play by the rules.“We take our legal obligations seriously. Mega’s war chest is full and we have strong supporters backing us,” Dotcom said.But behind the scenes powerful forces were at work, plotting the forceful demise of MegaUpload, one of the world’s biggest websites.An indictment unsealed today by the Department of Justice claims that MegaUpload has caused the entertainment industries more than $500 million in lost revenue and generated $175 million “in criminal proceeds.”Two corporations – Megaupload Limited and Vestor Limited – were indicted by a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia on January 5th, 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.”Today, the authorities executed in excess of 20 search warrants in the United States and eight other countries.Data centers in the Netherlands, Canada and Washington housing MegaUpload’s equipment were raided. In an apparent reference to the latter location, a source has just informed TorrentFreak that the FBI are currently detaining everyone at the ISP Cogent Communications’ headquarters in Washington DC, in connection with a Mega-related search warrant.In addition to MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom who was arrested today in New Zealand, another six 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 websites.Dotcom, Batato, Ortmann and van der Kolk were arrested today in Auckland, New Zealand, by authorities there. Bencko, Echternach and Nomm are still at large.The authorities seized approximately $50 million in assets, which appears to include Kim Dotcom’s treasured car collection as detailed below.A total of 18 Mega-related domains were also seized by authorities including Megastuff.co, Megaworld.com, Megaclicks.co, Megastuff.info, Megaclicks.org, Megaworld.mobi, Megastuff.org, Megaclick.us, Mageclick.com, HDmegaporn.com, Megavkdeo.com, Megaupload.com, Megaupload.org, Megarotic.com, Megaclick.com, Megavideo.com, Megavideoclips.com and Megaporn.com.According to the Department of Justice, the individuals named in the indictment 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.:view: View: Original Article Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beer Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 Thanks for the update DKT27 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myidisbb Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 next month its websites that start with N Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanjoa Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 :sadbye: I've had a premium account there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted January 19, 2012 Administrator Share Posted January 19, 2012 First of all, extremely shocking news. :mellow:The sites were hosted in US. Hence all this. -_-But this surely is the worst dictatorship I've seen by a countries' jurisdiction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanjoa Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I've read that the US Justice site is under attack and it is unaccesible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beer Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 I've read that the US Justice site is under attack and it is unaccesibleYou are correct, it is inaccessible. You can try searching: US DOJ Anonymous takes down DOJ website in response to Megaupload case Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanjoa Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 We (internet users) must start a protest against this!! USA is not the king of the Earth. USA will fall as the Roman empire did. :rant: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted January 19, 2012 Administrator Share Posted January 19, 2012 Thanks for the info. News coming in that Anonymous has taken credit to take down sites of Justice Department, Universal Music, RIAA, etc. With more to go down soon.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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