Megaupload sharing site shut down

[Guest Mr. N]

The site's founders 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.

The news came a day after anti-piracy law protests, but investigators said they were ordered two weeks ago.

The US Justice Department said that Megaupload's two co-founders Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz, and Mathias Ortmann were arrested in Auckland, New Zealand along with two other employees of the business 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 sites

The 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 had 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."

Blackouts

The announcement came a day after thousands of websites took part in a "blackout" to protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa).

The US Chamber of Commerce has defended the proposed laws saying that enforcement agencies "lack the tools" to effectively apply existing intellectual property laws to the digital world.

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."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-16642369

Oh well, at least there is still Mediafire.

[CrypticQuery]

That is quite literally insane. They are holding a site's owners repsonsible for what users upload, EXACTLY what the entire sane part of the internet is fighting against with SOPA and PIPA. Sometimes I lose faith in humanity, this is one of those times. :/

["User"]

Things like this make me laugh. For every mole (piracy site/service) they knock down another one will inevitably come up.

[Vy'drach]

This is a damned shame. I liked megaupload.

At least I believe it was megaupload.

[Arashikage]

They arrested three site officials. None of which were US citizens, they can't do that, they didn't even arrest them in the US, they went to New Freaking Zealand, to arrest them on US charges.

[Rusheo]

They arrested three site officials. None of which were US citizens, they can't do that, they didn't even arrest them in the US, they went to New Freaking Zealand, to arrest them on US charges.

each have to serve 55 years how the hell are they going to do that?!

that and i think the FBI needs to stop sticking their nose where it shouldn't be.

[CrypticQuery]

each have to serve 55 years how the hell are they going to do that?!

that and i think the FBI needs to stop sticking their nose where it shouldn't be.

All MegaUpload did was provide a place to upload files, regardless of their origin. If there is nothing different between this and robbery, why is the sentence drastically different? Why is the sentence longer than what most rapists, robbers, and other criminals receive?

[Milkyway64]

Oh well, at least there is still Mediafire.

"Nevermind that this likely the first in a series that has pissed off the internet at large and spawned attacks on government websites and likely later on riots in the street, I still have Mediafire!"

[CrazyMirage]

Wait what? D: I usually use Megaupload, so this really sucks At least there's still others...

[conaly]

Hi,

the guy - Kim Schmitz - who build up MU was a damn criminal! In the past he was already arrested because of fraud (hope this sentence is grammatically correct XD). In the 90s he traded with pirate copies and illegal/stolen phone cards. He already was adjudged for three years suspended sentence - looks like he didn't care too much. And still he earned millions with the whole crap he did. That's why I'm actually not too unhappy about taking MegaUpload offline. The problem I have with this action, is the method, the FBI used. They actually punished a service, which did not do anything wrong but has been abused by its users. SOPA did not even exist in the US law, still the FBI acted like it was. If they would have killed Rapidshare or Uploaded or any other hosting site, the whole thing would look quite different, as there is no illegal system behind them... just the users who act wrong.

For arresting Kim Schmitz and the other few guys the FBI cooperated with NZ authorities, so this was not an act by the FBI but the NZ Police.

Anonymous also did their part and attacked sites of the FBI and some major labels and movie companies. Well, not that I don't like their affords for a free internet. The problem is, that they aren't really better than the FBI. They used illegal methods and the only reason was taking revenge.