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NEWS: Megaupload Site Shut Down Partly Due to Fruits Basket Anime


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TsukiumiFanboy



Joined: 11 Oct 2011
Posts: 3
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 3:33 am Reply with quote
tuxedocat wrote:
enurtsol wrote:
TsukiumiFanboy wrote:
so what happens to the people like me who had a 3 month subscription to the site (it was my main site since it was so easy and fast)? r we just SOL? or do we get refunds for the months not used cause i recently got the nice christmas package (i think) and i still have a couple months on it.


If Megaupload Co. is convicted, you most likely won't get that money back unfortunately. This is not a perfect analogy, but it's kinda like if ya purchase an item from the back of somebody's van at an alley, then later it turns out that item is "hot," the feds can just confiscate it without getting your money back.


RICO has a provision for private parties to sue, but I would guess your losses will be less than the court fees. Perhaps there will be a class action that you could join, but I doubt it. I wouldn't do it, if I were you.

im good its not worth the trouble for a measly 30 dollars
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tuxedocat



Joined: 14 Dec 2009
Posts: 2183
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 3:56 am Reply with quote
@TsukiumiFanboy

If you pay a subscription fee to sites like MU, it is likely that they will be targeted by the Feds going forward. Now that they have started applying RiCO to aggregators, they are going to keep doing it. It is not really the infringement so much it is the fact that these sites are charging subscription fees to allow people to download property that doesn't legally belong to the site owners. It's racketeering and money laundering, covered by the same laws that we used to get rid of organized crime. The RICO act.

I figure the FBI is looking at all the big file sharing sites that charge any money or fees to their users. I think that all they have to prove is that there are victims (subscribers) in the USA who have been bilked out of cash.
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MarineCorps



Joined: 31 May 2008
Posts: 36
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 5:28 am Reply with quote
tuxedocat wrote:
@TsukiumiFanboy

If you pay a subscription fee to sites like MU, it is likely that they will be targeted by the Feds going forward. Now that they have started applying RiCO to aggregators, they are going to keep doing it. It is not really the infringement so much it is the fact that these sites are charging subscription fees to allow people to download property that doesn't legally belong to the site owners. It's racketeering and money laundering, covered by the same laws that we used to get rid of organized crime. The RICO act.

I figure the FBI is looking at all the big file sharing sites that charge any money or fees to their users. I think that all they have to prove is that there are victims (subscribers) in the USA who have been bilked out of cash.


Wait, they used RICO in this? I haven't heard that from anywhere
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Haterater



Joined: 30 Apr 2006
Posts: 1727
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 8:01 am Reply with quote
The whole SOPA act is pointless if they can just do it already. Now its a reality of taking down the sites and harming innocents caught in them. Pirates move on to another similar site, just delaying them. Wish there was a way to just take out the copy right infrindging files and leave legitimate ones alone when it comes to taking down sites like that.
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jhuhn



Joined: 25 Jun 2005
Posts: 147
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 8:49 am Reply with quote
Quote from Jeff Albertson the Comic Book Guy: "Time to get a life." and reads a LIFE magazine after the Springface website was shut down for good.
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sunflower



Joined: 04 Sep 2005
Posts: 1080
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 9:30 am Reply with quote
Thing is, all filesharing sites are used illegally by some. So saying megaupload was an iffy site among others is rather silly because they're all iffy. My company uses a filesharing site for some of the less tech-savvy clients who NEED THINGS NOW. There's no getting around it. They can't use ftp. Overnighted data isn't good enough.

Of course, we have backups of everything out there, but if it's taken down it's an annoying inconvenience. But if the government shuts down all sites that are misused by some people, there won't be anything left to shut down, and those of us with legitimate needs and uses will be reduced to using 80s tech while overseas companies working with 2012 tech will laugh us out of business.
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Myaow



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 1068
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 10:07 am Reply with quote
Just look at the insouciant smile on Tohru's face. You know she was planning this all along.
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Mesonoxian Eve



Joined: 10 Jan 2012
Posts: 1858
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 10:52 am Reply with quote
Haterater wrote:
The whole SOPA act is pointless if they can just do it already.

This case is different because due process was started to take the site down. The indictment should have been the first clue, but I digress. I don't know what people understand anymore.

To go further: "copyright law" has strict provisions which turn the issue from a civil case to a criminal case, making the convictions stand as felonies.

Strict means there has to be sufficient evidence copyright infringement is the "business model". This was born from the days of video tapes to prevent people from copying them, then turning and selling or renting them.

In the digital age, this has a gray area because the site isn't doing the infringement directly, but the users are.

However, MU is alleged to not provide the necessary measures to protect against infringement, and this is their fault to allow the indictment.

While I can see why these types of cases can be confusing, they are separated out with the facts.

The situation with the dajaz1.com site (which lead to the SOPA blackout day) is in the news because due process was not initiated to take down the site (and others).

Hope this clears the air of confusion.
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 3213
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 11:01 am Reply with quote
sunflower wrote:
Thing is, all filesharing sites are used illegally by some. So saying megaupload was an iffy site among others is rather silly because they're all iffy. My company uses a filesharing site for some of the less tech-savvy clients who NEED THINGS NOW. There's no getting around it. They can't use ftp. Overnighted data isn't good enough.


What "iffy" means in this case is that they do not fully implement the requirements to qualify as a safe harbor under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If they do fully implement those requirements, then the fault lies with the "rogue" users. If they do not fully implement the safe harbor requirements, then they are liable to all copyright infringement performed using their site.

When I spidered a set of leech streaming sites a year ago to locate where they were leeching their streams from, you could see that Megavideo and MySpace were the worst bootleg streaming sites, VEOH was less popular, and then much smaller numbers hosted on a range of other sites, including YouTube. And when the links were forwarded to the copyright owners, the ones on VEOH and YouTube and a lot of the smaller sites disappeared immediately, while it took much longer for the ones on MySpace and Megavideo to go away.

Irony of ironies: at the time, MySpace was owned by NewsCorp, controlled by Rupert Murdoch who was always going on about how bad Internet Piracy was. Well, I guess bad except when it helped NewsCorp.'s bottom line by inflating their hit rate.
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FireChick
Subscriber



Joined: 26 Mar 2006
Posts: 2385
Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 11:20 am Reply with quote
I REALLY hope this shut down is only temporary! MegaUpload is the only way I can find Japanese Digimon episodes!! Sad
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Lightning Leo



Joined: 04 Jul 2010
Posts: 311
Location: Earth
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 12:31 pm Reply with quote
Mesonoxian Eve wrote:
Haterater wrote:
The whole SOPA act is pointless if they can just do it already.

This case is different because due process was started to take the site down. The indictment should have been the first clue, but I digress. I don't know what people understand anymore.

To go further: "copyright law" has strict provisions which turn the issue from a civil case to a criminal case, making the convictions stand as felonies.

Strict means there has to be sufficient evidence copyright infringement is the "business model". This was born from the days of video tapes to prevent people from copying them, then turning and selling or renting them.

In the digital age, this has a gray area because the site isn't doing the infringement directly, but the users are.

However, MU is alleged to not provide the necessary measures to protect against infringement, and this is their fault to allow the indictment.

While I can see why these types of cases can be confusing, they are separated out with the facts.

The situation with the dajaz1.com site (which lead to the SOPA blackout day) is in the news because due process was not initiated to take down the site (and others).

Hope this clears the air of confusion.


I was sifting through the comments wondering what distinguished this Megaupload case from the SOPA/PIPA legislation and dajaz case, your explanation pretty much cleared the air for me, thanks much. Very Happy
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tuxedocat



Joined: 14 Dec 2009
Posts: 2183
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 12:40 pm Reply with quote
MarineCorps wrote:
tuxedocat wrote:
@TsukiumiFanboy

If you pay a subscription fee to sites like MU, it is likely that they will be targeted by the Feds going forward. Now that they have started applying RiCO to aggregators, they are going to keep doing it. It is not really the infringement so much it is the fact that these sites are charging subscription fees to allow people to download property that doesn't legally belong to the site owners. It's racketeering and money laundering, covered by the same laws that we used to get rid of organized crime. The RICO act.

I figure the FBI is looking at all the big file sharing sites that charge any money or fees to their users. I think that all they have to prove is that there are victims (subscribers) in the USA who have been bilked out of cash.



Wait, they used RICO in this? I haven't heard that from anywhere


Anything with racketeering charges is covered under the RICO act. They also mentioned other charges covered by RICO.

They won't be able to charge all file-sharing sites this way. My guess is that they have been investigating this for quite a while. It's not limited to copyright infringement.
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superdry



Joined: 07 Jan 2012
Posts: 1309
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 1:13 pm Reply with quote
tuxedocat wrote:

They won't be able to charge all file-sharing sites this way. My guess is that they have been investigating this for quite a while. It's not limited to copyright infringement.


That's what I got from reading all the news. The feds were able to get them based on other charges related to copyright infringement, but not purely on copyright infringement since the site did have it's legal uses.
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agila61



Joined: 22 Feb 2009
Posts: 3213
Location: NE Ohio
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 1:25 pm Reply with quote
superdry wrote:
tuxedocat wrote:

They won't be able to charge all file-sharing sites this way. My guess is that they have been investigating this for quite a while. It's not limited to copyright infringement.


That's what I got from reading all the news. The feds were able to get them based on other charges related to copyright infringement, but not purely on copyright infringement since the site did have it's legal uses.

"This technology has legal uses" is an effective defense against the argument that it is soly designed to engage in piracy. For example, Video Cassette Recorders, which the MPAA sued to ban, and they lost the suit since time shifting viewing was deemed by the US courts to be a fair use. Of course, if the MPAA had won that one, they would have shot themselves in the foot, given how much money they made from selling pre-recorded VHS tapes in the 80's and 90's.

However, "The site has legal uses" is no defense against infringement. The defense is, "this site follows all the requirements in the DCMA to qualify as a safe harbor, so if there is infringement, we are not exposed to legal liability". If this was a two year investigation, part of that would have been getting proof positive that Megaupload did not follow all the requirements to qualify as a safe harbor. Otherwise there would be no copyright infringement liability, and therefore none of the associated charged built on the foundation of the copyright infringement, like money laundering income originally generated from illegal copyright infringement.

Not complying with the full letter of the law as far as infringement notification and such would benefit Megaupload in two ways: first, it would make Megaupload more attractive to those who intended to engage in bootleg distribution, and second it would save on operating costs that sites like YouTube and VEOH have to bear. So taking shortcuts on the safe harbor requirements would have resulted in more profit in the short term.

However, getting greedy sometimes leads to bankruptcy, and if the Feds win their case, this could well be one of those cases.
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michaeltanzer



Joined: 25 Nov 2010
Posts: 168
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 1:27 pm Reply with quote
O.M.G. N-O-O-O-O-ooooo!!!
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