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10 years ago the Feds shut down Megaupload

torrentfreak.com

21–30 of 80 posts

Re: 10 years ago the Feds shut down Megaupload

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, MEGA is amazing. Unlike Megaupload, I have only used MEGA for personal use and not pirated content download. I think MEGA being fully encrypted was their answer to them being targeted for hosting any illegal content (with MEGA, they were hosting encrypted files, which they don't have access to themselves because the encryption key remains with the client). Did it take off as the replacement for pirated content s…

I never really understood how MEGA is any better. Sure, personal files are encrypted, and thus it's hard to detect pirated files that I upload for myself. But a lot of piracy happens with publicly downloadable files, which MEGA can definitely decrypt and search for copyright violations. I'll be honest -- I've used both MEGA and Megaupload for piracy, and MEGA makes it easier.

How can MEGA decrypt those "publicly shared" files to scan them? Do you think they should scan whole internet for such file links?

Re: 10 years ago the Feds shut down Megaupload

#23
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I miss the most about this "peak warez" period (and most of the mid to late 00s, basically) is the huge amount of blogs uploading rare old music. During this sweet period I was able to get a lot of very rare music from all over the world (as a bouns, you could in practice guarantee that it was virus-free since unlike actual warez these files weren't executable. Yes, I know that dedicated attackers can still find…

Digital music that you purchase hasn’t had DRM for over a decade.

according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Music

there are lots of countries where you can not buy DRM free music from amazon (afaiu what the OP was referring to)

so the problem is how to find a shop where you can buy your super rare tracks ...

(i assume some will also be bootlegs or other fan-made recordings - you wont find those in a shop)

Re: 10 years ago the Feds shut down Megaupload

#24
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digital music that you purchase hasn’t had DRM for over a decade.

according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Music there are lots of countries where you can not buy DRM free music from amazon (afaiu what the OP was referring to) so the problem is how to find a shop where you can buy your super rare tracks ... (i assume some will also be bootlegs or other fan-made recordings - you wont find those in a shop)

The thing is that in other occasions I believe I have bought DRM-free music from Amazon Spain. But those particular albums weren't available in Spain, and although I found them in the german Amazon, I wasn't able to purchase them. I assume that it was a matter Amazon only being license to sell it in some regions (side note, I'd rather not buy from Amazon. I was ready to bit the bullet because it was the only place I found them, after about two hours looking for alternatives, but even so, they didn't let me pay for it). Just another way in which copyright management goes directly against the user, I guess.

Yes, I know that fortunately there are many ways to pay for DRM-free music (I mentioned that I use Bandcamp pretty often). What I miss is the vast amount of content I had available 10 or 12 years ago; I have been able to buy a lot of music, but there is much more that just isn't available.

Re: 10 years ago the Feds shut down Megaupload

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, MEGA is amazing. Unlike Megaupload, I have only used MEGA for personal use and not pirated content download. I think MEGA being fully encrypted was their answer to them being targeted for hosting any illegal content (with MEGA, they were hosting encrypted files, which they don't have access to themselves because the encryption key remains with the client). Did it take off as the replacement for pirated content s…

I never really understood how MEGA is any better. Sure, personal files are encrypted, and thus it's hard to detect pirated files that I upload for myself. But a lot of piracy happens with publicly downloadable files, which MEGA can definitely decrypt and search for copyright violations. I'll be honest -- I've used both MEGA and Megaupload for piracy, and MEGA makes it easier.

> But a lot of piracy happens with publicly downloadable files, which MEGA can definitely decrypt and search for copyright violations

How would MEGA do this, without crawling the web looking for links + keys? Which is certainly something they'd have no interest in doing.

Naturally, I'm sure that third party "rights enforcement" companies might trawl for these links and look for infringing content and issue a takedown notice to MEGA, but there must be an ongoing arms race between people sharing links+keys and the bots crawling for them.

Re: 10 years ago the Feds shut down Megaupload

#26

I don't understand why we taxpayers decide to pool our money to pay for a staff of employees to ensure that we can't have free music and movies. I would prefer free music and movies over more federal payroll. It's like we all pitched in to ensure Kim Kardashian can have more money.

Would you be okay if large for profit companies didn’t have to abide by open source licenses? What’s the incentive to make movies or music just to be given away for free? Would you work for free?

>Would you be okay if large for profit companies didn’t have to abide by open source licenses?

Are we pretending that they all do?

Re: 10 years ago the Feds shut down Megaupload

#27
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never really understood how MEGA is any better. Sure, personal files are encrypted, and thus it's hard to detect pirated files that I upload for myself. But a lot of piracy happens with publicly downloadable files, which MEGA can definitely decrypt and search for copyright violations. I'll be honest -- I've used both MEGA and Megaupload for piracy, and MEGA makes it easier.

> But a lot of piracy happens with publicly downloadable files, which MEGA can definitely decrypt and search for copyright violations How would MEGA do this, without crawling the web looking for links + keys? Which is certainly something they'd have no interest in doing. Naturally, I'm sure that third party "rights enforcement" companies might trawl for these links and look for infringing content and issue a takedown…

> How would MEGA do this, without crawling the web looking for links + keys? Which is certainly something they'd have no interest in doing.

By doing that.

They receive reports and take links down.

Re: 10 years ago the Feds shut down Megaupload

#28
post #13

I loved Megaupload and especially Mediafire. Way more straightforward than your average torrent site.

I think those two are the only file sharing sites left from back in the day.

Technically Mega.nz is new, MediaFire has kept going, a lot of forum links are still active from nearly two decades ago.

Re: 10 years ago the Feds shut down Megaupload

#29

The successor, mega.nz, is genuinely a great service. I know doctors who use it for (legally) sending patient scans, with the key sent OOB, for example. It has a nice linux CLI, mega-cmd, and is intelligently made, cheap, and widely available.

yeah i love it as well. plus i can buy the premium service in BTC...

But why would anyone buy anything with BTC?

Re: 10 years ago the Feds shut down Megaupload

#30
I refuse to invest any time, energy, or money in MEGA. The reason? The brand has reputation issues. They could've dropped `Mega` from the service's name, but determined researchers would find out it's by the MegaUpload crowd and blow the whistle on that, so there's no recourse from the raids, just tarnished reputation, encrypted files or not.
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