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Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

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Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#301

Post by mcmc »

AlexMuir wrote: post #39

At the risk of megadownvoting here... Megaupload never complied with DMCA requests - I made several as part of some research and never received any response. The site charged for access to, and provided advertising around, pirated content. The site paid people (users/staff - it's a fine line) to provide popular content. It went to extraordinary lengths to hide the identity of its operators. Now if people believe that…

> I cannot believe that Megaupload is being > touted as an anti-SOPA posterchild.

That's the point! According to you, they were a piracy haven, and they were shut down. Without SOPA. So why do we need SOPA again?

This is pretty clearly an anti-SOPA talking point.

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#303

Post by cbs »

pyre wrote: post #251
cbs wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>From my perspective it looks like they were follow the letter of the law on all, or nearly all counts I used to see them as an agnostic upload bin, but I'm reading the indictment right now, and from my perspective, its certainly questionable. I'm going to copy some text from the indictment here. I can see legal defenses that they could try to counter these claims, but I don't want to get into that, I just want to pu…

So, MegaUpload.com has two links to a movie file, each created by a different user (user1 and user2). The copyright holder files a DMCA notice against the link created by user1. Should MegaUpload.com remove the link for user2? The rights holder has not claimed that the second link is offending. It's possible that user2 has the right to distribute the file, but user1 does not. It's a dicey issue.

Dicey indeed. They were playing very fast and loose with 17 USC 512(c)(1)(a)(ii), if not the takedown provisions themselves. The nature of their service makes no distinction between the recipients, regardless of link to the file, and the only difference is which uploader would get points (or whatever reward they had). Its really hard not to give the impression that there weren't just looking the other way. Sites like (IIRC) hotfile.com completly blacklist the md5, even preventing re-upload of files if the get a DMCA takedown.

If a trial goes forward, I expect to see some case law made clarifying this area.

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#304

Post by bri3d »

ssebro wrote: post #135
bri3d wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think dedupe seriously combats use in infringement - it just forces pirates to repack/recompress their infringing content into many different forms, which pretty much happens anyway since lots of "torrent warez" groups like to put their names and spam links on everything. From a legal/rights-holder standpoint that's a double-edged sword - it could be argued that because Dropbox dedupe files, they have a head…

it does because I'm fairly sure they aren't deduping at the file level - which means they're doing significant introspection into exactly how different copies of the same file are. This is why dropbox is so fast - they only need to send unique diffs.

Content recompressed with a different file format at a different compression level will almost certainly not match, and many pirate sites use encrypted RARs which will all differ from each other almost entirely.

That's why I think the "Megaupload took down only one link rather than all the infringing content" aspect of this indictment is so scary, especially for a site that does perform introspection into its hosted files - it's easy for a judge to go from "you can send only unique differences" to "you can locate every instance of this copyrighted content and remove it or else."

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#305

Post by dedward »

jrockway wrote: post #259
dangrossman wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in the US don't have to comply with DMCA notices either. The safe harbor provision of the DMCA does not create new obligations, it creates a "if this then that" situation: IF a service provider receives a notice of infringement AND promptly disables access to the content, THEN the service provider is granted immunity from liability for that infringement. If you ignore the notice then this provision simply does…

What you're saying makes no sense. Can Iran extradite me for writing software to upload pornography to the Internet? (It's a capital offense there.) Of course not, because that's not how laws work. They can try to extradite me, of course, but no reasonable country would ever assist them. Similarly, it makes very little sense to extradite programmers at Megaupload. Sure, Megaupload is probably illegal in the US. But w…

generally extradition treaties, out of common sense, require something to be illegal in both jurisictions. World powers are pretty much on the same page when it comes to money laundering. Following the money, as they say. Your dutch coffeeshop owner hasnt committed a crime in the us by any stretch of the imagination, and is operating according to the wishes of his government (even if the weed is technicLly still illegAl, the current setup is ok, and the coffee shop owners are not hiding their profits... so its not mney laundering.

The internet changes the landscape drastically.... and using current laws to deal with real issues involving it is often dificult to useless. That doesnt mean we shold justify things that are wrong, nor should we make bad law.

ignoring the international issues.... just because a site could be used for copyright infringement is noreason tomtake it down. but lets be realistic, there a many sites out there where the owners knew damn well that their primary customer base were copyright infringers, and they catered to it fairly directly. sure some people used it for other things..... but if the primary revenue stream hosting and serving unlicensed work and you darn well know it.... you are asking for trouble.

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#306

Post by jeswin »

AlexMuir wrote: post #39

At the risk of megadownvoting here... Megaupload never complied with DMCA requests - I made several as part of some research and never received any response. The site charged for access to, and provided advertising around, pirated content. The site paid people (users/staff - it's a fine line) to provide popular content. It went to extraordinary lengths to hide the identity of its operators. Now if people believe that…

At the risk of megadownvoting here...

There was a time when you didn't have to write this. :(

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#307

Post by VMG »

rickmb wrote: post #229
AlexMuir wrote: post #39

At the risk of megadownvoting here... Megaupload never complied with DMCA requests - I made several as part of some research and never received any response. The site charged for access to, and provided advertising around, pirated content. The site paid people (users/staff - it's a fine line) to provide popular content. It went to extraordinary lengths to hide the identity of its operators. Now if people believe that…

Let's analyze the propaganda speak here: > Megaupload never complied with DMCA requests Based on not only the experience of others, but the claims of the DoJ itself, this is clearly false. > The site charged for access to, and provided advertising around, pirated content. This is true in the same way YouTube provides advertising around, and your friendly local ISP provides access to, pirated content. > The site paid…

>> The site charged for access to, and provided advertising around, pirated content.

> This is true in the same way YouTube provides advertising around, and your friendly local ISP provides access to, pirated content.

I can get the full "The Dark Knight" in 720p on YouTube? Links please

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#308

Post by delackner »

At a glance this seemed like an obvious move, but the deeper you look everything stops making sense.

The emails between company officers suggest that they themselves used their own service to upload copyrighted content and share it with others, knowingly breaking the law. Case closed!

But what gives US law enforcement the right to obtain those private emails between officers of a foreign company? Reasonable suspicion of infringement? What suspicion? Suspicion of failure to comply with DMCA takedown notices?

What is the basis for that suspicion? Their failure to delete ALL links to any file for which a single link is reported. But as many others have pointed out, each of those links represents a specific user who has uploaded the same file. Without a public searchable index, each of those keys is effectively a distinct privately uploaded file.

So we come down to whether a copyright holder has the authority to say "anyone anywhere who has uploaded a copy of this file, does not have the right to share it".

What next? If a service like Dropbox borrows a hint from git and stores not just single file hashes, but distinct unique data chunks, and a takedown request calls for the deletion of say, a feature film, will they claim Dropbox knowingly infringed for failing to remove a 10 second chunk of that film that some student put in their dissertation?

Re: Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy

#310

Post by rg3 »

VMG wrote: post #307
rickmb wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's analyze the propaganda speak here: > Megaupload never complied with DMCA requests Based on not only the experience of others, but the claims of the DoJ itself, this is clearly false. > The site charged for access to, and provided advertising around, pirated content. This is true in the same way YouTube provides advertising around, and your friendly local ISP provides access to, pirated content. > The site paid…

>> The site charged for access to, and provided advertising around, pirated content. > This is true in the same way YouTube provides advertising around, and your friendly local ISP provides access to, pirated content. I can get the full "The Dark Knight" in 720p on YouTube? Links please

Not 720p, but I don't think that was really the main point. By the way, I just got the link by going to YouTube and searching for "the dark knight part 1".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuaUcGr32SM

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