megaupload

Z

zed

Legend
Quick Question - I couldnt gleen this from any news source so I thought I'ld ask
Never heard of this site until the last couple of days, anyways
Apparently they got caught with ~175m of assets/cash Yet the copyright holders are saying they only lost out ~$500m.
My Question is why the small disparty? From what I hear often spouted is that companies use the 1 download = 1 one lost sale metric, thus $175m would be like $10billion at least

PS - I love some of the car number plates they had.
GOD, POLICE, STONED, GUILTY, MAFIA :LOL:
I wouldnt mind picking up the 'god' one myself. I surprised police was allowed, I know here in NZ you cant have swearwords 'fucked' etc (then again Ive seen 'getf'ed' or something like that, so even thats not strictly enforced)
 
I'm assuming the 500m USD figure is only for the selection of filesharing aggregate sites (forums, blogs, actualy filesharing sites, etc.) that they tracked. Likely by putting up their own links to files being shared, tracking downloads for that account and then averaging with how many such accounts were linking files on those sites.

So the number is far smaller than the potential real "damages" as they are most likely to succeed in the case if they just stick to the numbers estimated (or perhaps they are only using numbers from the accounts they created for this purpose) during the case. As well I'm not sure you can associate a companies assets with how often a file is downloaded.

What is more interesting is that Megaupload hasn't been a major player in this for a few years now, and are far less aggressive in pushing their service than the more popular filesharing services. Don't get me wrong there is still a LOT of pirated material moving through their service, but it doesn't seem to be as frequently referenced as some other players. Some of which have changed names and ownership multiple times during the past few years.

It'll be interesting to see how this proceeds and how it'll impact the other filesharing services.

Edit - interesting. I hadn't really been following this, but apparently this isn't targetted at online piracy. The "sting" operation is a blanket process going after counterfeit sites as well as piracy sites. Over a third of the sites taken down were dealing in the sale of counterfeit goods.

Regards,
SB
 
175m they gained, the rest of the 500m is what pirates gained. You know not paying for stuff.

From what I gather megaupload actually deals with piracy, ie they paid for pirated stuffs to be uploaded to their server, delete links but kept materials when there are take down notices and make some of their employee put up new links to get more hits.

So I guess the police had enough evidence to proof that in court,
 
I'm not so sure that's it. Basically what's causing this takedown is the combination of...

1. Megaupload pays people per download.
2. People put up pirated material which gets mass downloaded.

Hence, there is cash trading hands over pirated material. Now you aren't just trafficing in pirated goods, but people are also profitting over pirated goods. Even in the face of a takedown request, cash has already traded hands for pirated goods.

If those people weren't being paid for each file downloaded, I think the existence of the takedown request system may have been enough to make them a harder target (similar to YouTube with protected material).

Regards,
SB
 
zed said:
I love some of the car number plates they had.
Click to expand...
The US Government has seized more than 20 cars including 15 Mercedes, a Maserati and even a Rolls Royce. What is interesting are the number plates on the cars and include ‘CEO’, ‘GOD’, ‘STONED’, ‘EVIL’ and ‘MAFIA’. There is one number plate ‘GUILTY’. Venturebeat has the list of cars seized

2010 Maserati GranCabrio, License Plate No. “M-FB 212” or “DH-GC 470”, registered to FINN BATATO;
2009 Mercedes-Benz E500 Coupe, License Plate No. “FEG690”;
2005 Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM, License Plate No. “GOOD”;
2004 Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM AMG 5.5L Kompressor, License Plate No. “EVIL”;
2010 Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG L, License Plate No. “CEO”;
2008 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drop Head Coupe, License Plate No. “GOD”;
2010 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG, License Plate No. “STONED”;
2010 Mini Cooper S Coupe, License Plate No. “V”;
2010 Mercedes-Benz ML63 AMG, License Plate No. “GUILTY”;
2007 Mercedes-Benz CL65 AMG, License Plate No. “KIMCOM”;
2009 Mercedes-Benz ML63 AMG, License Plate No. “MAFIA”;
2010 Toyota Vellfire, License Plate Nos. “WOW” or “7”;
2011 Mercedes-Benz G55 AMG, License Plate Nos. “POLICE” or “GDS672”;
2011 Toyota Hilux, License Plate No. “FSN455”;
Harley Davidson Motorcycle, License Plate No. “36YED”;
2010 Mercedes-Benz CL63 AMG, License Plate No. “HACKER”;
2005 Mercedes-Benz A170, License Plate No. “FUR252”;
2005 Mercedes-Benz ML500, License Plate No. DFF816.
Click to expand...
:LOL:
 
digitalwanderer said:
:LOL:
Click to expand...
Is making money and buying car with it is now a substitute to any kind of proper trial?
For those that run the site and those that abused it?

Have people gone so low that they don't really care and the end of the "rule of law".

And for the disclosure of such pointless information to reinforce the sentiment of fairness in the way the whole thing has happened... makes me puke...

Make me think of the dumb-asses that watch Foxnew because they think it's funny and they are somehow above that... dumb-asses that have no clue about how brain processes information and that don't understand that to limit the reach of any propaganda (something that's pretty much well formalized in human science...) you have no choice but to limit to exposition to it... Cocky dumb-asses that think they are Einstein's brother in law...
 
They might deserve their day in court and they might be culprit of being purposely lose on their policies, still in the real world there would have been a trial first and then if necessary the company would have been taken down. And proper "rule of law' would have ensure that non fraudulent members get their data back.
 
Is making money and buying car with it is now a substitute to any kind of proper trial?
For those that run the site and those that abused it?
Click to expand...
aye, Im with digitalwanderer I thought the names were homourous (jealous of the 'god' plate though) & not exactly smart considering their business. Of course they should first be trialled(?).

Now, Did they know/assume they had illegal copyright material on their servers? Yes of course, if they say they didnt then theyre lying, we hear this stuff all the time, eg just now, listening to the radio, captain of the sinking ship, 'accidentally fell into the lifeboat' :) CEO's say similar things all the time in court, personally I'ld stick them in jail if they use such excuse's (cause theyre so unbelivable stopid)

Do I believe in the current method of trails? Not really I'll like trial by liedetectors, sure not infalliable, but the current method certainly isnt infallible.
 
zed said:
Now, Did they know/assume they had illegal copyright material on their servers? Yes of course, if they say they didnt then theyre lying...
Click to expand...

They've already said they knew pirated material was being uploaded onto their service, but that they took down the files whenever a takedown request was submitted.

I think they key points of the prosecution is going to be that

1. Once a takedown request was submitted for a certain program, movie, or music file they didn't then take down all files which matched that file. Rapidshare does this by default. Once they get a takedown request of a protected program, movie, or music file their system automatically removes any future files uploaded with a matching hash.

2. Money is paid out everytime a copyrighted program, movie, or music file is downloaded. Hence cash transactions for pirated material which is harder to defend against.

As to the comments by liolio about seizure of property and assets. That's fairly common in any large bust involving illegal activities. Just because this involves software, movies, and music dosn't make it any different in the eyes of the laws as a drug bust, car stealing ring, counterfeit product bust, or any other large criminal activity.

Those assets should be held until such time as the trial is concluded. If they are proven innocent they get it back. If not then it will either be destroyed or auctioned off.

Regards,
SB
 
Hmm, looking into this a tad more, it looks like prosectors have evidence of the owners exchanging correspondence discussing and encouraging the use of pirated material as a means to entice people into signing up for a paid membership.

If they do have that, the defense for the owners just got a whole lot harder.

Regards,
SB
 
I barely even heard of this site before all this started so I don't really know how it works, or how people used it, but if what has been suggested here that they only took down a specific file that received a request is true - IE, if there's 50 batman begins uploaded, they receive one takedown request and 49 then remains - AND paid money to the remaining 49 uploaders after taking down one of the movies...then their bacon's basically cooked already I'd say.

Btw, I approve of the conjugation form of "trialled"... :D
 
And the shockwaves are now rolling through the various file sharing sites.

Most of the sites have cancelled/suspended indefinitely their affiliate programs (paying people for each file downloaded). Some file lockers have banned US IP addresses. Some file lockers have restricted file downloads to only the original uploader of the file. Other's have started mass banning of anyone on their service that have copyrighted material in their file locker.

Rapidshare (which I mentioned earlier) hasn't done anything as they feel they've been complying with DMCA takedown requests as much as is technically possible. And they are probably safe. They went way down in popularity when people noticed that copyrighted material they uploaded would often be taken down within minutes/hours of upload.

Not sure how this will affect overall pirating of copyrighted material however as there are still other avenues available to people (torrenting, for example). It does make it significantly more difficult for filesharing aggregation sites to promote pirated content downloads, however.

As well, while it can't be argued that most of the online file lockers see the illegal transmission of copyrighted material, there were also many users who used them to share files legally. It's unfortunate that those people are also going to lose whatever files they had stored on some of those sites (the ones banning US IP addresses for example). I just hope they weren't using those sites as their only storage option for those files.

Regards,
SB
 
Lolling at your descriptions of the rats scurrying around in a panic. :D

As for those who may have been locked out of their legitimate files because they're american, a proxy service should be able to solve that problem relatively easily...if people are able to learn about that option, and feel confident enough to use them. The latter's always somewhat of an issue when combining the general public with technical matters of course...
 
Whoah. Well cool (although I'm not religious, of course!)

Anyway:
The Article said:
But some traditionalist Christians say the patois Bible dilutes the word of God, and insist that creole is no substitute for English.
Click to expand...
Right. Because everyone knows that Jesus was a white man from Oxford. :rolleyes:
 
Grall said:
Whoah. Well cool (although I'm not religious, of course!)

Anyway:

Right. Because everyone knows that Jesus was a white man from Oxford. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

No! Jesus was a Jew from Nazareth.
God is the white guy, although he's from Texas, not Oxford.

Duh.
 
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