megaupload

Uh-oh, from that article it looks like they had an insider turned before they busted them. Expect some seriously juicy details and heavy prison sentences.
 
fellix said:
Quite stunning: MegaUpload: What Made It a Rogue Site Worthy of Destruction?

:oops:
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Yup. And explains why sites like Rapidshare feel they are safe as when a takedown request is taken by them they remove all files sharing the same hash as the files used in the takedown request rather than only the offending URL.

Interesting about the timing of the investigations and the rumblings of "something" happening to Megaupload. Thinking back on monitoring these sites to see pirating trends, it coincides quite neatly with many of the larger aggregate sites abandoning the promotion of Megaupload as a "required" file locker although some still maintained them as the only one.

In other words many of these aggregate sites make money by referring users of the site to X file locker and then receiving a percentage of their membership costs as a reward. And just about a year or two ago, many sites which had previously had Megaupload on the list of "required" or "recommended" file lockers suddenly dropped them.

Same thing happened to Rapidshare about 2-3 years ago when they started to more aggresively remove infringing titles from user accounts on their service. Inability to maintain copyrighted works on a file locker for some reason makes them highly unpopular with file aggregate sites. :D

Regards,
SB
 
I dunno - there are a lot of file systems that automatically do de-duping, and if one person uploads something they have the copyright to, and someone uploads the same thing that they don't have the copyright to, then it's correct that the second person loses their link to the data, but the first person does not. In this case it seems that the companies that "helped" the FBI into this either don't understand, or deliberately misrepresented things when they claim the breach of DMCA Safe Harbour rules. It's the reward payments that will probably do Megaupload in if anything, though they will explain that as a marketing promotion to encourage uploaders to drive people to their service as opposed to any other.

Really, if this all comes down to a couple of emails, then Megaupload will point to the same arguments used in the Youtube vs Viacom case (Viacom lost). I think a lot of it will come down to how many legal files were on their servers verses the illegal files. There's a lot of people that use cyberlockers for legal uses instead of trying to deal with FTP sites or sending massive files via email.

The fact that the FBI hit the nuclear option first may mean they feel they have a strong case, but I wouldn't be surprised if there ends up being a massive lawsuit against them in the end if all they've got is some emails, and a few planted files that didn't get removed out of millions of other files.
 
I would say when this is all said and done(it'll take years), Rapidshare will be the only one left standing, as they're the only ones that have actually tried to comply with the law.
 
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
It's the reward payments that will probably do Megaupload in if anything, though they will explain that as a marketing promotion to encourage uploaders to drive people to their service as opposed to any other.
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That's going to be relatively large sticking point for sure. But I don't think some of the other ones are as minor as suggested.

For copyrighted hashed file removal. Presumably a content owner will know if it'll affect their files or not. In the case of software the hash is obviously going to different due to the requirement of providing some means to bypass any included DRM. In the case of movies, most studios don't release *.avi or *.mkv versions of their movies.

The music industry would have the hardest time with file hashes as there are legitimate site selling songs that aren't protected by DRM which already distribute via *.mp3.

Also damning, if proven, is that Megaupload were highly aggressive at removing child pornography via this method but when it came to copyrighted material instead of removal of hashed files, the hashed file was instead kept and used to repopulate download links rather than being removed as the DMCA requires.

I.S.T. said:
I would say when this is all said and done(it'll take years), Rapidshare will be the only one left standing, as they're the only ones that have actually tried to comply with the law.
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Others do as well, but Rapidshare thus far seems to be the most active with regards to removing duplicate uploads via hashing. Filesonic advertises that they do this as well but copyrighted files still stay on their service for quite a long time. Their current restriction of ownly the uploader being able to access uploaded files suggests however that their implementation either isn't as good or they aren't enforcing it to quite the extent that Rapidshare is.

I'm sure there are others that will quickly move to that method of dealing with DMCA requests or attempt to find safe harbor in countries they feel don't honor international copyright laws.

Regards,
SB
 
Some file hosting sites have already disabled the sharing option for the uploaded content, e.g. all the files are accessible only to their respective user accounts. I wonder if this will be some trend from now on -- after all isn't a "cyberlocker" service supposed to function just like this?
 
fellix said:
Some file hosting sites have already disabled the sharing option for the uploaded content, e.g. all the files are accessible only to their respective user accounts. I wonder if this will be some trend from now on -- after all isn't a "cyberlocker" service supposed to function just like this?
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If so this is makes all of these services essentially worthless since handing out your username and password would likely breach the ToS and the main reason for such services is to transfer large amounts of data.

Guess I'll be firing up the old corporate FTP servers that I haven't used in years in order to distribute presentations and new software builds to branch offices and customers. Not a big deal really, but far less convenient as you need DMZs/exposed servers.
 
There's still services that don't restrict who can download from your locker. Usually the ones that have been a bit more proactive about removing copyrighted material with an accomanying DMCA takedown request. Rapidshare, Hotfile, and Oron (although Oron has a 3 day limit of 20 GB downloads) come immediately to mind although there are others.

Regards,
SB
 
Oh, I know they're still out there - don't forget box.net, dropbox, etc. it's just that this sort of thing has allegedly scared them a bit...
 
I have a feeling any of the file locker sites that have been complying with DMCA takedown requests as well as can be expected with existing technology have little to fear.

Obviously storage and distribution of copyrighted material will still happen as there's ways to defeat the file hashing, but as can be seen by the lockers that are more proactive with regards to this, it can greatly deter it.

Regards,
SB
 
Both SOPA and PIPA are non-issues currently, although it's possible that some permutation of those may be reintroduced at a later date.

Regards,
SB
 
Everyone should fully expect one - and only one - of these bills to pop up like a submarine, unnoticed if not specifically watched for, in a years' time or so. Now our enemy knows what kind of resistance to expect, so they'll adapt their plans accordingly. They'll only launch one bill (attracts less attention), and they'll try to camouflage it as something else and most likely will bake it into another bill, something boringly harmless and innocuous, yet volumious so that you won't be interested enough to plow through the whole mass of text and discover what's hidden inside...
 
The most interesting thing about ACTA is the fact that China got in on the ground floor of it. It'll be interesting if they actually do attempt to significantly curtail counterfeiting and copyright infringement in their country.

I'm not sure how effective this will be as it is completely voluntary on the part of member nations. On the other hand that allows a member nation to, in theory, easily withdraw from the treaty if future rules and regulations (which don't have to gain approval of member nations) goes through to which they are diametrically opposed. Hence giving them at least some power to influence future legislation within the body even though no member nation is supposed to be able to directly influence or govern it.

Basically it attempts to form a United Nations governing body that is independant of member nations and attempts to hold power over member nations. Except in this case only within a very specific purview of counterfeiting and copyright infringement (generic medical drugs can fit under both of those headings if a company still holds the copyright to it).

This isn't quite as damning as SOPA or PIPA, IMO. And something like this is necessary if someone wants to be at least somewhat secure in knowing that whatever they have invested their money into they at least have a fair chance to regain their investment before someone blatanty steals the results of all of their work and profits off of it without spending a single dime.

Regards,
SB
 
Mize, AFAIK ACTA is a different kettle of fish entirely than these two beasts (mostly concerned with the manufacturing and export/import of counterfit physical goods from what I've heard described), and also pre-date them both by quite a bit I believe.

Anyway, has any of you guys read the write-up about the self-styled Kim Dotcom over at Ars Technica?

Jesus christ. The whole thing reads like the archetypical description of a grade-A mythomaniac, megalomaniacal con-man. It'll take a miracle for this guy to stay out of jail, considering his prior offenses.
 
I have been googling for some high quality 3D photos to check out on my little 3D tv and man, I'm finding lots of beautiful pictures, but their full mpo versions always seem to be uploaded to this site, which is now blocked by the FBI :(
 
Yeah they took it down because of pirates. And they succeeded, now it is very difficult to find pirated material on the internet. There's no way I could find any pirate content I want on the internet in 20 seconds now if I wanted to.

:LOL:
 
I stopped watching anime since it's dead!
well, I got into dubbed One Piece but after quite a while I became really fed up with it.

I abandoned anime because of two things, a trend in subtitles too small to read and the death of megaupload.
there's certainly a big conveniency factor in piracy. I used to download anime real fast and watch them from a couch or bed, now I'd have to hunt them and watch on the chair if the wapanese kid used a stupid small and curly font.
 
Blazkowicz said:
I stopped watching anime since it's dead!
well, I got into dubbed One Piece but after quite a while I became really fed up with it.

I abandoned anime because of two things, a trend in subtitles too small to read and the death of megaupload.
there's certainly a big conveniency factor in piracy. I used to download anime real fast and watch them from a couch or bed, now I'd have to hunt them and watch on the chair if the wapanese kid used a stupid small and curly font.
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I download anime from torrent and set utorrent client to automatically download new anime. Of course it helps to have a pc that online 24hrs. The legal way is to watch it through crunchyroll which I believe should have big enough text with zero styling.
 
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