This begs the question of why Mega was so aggressively targeted.
I think it's pretty clear. This was one of the largest and easiest to use file-locker services. I used it tons of times because it was so convenient and the free service was much better than any of the other file-locker services. If you had an ad-blocker installed, the site was almost too good to be true. You could download huge files after a 30 second wait, at reasonably high speeds, no captcha or any other hoops to jump through, and you could download another file from the site immediately afterwards without wait (most sites make free users wait between downloads). Files would stay up on the site seemingly indefinitely, while other file-locker services would delete a file after it was not accessed for a specific number of days.
Also Kim was a larger-than-life target. He was living extravagantly. Right after he was arrested there was a huge Ars article about how ridiculous his lifestyle and persona was. So now the government could say: "Hey look at this asshole, he's getting rich off of piracy and stealing American jobs." They couldn't have hoped for a better target.
Unfortunately, Kim was obviously thumbing his nose at US copyright law and he thought he was untouchable because of his location. That might be a workable strategy for someone keeping a lower-profile but if you piss off enough powerful people they will find a way to get at you, legal or not. (As we are seeing here.)
That being said, since the guy had a family he really should have found a more respectable way to make a living. This was pretty reckless and selfish on his part.
Furthermore he fully complied with DMCA which only required links removed. He followed the law to the letter, more he even gave tools that go above and beyond the law. It is not his fault the industry was not willing to properly police.
Now devil's advocate: the MPAA and affiliates CANNOT possibly go over every single website which hosts content and provides different ways of inspecting that information and filter. It is just impossible. They would spend all their money 10x over just policing. Which of course begs the question: are they evolving with changes in tech or just doing everything in their power not to.
Yes: the DoJ built a case for almost 2 years again MU, and subpoenaed and obtained huge amounts of intracompany email in which MU repeatedly admitted knowledge of and financial benefit from piracy. For instance, when an outsider complained that MegaVideo's hosting of the Showtime pay-tv series "Dexter" had desynchronized audio/video, instead of taking down "Dexter", Kim Schmitz fired off mail saying that fixing the AV problem was a priority.
That's just one of many many instances; see up and downthread for others.
I see no mention anywhere in the DMCA of "reasonable limits" to the number of infringement notices a provider needs to deal with, only the statutory language demanding that providers act expeditiously to react to those notices. Why was there a "quota" at all?
The article doesn't mention limits to DMCA requests - presumably, WB or anyone else could have sent as many requests as they wanted, all of which would be complied with. It's direct takedowns which were limited.
The article suggests that Megaupload gave content owners such as Warner Bros. a mechanism for directly removing infringing links (and again, without being required to handle it in that fashion--this being a massive convenience for both parties).
It would only seem natural that you'd want a way reigning in perhaps abusive usage of a delete/rm command.
On or about September 8, the [Warner] representative sent a follow-up request, and on or about September 9, the representative sent another follow-up request. On or about September 10, ORTMANN sent an e-mail to DOTCOM, stating, “They are currently removing 2500 files per day - a cursory check indicates that it’s legit takedowns of content that they own appearing in public forums.” ORTMANN also stated, “We should comply with their request - we can afford to be cooperative at current growth levels.” DOTCOM responded that the limit should be increased to 5,000 per day, but “not unlimited.”
"We should comply with their request - we can afford to be cooperative at current growth levels." Heh.
No specific feature is required by law. What's required by law is that providers
(C) upon notification of claimed infringement as described in paragraph (3), responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity.
There isn't any place in the DMCA that suggests any limit to the number of notices that can be provided. On a tactical level it seems like having limits was a mistake: they should have just queued them let the bottleneck express itself as a backlog and a delay.
On a strategic level, it doesn't matter. The argument that MegaUpload wasn't aware of its status as a piracy hub is totally implausible. It thus flunks 2 of the 3 conditions for establishing immunity under the DMCA.
There isn't any place in the DMCA that suggests any limit to the number of notices that can be provided.
There is no limit on notices. The limit is only on the direct-deletion of links, without review or notice, by parties like Time Warner. In other words, in addition to handling notices, Megaupload gave "Delete" buttons to certain parties that allowed them to directly control which links were available, but that button was limited in use.
The site had millions of users. Is the allusion to "tens of thousands" of files supposed to be convincing? Why was there a limit at all? This is a site that had to deal with (say) 10,000 takedowns a day; clearly, it had a rampant piracy problem.
The DMCA process allows a right-holder to submit a takedown request that the content host will review and, if found to be correct, act on with "expeditious" timeliness.
The direct delete was not a takedown request; it was a deletion order. This is beyond MU's DMCA responsibility.
I do not have evidence of rights holders abusing this feature at MU. But we do know that the labels have made mistakes before [1]. It would be irresponsible for MU to give a third party the ability to wipe large swaths of their servers clean without oversight.
On or about April 23, 2009, DOTCOM sent an e-mail message to VANDER KOLK, ORTMANN, and BENCKO in which he complained about the deletion of URLlinks in response to infringement notices from the copyright holders. In the message, DOTCOMstated that “I told you many times not to delete links that are reported in batches of thousandsfrom insignificant sources. I would say that those infringement reports from MEXICO of “14,000” links would fall into that category. And the fact that we lost significant revenuebecause of it justifies my reaction.”
This wasn't a limit on DMCA takedown notices. This was a limit on their (not legally required) ability to directly take down files. It makes complete sense to limit this to prevent abuse.
You're missing the point. There is a DMCA process, by which someone sends a takedown notice and the website owner needs to take down infringing material. In addition to this process, Megaupload offered certain third parties the ability to directly take down files without having to go through the takedown process. It is this ability which was limited, not the ability to send takedown notices.
All I'm saying is that in this regard Megaupload's actions were perfectly reasonable. The debate about whether taking down links instead of files because not all copies of the file are infringement is a completely separate issue.
No, I think the problem here is that you haven't read the indictment. That automated process was the primary (and, according to emails subpoenaed in the investigation, apparently the only) means of issuing notices and takedowns. Schmitz at one point instructed an employee specifically not to honor takedown requests made outside that process.
"We have a funny business... modern days pirates", said one Mega- employee to another. "We're not pirates", he responded. "We're just providing shipping services to pirates."
The text of the law: "the service provider
responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the
material that is claimed to be infringing upon notification
of claimed infringement as described in subsection (c)(3),"
They are also required to restore it if they receive a counter-notification and the issuer of the original takedown notice has not filed a lawsuit in 10-14 days. This implies they can not delete the file from their system and still meet their legal requirements.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I understand the text of DMCA correctly, they are not required to restore the content which was taken down, only that they may.
Maybe to limit the Warner and other companies' actions. They're trying to sue for obvious test files now. What are the chances that given unlimited access they wouldn't worry so much about verification of what's legal/what belongs to them?
It's a completely different thing if they reached the limit every single day, were rejected higher quotas and have a big queue of files to remove... But why didn't they say so?
First, I would note that they upped that limit when asked to. Second, you don't think they get totally careless when they have no limits on direct deletion? I have seen that carelessness. But I've also actually read through many of the mass DMCA notices that have been made public. For example, that one where someone took down the TD article on SOPA. It wasn't even hard for me to find the links that didn't belong just by skimming through the notice[1]. Or some in the Viacom v. YouTube case, where Viacom found out several times that it was taking down files it had, itself, put up. And this after Viacom's expensive lawyers were supposedly finished going over everything with a fine-toothed comb.
Lastly, you might want to reread Sony Betamax, particularly the part about how a service capable of substantial non-infringing uses can be legal even when they know it is often used for infringement. Sure, you're probably not aware of those non-infringing uses because those people kept their files relatively private, rather than distributing them to all and sundry, but ignorance cannot be made into much of an argument. You seem to think of it as a "pirate site" and I doubt I can change your mind, no matter how many non-infringing users I could find. It's a hard point to make when the infringing uses were necessarily public and the non-infringing uses were almost all private.
Yes, I am aware that you could come back with better arguments than the statements you've made upthread that argue directly against Betamax, but I'll let you make your own. You're also entitled to think that Betamax was a bad ruling, if you like, but if that's the case I'll simply have to disagree. After the long history of hyperbolic comments from industry leaders about how every new mass-distribution technology would kill the industry, I would not like to see a future without the Betamax ruling.
Check out Popehat.com for a federal prosecutor (now in private practice, I think) explaining why the DMCA safe harbor doesn't even apply in criminal cases... but, even if it did, who cares? The DMCA safe harbor is an AND construction. You have to satisfy three tests: (a) not knowing about infringement yourself, (b) not benefiting financially from piracy, and (c) responding expeditiously to takedown notices.
As soon as the DoJ got MU's email, it was all over. They themselves not only used the system repeatedly for piracy (in far, far more documented instances than just 50 Cent and Louis Armstrong) but also paid bonuses to people they knew had been uploading DVD rips to the site --- paid bonuses that tracked those very uploads.
I disagree on with the conclusions this thread has come to about the DMCA safe harbor, but really... what are we arguing about here?
I've read that. It was a very good article. Think I even commented on it when it hit HN, but I don't recall offhand. But for all that, they have to extradite him first. They probably will, mind you, but it remains to be seen. There have been enough goofs already to create at least a little doubt.
I'm not saying they've done nothing illegal, just that the argument over the notices isn't a particularly strong one. Like I said, there are much better arguments.
I read that too, though I skimmed a few sections. I think I recall a comment from a lawyer (possibly a prosecutor?) who said that if they could prove even half of those claims at trial, they'd have the MU crew down for criminal infringement many times over.
There's no question that this is an uphill battle for them.
I can only hope they kept logs of all takedown requests. Now they only need to find a reasonable sample. Honestly, I believe that even if they tried hard not to make mistakes, at this volume they would get some false-positives - and that's as good explanation as I can imagine. Now the question is - can Mega* guys prove enough of cases like that. Or maybe they have other explanation for the quotas - I don't know - I'm eager to hear more about it.
Assuming the limit was close to the average number of take down requests it's reasonable protection to prevent a buggy third party script from harming their site.
Issuing a DMCA takedown notice without having a valid claim to the questioned copyright is perjury. What MU offered was a tool for other parties to delete files directly without having to issue DMCA takedowns - in other words, it allowed them to delete files they didn't have the right to delete without facing the consequences of doing so.
This tool was limited to prevent abuse. Simple as that.
There are a lot of missing variables here, 10s of thousands of files a day sure does sound like a lot to a lot of people though, for all we know that's just a drop in the bucket.
How many DMCA take down requests does a company like google/youtube get a day? Anyone know? Just out of curiosity.
It all sort of proves the point though, Megaupload had a ton of piracy and all parties involved knew it. I think that might matter more than a lot of people think, they may have complied with the literal letter of the law but can't courts deem it not enough? Napster was ordered by a court to monitor it's use and restrict illegal use and they were ultimately unable to. There are already cases on the books for that, the fact that MU gave out access to tools like direct delete just shows that they knew the extent of the problem. Still, no reason to skip due process, but I don't know what all the evidence is either.
A DMCA takedown process with was a sham and was not actaully removing anything counts as exactly that. Especially when internal mails reveal that the daily cap for takedown notices was determined by what wouldn't impact revenue.
>A DMCA takedown process with was a sham and was not actaully removing anything
As described ad nauseum elsewhere, the DMCA only requires removing infringing links.
Imagine 5 people upload a copy of a copyrighted song. 4 of those copies are for backup or personal use, one of them ends up on a file sharing site. The 1 is DMCA'd. Why would you remove the other 4?
*edit
This becomes even more crucial when you have any kind of sane deduping in place, where each link, in effect, points to a single piece of data.
The DMCA requires service providers with actual knowledge of their hosting of infringing material to act "expedititously" to remove or disable access to the material. I don't know where this argument about "links" comes from.
This whole argument seems like a bit of a red herring. What the DMCA actually says is that service providers aren't liable iff (a) they don't have actual knowledge of infringement --- and that if they themselves become aware of infringement they themselves without prompting remove infringing content, (b) don't have a financial interest in infringement, AND (c) respond to takedown notices.
It beggars belief that MegaUpload could pass (a) and (b). All three need to apply to avoid liability.
Let's try again with slightly different emphasis: The DMCA requires service providers with actual knowledge of their hosting of infringing material to act "expedititously" to remove or disable /access/ to the material.
The link to it constitutes access. Moreover, it's the link and not the data that determines infringement. The artist can upload the same data as an infringer, and the two pieces of data will be deduplicated to the same file. The difference between infringing and not is the link used to get to the blocks on disk.
Hm. Interesting. How about when MegaUpload employees themselves upload DVD rips of major motion pictures? Maybe they're friends of Luc Besson, who wanted _Taken_ on MegaUpload! I'm sure they'll manage to straighten all of this out in court.
I'm not how that is relevant to the discussion we were having. To remind you, we were discussing whether removing links is sufficient for DMCA compliance.
"Actual knowledge". The DMCA does not say that it's fine to have copyright-infringing material on your site as long as you take it down when notified by rightsholders.
You can't imply that all uploads generating links where done by people who were not licensed to do so.
This is why copyright is such a minefield. There is no way to know if someone has a license allowing them to do the things that they do.
I know the Youtube defense and all are beaten to death about this but they can easily find out that two videos are the same. If someone sends a take down for video 1 you say video 2 should also be taken down except it might very well have been uploaded by a legitimate licensee of the video.
If you were a betting person, would you bet that a jury will reasonably conclude that the terabytes and terabytes of copyrighted video on MegaUpload is or isn't properly licensed?
The DMCA shields service providers from criminal charges if and only if they pass three tests: (a) no internal knowledge of actual infringement (and, expeditious autonomous removal of infringing content without notice required), (b) no financial interest in infringement, and (c) responsiveness to takedowns.
While I guess we can noodle around about what a court is going to find in this case (although I think I have a spoiler for you on that), it's harder to argue that prosecutors don't have a case here that they are likely to win.
If I had to bet i'd bet on a mistrial due to an error by the prosecution.
Someone in a previous comment did a rough analysis of why it's not certain that 100% of the 25 petabytes of data on mega uploads servers was unlicensed material.
Depending on the defense skills they definitively can win this outright. You've seem to have already made your mind but you can't tell me that you are sure that they are criminally guilty of copyright infringement beyond reasonable doubt. If I was in the jury and you explained to me all the details such as safe harbor provision, DMCA take down requests and compliance... You bet I'd have some doubts. This stuff is not black or white.
I briefly considered making the same kind of statement, but keep in mind that a (ostensibly reasonable) jury awarded hundreds of thousands in damages to the RIAA in the Jammie Thomas case..
I have little to no faith in the jury system, especially where federal trials are concerned.
Did you read any of the backstory in the Thomas case? She lied under oath, deliberately destroyed evidence, attempted to blame her kids, and even then refused settlement offers. The best you can say about her is that she was the victim of legal malpractice by her defense attorneys.
What (a) means is that any evidence that establishes MegaUpload ever knew about and failed to act on infringing material is going to damn them in court. For instance, if they can establish a finding of fact that MegaUpload paid site members it knew to be infringers, or even that it targeted its promotional marketing towards other hubs of infringement on the Internet.
The DMCA isn't a computer program. That section (a) does not mean "here are the steps you must take when analyzing your logs". Think instead of a graph and a path through that graph that starts at "Kim Schmitz driving around NZ in a Veyron" and enda t "Kim Schmitz in a minimum security prison", where one path involves edges between vertices involving how much MegaUpload knew about, catered, promoted, or knowingly benefited from piracy.
I supposed that depends on what you mean by "knew to be infringers." I don't think having received a (or several, or...what is the number?) DMCA takedown concerning one's account earns someone the label, but in this context it appears to be what you're saying.
How about this: you operate a file locker service, and in an effort to encourage people to upload files that will be popular and serve as a magnet for ad revenue, you offer to pay people $1/1000 downloads if they join an affiliate program. Later, when reviewing affiliate payouts, you send an email to a coworker breaking down some of your top payouts, noting that you've paid (say) $100 to someone who uploaded "several popular DVD rips".
How do you think that one's going to play out in court?
Or, how about, you want to watch The Sopranos, or Seinfeld, so you send your team a blast email asking for links to those series on your locker site, since it surely must be there. Maybe you complain when the first links you find are in the wrong language. French, say.
How do you think that's going to go?
It is a mystery to me why copyfighters think that MegaUpload is a good case to make a stand on.
You're innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but that phrase isn't a magic totem that gets you out of bad message board arguments. This is a community of nerds. Nerds are literalists and also pretty well-versed with piracy. Why are you wasting breath trying to convince them that MegaUpload wasn't a hub for piracy? It clearly was.
The link removal you're talking about did not "disable access" to the material; it only disabled access to it through that one removed link. This "linking" argument is just sophistry.
Also: comparing Rapidshare and MegaUpload to Youtube is sapping your credibility.
>Nerds are literalists and also pretty well-versed with piracy. Why are you wasting breath trying to convince them that MegaUpload wasn't a hub for piracy? It clearly was.
So? It was also a hub for legitimate file storage. And this is why I keep bringing up other file sharing sites and youtube, as every single argument you're making could equally be applied to them.
> it only disabled access to it through that one removed link
Which is kind of the whole bloody point. Look at it from a frontend/backend perspective. On the front end, access to a file is removed once a given link is killed. You, nor anybody else in the general public can access the targeted file once that link is dead. Unless the file is either re-uploaded, or another link is found, that is.
Google has an obvious interest in the legal particulars of linking to infringing content, but that doesn't mean that Google runs its business in the same fashion as MegaUpload.
Deduping, and my other thoughts are two links up. You say "sophistry", and it very well may be, but this is the legal system we're talking about here. Standard logic and definitions need not apply, unfortunately.
From internal emails within the Mega group, regarding rewards paid under their "Upload Rewards" program:
100 USD [USERNAME DELETED] 10+ Full popular DVD rips (split files), a few small porn movies, some software with keygenerators (warez)
...
100 USD [USERNAME DELETED] Popular DVD rips
100 USD [USERNAME DELETED] Some older DVD rips + unknown (Italian series?) rar files
...
Again, under the DMCA, it is not enough to simply respond to takedown notices. To qualify for safe harbor immunity to copyright liability, you have to not be aware of any infringement on your site, and if you become aware of it, you must expediently remove that content from your site.
These clowns became aware of copyright infringement and then paid people for it. They're fucked. I have no idea why you think this linking issue matters.
They've been expanding it to cover links so that they can go after link farms and search engines, instead of being limited to people actually infringing.
No, the notion is that you, as the owner of a file hosting site, cannot reasonably tell whether a given copy of $something was uploaded with permission or not (nevermind that you aren't required to do so anyways)
And go pull quotes all you like, that doesn't change the fact that deduping means you pull links, not files. Full stop. It's not your job as a site owner to police copyright for big media. And if it was, it would be a full time job and then some.
You're the one who's completely ignoring my post based on a few cherry picked instances from a single DOJ case. (The cherry picking done by the prosecution, not you, before you think I'm accusing you of something untoward)
Go reread my post and tell me how I'm wrong, please.
... and if the owners and operators of MegaUpload were using it to share DVD rips with their friends, and stated explicitly in their emails that they knew the majority of their media content was infringing, your particular group of friends would be relevant... how?
"4 of those copies are for backup or personal use"
If they're for personal use, why are the publically accessible (and actually being downloaded by hundreds or thousands of different users) and not restricted to the account that uploaded them?
>If they're for personal use, why are the publically accessible
Because it becomes "publicly accessible" the moment the link to the file is generated when the upload completes. I.e. you can access the file if you know the URL.
The law does not require you to do this kind of research, besides.
YouTube has now and has had far more infringing content than Megaupload ever did. But Megaupload isn't owned by a corporation with Al Gore and other rich politically connected Americans as senior advisors and/or on the board of directors.
You can't compare YouTube to MegaUpload. YouTube has Google levels of traffic which MegaUpload did not. YouTube lets you watch and listen but you can't take what you see and hear home with you (read: download it). YouTube is damn quick and transparent with their takedowns and has never encouraged piracy either directly or implicitly.
MegaUpload, at the very core of the idea behind it, really was a legit file locker service but that's not how it exactly worked in practice. MegaUpload has always been one of the go-to places for pirating media. They had ads on all the popular torrent sites that linked to the same files you'd download as a torrent. Everyone knew what MegaUpload was all about and anyone claiming they were just a poor innocent file locker service must be kidding themselves.
I have a hunting knife. I use it to hunt. No one will begrudge me my knife because I use it legitimately. If I kill a man walking down the street with it however someone is going to try to stop me and take my knife. I'll protest "but it's a hunting knife, it has a perfectly legitimate use!" but it won't matter because I crossed a line just like Mega did.
> You can't compare YouTube to MegaUpload. YouTube has Google levels of traffic which MegaUpload did not.
What on Earth do traffic numbers have to do with whether a site is infringing copyrights on not??
> has never encouraged piracy either directly or implicitly.
What the Viacom vs YT/Google tough us is that the YT owners were fully aware of the files uploaded being pirated. There have been long emails transcriptions where YT owners talk with each other how long should they keep the files online to "help traffic numbers grow" before putting files down. Lookup the court case, I am short on time to look right now.
> What on Earth do traffic numbers have to do with whether a site is infringing copyrights on not?
That was in response to "YouTube has now and has had far more infringing content than Megaupload ever did."
I believe billpatrianakos is arguing that what matters is the proportion of infringing files. YouTube could have more infringing content than MegaUpload with a much lower proportion of infringing content because they have "Google levels of traffic".
So I'm speaking of today's YouTube under Google. I know that the original YouTube had a lot of infringing content and while they were decent about taking it down I'll admit they had a relaxed attitude about it.
But I don't think the original YouTube is relevant to the discussion. The modern YouTube has been around for many years and has been very consistent with complying with the DMCA. YouTube doesn't encourage the uploading of infringing content directly or implicitly in a number of ways. Theyre very quick to take down infringing content considering the volume of uploads they deal with, they have disclaimers not only in their official terms but all over the place. You can't shake a stick around YouTube without seeing some kind of notice about not uploading copyrighted content you don't own and checking the little box that says you have permission to upload the content. MegaUpload on the other hand has what I call the 'plausible deniability factor'. They too have a notice in the TOS and mention that you can't upload infringing content but their actions tell a different story. They have ads on torrent sites that link to direct downloads of the very same torrents you've been searching for. The sharing feature of MegaUpload has always been, by and large, used for sharing copyrighted content publicly as opposed to with only a select group that the original user chooses.
What MegaUpload has always done is position themselves unofficially as a file sharing site for infringing content. Basically a direct download alternative to torrents. At the same time they hid behind the plausible deniability that comes from being an innocent file locker service. Everyone knows its next to impossible to police sites that let users upload content and they used that to hide behind.
It's very difficult to argue this from a strictly legal standpoint and that's precisely what MegaUpload has always counted on. That's obvious to anyone. But I'm not arguing the legalities of how they operated exactly. I'm sure any site with user uploaded content can be brought down like MegaUpload even if they really truly were doing their utmost to operate on the up and up.
What I really want to get at is the human perspective. I just want people to stop being in denial and admit that we all knew what MegaUpload was doing. MegaUpload has always had a reputation for being a place where you can download music, movies, and software for free. There's no shortage of infringing content on the site and just a quick search for anything will show you that. Their selection of pirated media rivals that of the Pirate Bay.
It's really disturbing to me to see so many people in denial about this. It's like we all root for these underdog pirate sites and want them to succeed so badly that we're blind to the obvious reality that they really do provide a popular service largely made successful by providing infringing content.
If only a few people would just admit that then I would shut my mouth and I'd probably agree with you on the legalities.
It reminds me of tobacco shops that sell "pipes". These glass pipes they sell certainly can be used for tobacco but they aren't being used that way. Stoners walk in, totally baked, buy a glass "tobacco pipe" and fill it with weed to smoke. Tobacco pipes are totally legal and when the shop gets shut down for selling drug periphenalia all the pot-heads throw a fit and make similar arguments like people are making for MegaUpload. I would love to get on board with those arguments but I feel it's disingenuous to make that kind of argument until the stoners can admit that those tobacco pipes were really bowls for smoking weed and were used for that purpose pretty much every time.
Was MegaUpload operating legally? Gray area but yeah.. for the most part. But it was being used for a different purpose, they knew it, turned a blind eye, and hid behind plausible deniability. Arguments about whether copyright should be abolished and debates about the validity of certain laws are irrelevant to this discussion as they already exist and have been enforced since before many of us were born. It's a good debate to have but is beside the point.
> YouTube lets you watch and listen but you can't take what you see and hear home with you (read: download it).
Yes you can, and most non-tech-savvy people I know actually prefer to do that, than to download their music from torrents or "download sites". Which I can imagine because they're much less likely to get a virus and they just need a firefox extension and everybody knows how to find their favourite tunes on YouTube.
MegaUpload reportedly accounted for a quarter of all corporate traffic.
And yes, YouTube did implicitly encourage piracy. I'm not sure if you remember the days before the Google acquisition, but you could find most anything you wanted on there. I remember watching whole TV series' on there. Their laissez faire attitude towards infringing clips had a large role in making YouTube the dominant player in the online video space.
You're reaching. You'd have a good argument if YouTube was still how it was in the beginning but today's YouTube under Google has been around for a while and has been very consistent about taking down copyrighted videos for years now.
Sure, you can still find infringing videos on YouTube but the main difference is that today's YouTube neither encourages that sort of thing nor does it have anywhere near the reputation of MegaUpload. When you want to pirate some music or video you think of MegaUpload long before (post-Google) YouTube. MegaUpload always had that plausible deniability factor going for it which was smart but why do we keep kidding ourselves into thinking this is just a poor file locker service that gets abused like any legitimate site but is being picked on?
I don't think I am reaching at all. According to In The Plex, the reason that Google bought YouTube was because that race had been won by YouTube at that point, and Google had come to that realization. There are also parts in there that quote the founders talking about their lax attitude towards copyright infringement being a good thing, and it also attributes part of Google Video's failure against YouTube to their over-worrying about making sure that copyright was appropriately respected, while YouTube was letting things run wild. The tough-on-copyright-infringement behavior of YT came later. I'm not equating them with MU, I'm saying that you're dead wrong about YouTube's past.
But YouTube's past isn't relevant to my argument. Since Google bought YouTube they've been very consistent about respecting copyright and taking down content very promptly considering how much content is uploaded every day.
You can't argue this based on how the service used to be. Let me give you a weird example. I used to be a heroin addict. I did a lot of unethical and illegal things with my friends who were addicts as well. Since then I cleaned up and have consistently sober and living well for three years while one friend hasn't. Now if that friend gets arrested and put in jail over his problem is it fair to argue that I should also be in jail because back when I used I did similar or worse things than my friend? No. Of course not.
What I'm hearing is "YouTube and similar sites should be taken down too because they used to have lots of infringing content". That no longer matters. I'm sure that if YouTube continued to operate as it once did that they could be in some hot water too but arguing their past is a flimsy argument. MegaUpload had every opportunity to at least try to look like they didn't encourage infringement but they didn't. I don't see how we can compare yesterday's YouTube with today's MegaUpload.
I knew this would come up. I've even done it. But it isn't something they promote. It isn't part of YouTube itself nor emdorsed by it so you really can't make that argument. The difference I'm pointing out isnt in one's ability to download media but if the site itself was actually set up for that purpose or not.
The next argument is probably going to be something like "well YouTube should stop third party services from being able to do that" but again this is beside the point and it would be damn near impossible to stop it from happening. There's always a workaround.
Rapidshare, Youtube, Hotfile. Which of these things is not like the others?
These kinds of razzle-dazzle arguments don't make you sound more convincing. "MegaUpload wasn't mostly infringing content". "Youtube is just like Rapidshare". This is Hacker News, not a court of law; who's mind do you think you're changing with statements like that?
>Rapidshare, Youtube, Hotfile. Which of these things is not like the others?
2 are general file repositories, one is specialized toward video? All 3 are very popular and heavily trafficked sites that host infringing content, but also a non-trivial portion of non infringing content?
>who's mind do you think you're changing with statements like that?
You're right. I shouldn't bother trying to change the mind of the MafiAA believer crowd. I still try anyways.
Google is a business partner of the content industry. Serious (high-fidelity, in-release-window, substitutable commercial product) infringing content on Youtube is a headache for Google. That same content is the reason Rapidshare and MegaUpload exist.
How is it name calling if you parrot the arguments of the recording industry? Just because a number of the hacker type finds them distasteful doesn't mean you're not making the same BS arguments they are. Stop parroting their arguments and I'll stop calling a spade a spade.
>That same content is the reason Rapidshare and MegaUpload exist.
> The site still appears to have been hosting mostly infringing content.
How??! It's 25 petabytes. How many movies did the MPAA (Disney+Sony+Viacom+NewsCorp+NBCUniversal+Warner) produce, that need to have been uploaded as how many duplicates in what sort of quality??
According to Wikipedia there have been about 3500 titles released on BluRay in the US (which are by no means all represented by the MPAA, but it's an upper limit). Generally these hi-res movies are uploaded in 10GB versions, but even if they all used the full dual layer disc (50GB), that's still 3500x50GB = 175 terabyte = 0.175 petabyte. And this is being extremely generous just to get a ballpark estimate to show just by how much they miss the order of magnitude. It's probably about a fifth of this number.
Movies before BluRay have not been released or uploaded in this resolution, they're generally not bigger than 1GB (the vast majority being 700-800MB).
How many movies did the Big Six produce? It's quite hard to find that number, actually. But I'll do you one better:
One number I could find, is that there were 9157 movies produced in 1995-2012 (summing these numbers: http://www.the-numbers.com/market/MPAARatings/ ) which amounts to about 538 movies per year. Times 70 years of copyright is max 37660 movie titles that might still be copyrighted, times 50GB a piece cause they're all magically uploaded as raw BluRay rips even if they don't exist in that format, is 1,883,000 gigabytes of data. That's 1.9 petabytes.
So, that means that every movie that's been made that is still under copyright, must have had 13 duplicates in the absolute highest 50GB/BluRay format to make up for 25 petabytes of data on MegaUpload.
Except that's not right because even on BluRay you can't just inflate the quality like that until you fill 50GB, you need to fill it with actual minutes of video material so even on BluRay these movies can't have been that big.
Also I'm fairly sure that the number of movies produced between 1995 and 2012 is a rather high estimate of movie production in the past 70 years.
And then there's the fact that 13 duplicate different format rips of a movie is quite a rare sight, and most different format encodings are going to be much, much smaller than the BluRay version.
So really, there's just no way anything more than a few percent of the data on MegaUpload could have been infringing on the MPAA's rights. But they took it all offline, just to make sure.
And the more I try to wrap my head around these calculations (petabytes are HUGE!!) I'm not even sure if they could have filled it up with porn either ... what IS in those 25 petabytes, I'm getting rather curious now :)
There are something like 20 different rips of _The Muppets_ on Torrentz.eu right now. It is not at all hard for me to believe that the majority of the content on MU was infringing --- not that that matters, because it's even easier to believe that substantially all of the monetary benefits of MU involved improving access to infringing content.
It's funny how I can be so confident about MegaUpload's intent to infringe copyright. It's almost as if I had some magic ability to quote actual internal emails in which their own employees stated that the majority of their video content was infringing.
Ok, you being tptacek I'll trust that's a fact :) Even though I really wonder why you'd have seen their internal emails (??). Still there's two things (and they both could be true):
First there's the possibility that MegaUpload has no duplicate checking at all, meaning that if anyone would upload the exact same data they would just store it twice. Or thrice. That way I suppose they could get to the 25 petabyte mark.
Second, you say "majority of their video content". I can believe that too. That is, the whole "it's 25 petabyte" argument goes nowhere if we're just discussing a part of the data.
Then all I'm saying is, even if they're storing all possible MPAA protected data, in several formats and encodings, it's still a tall order to claim that involves more than a couple percent of those 25 petabytes, and taking it all offline just because a small part of it is infringing (even if that small part is rather huge), isn't quite fair. It'd be like taking the Internet offline because people are doing illegal stuff on it, right?
If anyone has a tighter estimate for the number of MPAA represented movies produced in the past 70 years, that'd be great. The number should be out there somewhere, right? I'm fairly sure that ~38k MPAA movies since 1942 is guesstimating way too high.
As a rough calculation it sounds ballpark plausible.
IMDB lists 271,106 feature films. Even if massive numbers of those fall outside the MPAA or were pre-1942, it's still quite plausible that 38k fall within those boundaries.
The interesting thing is TV, which is certainly produced at a higher gb rate than feature films these days. I don't think you can discount those from a calculation of infringing material.
And those clips were long before I had a wife and a family and kids, you know,
my priorities have changed. I’m a family man, you know, I am not
doing these kinds of things – that was childish stuff, and it was
fun at the time and I don’t regret it, but that is not me today, I
am a different guy.
"Hey look at this asshole, he's getting rich off of piracy and stealing American jobs." They couldn't have hoped for a better target.
The problem with this argument is that the government can make similar arguments about most wealthy people if they have already decided they'd like to bring them down. Does this mean you shouldn't live big purely out of fear of the gov? Sounds pretty ridiculous to me.
In a recent interview (also linked to on HN), he also stated that he provided direct access to (all of) the media companies, so that they could directly delete infringing links themselves.
This is a very inaccurate comment. How is he "thumbing his nose at US copyright law"? And since when does copyright infringement pursuit only get triggered when the infringer decides to show off?
> obviously thumbing his nose at US copyright law and he thought he was untouchable because of his location.
That and the fact that MU made its profits from tricking people into paying for the download privilege of illegal content and/or displaying ads on those pages.
If they did not charge or monetize that illegal content in some way, they would not have made the 100s of millions that they did.
I never used megaupload so I apologize if I'm way off, but I'm really confused: After this "bust" it seems the received wisdom is that MegaUpload was not some shady illegal file sharing site; whereas beforehand (if memory serves), it was common knowledge that that was exactly what it was. Some friends who engage in such sharing tell me they "don't use bittorrent anymore, DD [direct download] is easier."
Have I gone crazy? Do most BT tracker sites that feature "illegal" content not advertise direct download sites as an alternative way to download stuff illegally?
I'm really confused because I thought that "DD sites are a competitor to BT for downloading stuff illegally" was common knowledge, now we're shocked-SHOCKED that such unseemly allegations would be leveled at such respectable Netizens as Megaupload. I am not commenting on whether copyright is broken, merely "was this not a popular site to d/l illegal stuff?"
Yes, it was a popular site to download stuff without a proper license. That doesn't mean they were an "illegal file sharing site". Youtube is also a popular site to view illegally shared videos, but they're not an "illegal video sharing site".
Youtube is a popular site to view unreliable, low-quality streaming versions of unlawfully shared videos. Nobody thinks Youtube is a substitute for (say) a Hulu+ or Amazon Prime subscription.
People also shared legitimate content on Napster. Once in a blue moon, someone will use BitTorrent to transfer a Linux kernel. But we all know why those services were or are popular.
Nerds appreciate good hacks, and are also infuriated by how fuzzy and nondeterministic the legal system is. So they tend to vigorously adhere to arguments like "how can you prove a DVDRIP of The Muppets wasn't a lawfully-created backup of a purchased DVD stored for entirely legitimate reasons", or, "how can you claim a service like MegaUpload is a gigantic scam that milks millions of dollars out of piracy when people obviously do use it to store Linux kernels". If the legal system worked the way nerds want it to, these arguments would be totally convincing: if you can't prove as if to a programming language runtime that something is criminal, well, you shouldn't even be able to get an indictment.
Of course, that's not how the legal system works. A gigantic portion of almost every criminal case hinges on the question of intent, which involves proving to a jury what someone was thinking. That's a head-explodey concept, because you can't write a computer program to evaluate it. But it's also the basis for many centuries of western law.
Similarly, if you find some awesome, clever scheme by which you can profit from piracy without ever touching pirated content, the law is not going to evaluate your culpability simply from the bits on your hard drive. The totality of the circumstances involved in your scheme will be used to make a case as to your interest in and promotion of piracy, much of which will involve trying to read your mind based on tea leaves like "what sites did you choose to run your ads on".
Similarly, the DoJ is required to spend their time on cases they believe they can win. It can be considered unethical for them to prosecute cases they don't have a reasonable shot at. So as audibly as the pattern engine in the nerd cortex may ring with recognition at the similarities between Youtube and MegaUpload, they fact that Youtube isn't being prosecuted is irrelevant. The DoJ will start with the cases it can win.
Youtube is a popular site to view unreliable, low-quality streaming versions of unlawfully shared videos. Nobody thinks Youtube is a substitute for (say) a Hulu+ or Amazon Prime subscription.
Maybe not, but for many people it is a replacement for MP3 downloading services like iTunes. Sure, it doesn't offer all the same features (neither did MU), but it offers enough.
People also shared legitimate content on Napster. Once in a blue moon, someone will use BitTorrent to transfer a Linux kernel. But we all know why those services were or are popular.
In my (anecdotal, yes) experience of watching people use it, that's exactly why Youtube is popular too. User created content is an exception.
There's a distinction to be drawn between copyrighted content and copyrighted content of such quality that serves as a market substitute for the legitimate product.
In either case, the DoJ has huge discretion about what cases it brings. A major component of that discretion is its belief that it can win the case (much harder against Youtube); another component is "what offender is so weak that we're likely to maximize the precedential value of the case"; another is "how much of a message will this send".
> Once in a blue moon, someone will use BitTorrent to transfer a Linux kernel
I use it a lot to download ISO images of operating systems (Linux, *BSDs, OpenSolaris-derived - no Windows) for testing and/or deployment. Very handy and helps conserve bandwidth on the file servers.
While the Premium button is immediately available and the other isn't, they have both the same size, and furthermore it's made very clear from the prominent comparison table that there was a Free version and the differences between the two. How exactly is this hidden?
Is the Premium version slightly more prominent? Sure. But calling it "tricking people" is misrepresenting it completely, in my opinion.
> While the Premium button is immediately available and the other isn't
Since we're talking about "the average user", the argument should probably stop here. Most people on the internet will click the first button that looks like it will get them what they want, usually without even reading the rest of the page. Hell, they may skim past the word "Premium" in their rush to hit "download".
Sorry, but while I'm a great supporter of consumer rights - even of things that many US citizens consider appalling, like our 2 year minimum warranty - I think there's a point at which the responsibility lies on the person; it's a gray area, but I believe MU had more than surpassed that. Otherwise, we should start suing knife makers for not including a label that says "Not to stab people", newspapers for link-baiting titles that scare readers, or even simple bad designs.
Besides, and even if they did maliciously cause people to overlook the free option, that still isn't tricking people into paying. They didn't exactly charge your CC when you clicked on the Premium button; people were willingly paying for access to the content by inserting their CC information and getting what they were looking for. Offering a service for a price that you can get otherwise for free is not tricking people.
The primary revenue/profit driver of MU was illegal content. You can spin it however you want. They knew it, I know it, and you know it.
> Otherwise, we should start suing knife makers for not including a label that says "Not to stab people",
Not that I'm going to take your bait, but if the primary function/use of the knife was to stab someone, then sure, we should. But instead we use it in mostly in other ways.
You're mixing apples and oranges. If you read my replies to your posts, I was disputing your claim that MU tricked people, not that it was use for copyright infringement.
It was a popular site to download illegal stuff, but that's not the real issue with this case. The debate is whether or not they complied with DMCA takedown laws when they were alerted to copyrighted content and also if they personally uploaded illegal content themselves.
The question isn't whether it was popular to use them to host infringing material -- I think everyone agrees that it was. The question is whether they acted as they were legally required when it came to takedown requests.
That's what determines if they are liable for other people putting infringing content on their servers.
A: Tunnels under the US/Mexican border are to be shut down because they are used to transport drugs.
B: Well the US Postal service is used to transport drugs as well, are you going to shut it down too???
ahem Do you really not see any difference between what MegaUpload used to do and what Google does? If so, I suspect willful ignorance. Again, I'm not arguing that copyright laws are sane, just saying I'm confused about the reactions of "how DARE they cast aspersions on MU and suggest that their model was based on piracy" when, well, casual observation of MU's case and the industry as a whole (RapidShare etc.) seems to strongly suggest that their model was based on piracy.*
Heck, I'll just say it straight: it's universal common knowledge that RS, MU, etc. build their businesses on piracy; people in this thread and on TorrentFreak who are trying to suggest otherwise are willfully ignoring the obvious in order to make a point. This makes the point weaker, so I suggest they stop. :)
Ok, so then I'll use Youtube as an example. The reason it became so popular was because it had TONS of copyrighted content on it in the beginning. I can remember back in my college days sitting and watching full episodes of South Park with my study group instead of doing homework. I could very easily have made the argument back then that Youtube was "built on piracy" (whatever that means).
OK, why does any P2P site ever get in trouble? If the standard is only linking and not hosting, why were Napster, Kazaa, Grokster, isohunt, oink, etc. shut down? None of these were hosting content, they just provided links (or the equivalent of links).
The reality is that the courts have recognized that operators who should have a knowledge that the content on their network is almost completely infringing don't have a viable excuse by just saying "we just provide links, we have nothing to do with the actual content". See the Grokster case.
So, here's the question: how much of Google's index is out of copyright, and would it be reasonable to expect Google to know that they are making money off of a catalog that is almost entirely copyrighted content without any license from or compensation to the copyright owners?
Another problem is that, even if MegaUpload had all the MPAA infringing content you can imagine, taking all of those 25 petabyte offline is kind of similar to nuking a big city in order to take down a few local drug dealers.
No surprise about the weakness of the charges. The goal has already been accomplished. Megaupload has been destroyed without a single valid argument being upheld.
Don't forget they've also tried to prevent his ability to defend himself by seizing every bit of property and/or assets they could get their hands on. Kind of hard to defend yourself against a prosecutor that has an unlimited budget and you have no means to fund your defense.
Guilty until proven innocent? Surely it is not unreasonable that if found guilty, the criminal would be required to produce that money or work to pay off debts.
Megaupload made money through premium accounts which "many" were used for 100% legal purposes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but people paid for the service, not the files.
Really, which? I have never come across a site using MegaUpload to host non-pirated content. Not one. single. time. I'd love to see some examples of this non-infringing usage. Surely you can find some via archive.org easily enough, if they're so common?
I've seen plenty. Mainly around gaming stuff like mods, or even smaller games where the developer released versions on MegaUpload or similar sites. The only specific examples I can think of off the top of my head are NSFW and I'd rather not link them here, but they definitely exist, and MegaUpload was always the easiest to use of the bunch.
FWIW, forum.xda-developers.com and phone modding forums like it often use cyberlocker services, usually for the same reason: you have a lot of folks who want a file, you don't want the forum software to have to deal with the traffic and you certainly don't want to have to email it to everyone who asks.
Cyberlocker services yes, but megaupload specically? When I've seen stuff like that used in actual communities it's been either stuff like dropbox links, MSN's one (SkyDrive, or LiveDrive, something like that?)
If MU was legitimate, you can be sure these figures would not be hidden, and would be instead the #1 bulletin point of their defense. Instead, DotKim is now claiming a conspiracy theory.
MU made more profits than DropBox had revenue. Take away those accounts that signed up (tricked into) to download illegal content, and what do you have left?
He ran a legal business with a valid service. If they can't separate the money into legally acquired and illegally acquired, then in my opinion, they shouldn't freeze those assets.
Well, they are just accused, so yes. If I was not a pickpocket however was accused of being one, I'd need to have the financial means to be able to defend myself.
Of course I would. Accused pick pocket is not a convicted pick pocket, so limiting his access to funds is immoral. Not sure about the legality, to me it absolutely should not be legal but I do not have enough knowledge to claim that it is.
To better illustrate the problem with your devil's advocate approach ask yourself the same question adding in the words in brackets: would you permit a person (wrongly) accused of being a pick pocket to use (his) funds (incorrectly assumed to come) from stolen wallets to pay for his defense?
Pre-trial seizure isn't un-precedented nor inherently evil.
The Feds freeze the assets of a fraudster, e.g. Bernie Madoff, when accused of a crime. They are not yet proven guilty, no, but there is a pragmaticism that underlies the decision to trade defendant rights for the public good.
In the Madoff case his company was put under receivership, not seized: http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2008/2008-293-order.pdf
And ownership wasn't transfered of anything: he was enjoyed from transferring or disposing of value.
Per the document linked to Madoff's estate was put under an "order freezing assets" [1]. Dotcom's property is described as being "seized and restrained" [2], not confiscated or forfeited.
Seems like that's an awful fine line. How is that different from the MPAA claiming that Megaupload is a fraud that has stolen money that belongs to them? How do you come up with a set of objective rules that can treat one accused fraudster different from another?
This raises the interesting question: What would happen if Megaupload actually managed to win in court? Would any part on the other side be responsible to pay for the damages caused to uptime and reputation?
Considering how profitable Megaupload was pre-takedown, we're talking enormous sums.
Yeah, I think the interesting thing here is the flip-side of them (Mega) not being a US entity in anyway. I read a while ago (no links I'm afraid) that essentially a US agency/regulator has to give permission for a US based entity to sue an agency like the FBI. I'd be very interested to see how it plays out for someone like Mega, or their web hosts if in fact they did win. There'd be no protection in place. They'd have to battle.
I'd be interested to know if any HN'ers have anything more solid to add?
"I read a while ago (no links I'm afraid) that essentially a US agency/regulator has to give permission for a US based entity to sue an agency like the FBI."
Is "sovereign immunity"[1] perhaps the concept you are referring to? It was mentioned in an HN comment thread a while ago, but I don't remember the exact context.
Ahh yes that indeed was what I was referring too. Interestingly it is in fact (if I'm reading this right) mentioned as being exempt: "certain claims of monetary damages against the United States are exempt from sovereign immunity" [1]
I'm no lawyer, but it sounds like the Tucker act only applies to cases where the government states or implies that it will pay something and then doesn't, so the government can't just breach contracts with impunity.
This tactic is not new, and has worked in the past. I'm thinking of a piracy crackdown about 20 years ago. Back then it was a network of dial-up bulletin boards, and people who would commit phone fraud to upload and download data, operating as couriers, in groups. The boards would often fun their hardware through credit card fraud, and many of them made money selling tapes full of pirated material. The crackdown involved raiding the boards, getting the user details, tracking their phone numbers, and getting various people raided in the various countries. A lot of the time the cases would collapse in court on various technicalities, but it would be a year before people would get their seized computer equipment back.
> “These are revenues that belong to ValCom, and we’re
> securing them for the benefit of the company and to
> increase value for our shareholders,” ValCom president
> Vince Vellardita said in a statement.
This is like an MBA madlibs statement, all he had to do was fill in the company name.
I don't think it's destroyed at all. It is hurt, and hurt bad, but I think they could make a come back if he can get it back online after this disaster is over.
Now that you think about it, they probably chose the wrong guy to make an example out of. A rich nerd who likes attention? of course he's going to make this into a big deal (whether he's right or not)
Like the politicians who kept the Vietnam War going long after victory was impossible, they don't understand sunk costs. They are all in at this point. No prosecutor of a case this big will accept the embarrassment of merely dropping the charges. They have to win, so this will go to court.
Am I the only one who noticed how ridiculously flimsy this article was? Let me sum it up:
Kim Dotcom says he did nothing wrong. Legal documents say one thing but they're wrong because Kim says that they're wrong. Kim Dotcom would never lie, right? So he must really have never done anything wrong.
There's also this weird backtracking that goes on in the article. First the article claims that Mega is in the clear pretty much based on what Kim Dotcom says and nothing more but then goes on to imply that even if Mega did do something wrong it's totally cool because there are some people using it to share photos and videos of themselves. And those people are US soldiers so the Feds just have to forgive Mega because after all, we can never imply a US soldier would do anything unethical!
Then the 50 Cent thing... "Well, yeah I uploaded the 50 Cent song but I totally bought it first and it was random and the the link was private! Just take me at my word TorrentFreak". And TorrentFreak does take him at his word.
Then, because some big media companies wanted to do business with Mega it somehow absolves them of any sin related to hosting and facilitating the piracy of those same companies' works. Really?
And it just goes on...
Basically as long as what you say supports the TorrentFreak agenda they'll just take you at your word and report what you say as truth. This is 5th grade expository writing, not a news story. The sad thing is that people will read this garbage and take it as truth because it sounds bad like you should be outraged and it kind of sort of includes some semblance of fact.
I can't say if MegaUpload did anything wrong or not based on this story because it's such a terribly written one. Lots of topic sentences, little to no supporting details, and no one seemed to check if what Dotcom was saying is really accurate.
I think it's pretty clear from the introduction that this would just be a one-sided response to some of the government's weakest claims. It's essentially just reading one side's legal brief and ignoring the other.
Particularly Dotcom completely ignored a number of the accusations the government has made (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/why-the-feds...). Namely, he didn't address at all that they paid users who were popular uploaders with known infringing content. He also cherry picked some instances of his own use of the system without addressing any of the instances of employee abuses cited above.
You are correct regarding the impotence of votes, but I'd say the situation is even worse than you describe. Pragmatically, the FBI and your local police do get the choice of which laws to enforce by choosing their allocation of resources and by the "on the street" decisions of their staff. Further, their allocation of enforcement is also dictated by their competencies. Corporations and lobbyist get to influence these decisions (and hence enforcement) as well.
This is a major flaw in how we are governed and is one of the reasons a common political trope is "we don't need a new law, we just need to enforce the existing law".
Morally and legally fraud and theft are pretty much equivalent, but theft is de facto "more illegal" in terms of your expected legal retribution due to a number of factors (the poor are more likely to commit theft than fraud, theft is easier to catch, etc.).
Enforcement oversight is a good example of a governance issue that only engineers seem to latch onto. This is likely because we live in a world where the "intention" of statements is so meaningless. The average person (or even lawmaker) seems to regard law as some kind of magic, rather than as code that runs on an enforcement arm. As evidence of this I present the many Internet bills asking for technically impossible things or related Internet bills that require massive spying but don't dictate whose responsibility it is to do or pay for the spying. Think of the healthcare law. There have been vague movements that the IRS would be responsible for tracking compliance and fines, but no one seems to know how it's (if not overturned) actually going to shake out.
I totally agree with you. But that doesn't mean NOT to opine on a story that's as sensitive as this. And probably look the other way when an individual (Kim, in this instance) has to undergo suffrage (and a completely unproductive period in life) simply because of a TRIAL?
Reminds me of The Trial by Roger Waters, Pink Floyd.
Glad to see someone fight back against the the corruption that is American politics and status quo and it's growing inquality and accelerating movement towards dystopia. Maybe Dotcom committed crimes, maybe he didn't. I really don't know. But I do know that people are bullied and/or fear- and/or debt-slaved into submission every day and that the only to have a chance to change anything is to stand up for other people and yourself and not go down without a fight.
I think it's pretty clear. This was one of the largest and easiest to use file-locker services. I used it tons of times because it was so convenient and the free service was much better than any of the other file-locker services. If you had an ad-blocker installed, the site was almost too good to be true. You could download huge files after a 30 second wait, at reasonably high speeds, no captcha or any other hoops to jump through, and you could download another file from the site immediately afterwards without wait (most sites make free users wait between downloads). Files would stay up on the site seemingly indefinitely, while other file-locker services would delete a file after it was not accessed for a specific number of days.
Also Kim was a larger-than-life target. He was living extravagantly. Right after he was arrested there was a huge Ars article about how ridiculous his lifestyle and persona was. So now the government could say: "Hey look at this asshole, he's getting rich off of piracy and stealing American jobs." They couldn't have hoped for a better target.
Unfortunately, Kim was obviously thumbing his nose at US copyright law and he thought he was untouchable because of his location. That might be a workable strategy for someone keeping a lower-profile but if you piss off enough powerful people they will find a way to get at you, legal or not. (As we are seeing here.)
That being said, since the guy had a family he really should have found a more respectable way to make a living. This was pretty reckless and selfish on his part.