RIP Megaupload

I'm disappointed - Copyright is now being used as a weapon and not a tool. I understand that Mega Upload did indeed host copyrighted material, but this is no way to stop copyright infringement. I think making the copyright law more fair, balanced and easier to understand would make things a lot better, but clearly that's not gonna happen any time soon.

People need to understand that going after supply will not fix the problem. You have to solve the demand issue.

People demand that they be able to file share, and no amount of laws on the planet will prevent that. Therefore, the smart thing to do is make it easier to file share but not easy to pirate. Then you will have helped with the demand problem.

Seems like, just like so many conservative policymakers can't figure out that you can't run an economy without demand, so many backward-thinking policymakers can't figure out that you can't fight piracy as long as there exists demand for it.

I wouldn't just blame it on conservatives. It's politicians in general. They crave power, and the internet threatens that.

Oh, I was talking specifically about the love for supply-side economics. I was only drawing on that as an analogy to the current situation.

Considering piracy is theft, actually they can fight it. It's just they need to do so in a way that isn't completely ass backwards moronic and actually deals with the current reality of the internet. And ignore Hollywood's lawyers about copyright.

Course I think that second is going to happen eventually; the internet allows indie filmmakers to put out their own stuff in as much quantity as they want. And I highly doubt that they're ever going to be able to not do so as long as they're doing their own work. (That stuff about Slenderman being an example, as Slenderman and the various works regarding him seem to be public property or creative commons by default.) Hollywood's oligarchy over the film industry is going down sooner or later; the lawyers are just trying to delay the inevitable.

At any rate, I think there's time to contact both the FBI and the server companies regarding the legal files still on the servers. Unless the people they arrested are going to be jackass and screw over the customers about this, anyway. Well, I think there are some employees that weren't arrested, shouldn't they have some access to the files and be able to give them out to people?

Technically, if all the files pertinent to the case have been taken from the servers, then the proper course of action should be to reinstate the servers as quickly as possible. By all legal rights, the servers belong to MegaUpload so the proper course of action would be to either return the servers to MegaUpload or set up a website for hosting MegaUpload's files so the files can be retrieved by their owners.

To do anything else, especially towards legal files hosted on MegaUpload, would be a violation of the Fourth Amendment. While the United States has probable cause to seize MegaUpload's property, they have no legal right to seize anyone else's, let alone allow it to be destroyed. They could likely get away with searching the material, since it had been available to the public via the Internet though, so there was not an reasonable expectation of privacy. However, the files on MegaUpload's servers could be seen as the personal property of their owners, which means that they would have been unreasonably seized.

edited 30th Jan '12 5:51:50 PM by GameGuruGG

I still don't understand statements like this. You can argue that the world would be better were they capable of fighting it, but that doesn't make them capable of fighting it. I don't see any way of eliminating it under the current system.

(I frequent a scanslation website that uses sites similar to Megaupload as hosts, although most of its content was never officially translated in America. Time was it had triple redundancy with Depositfiles, Filesonic, and Fileserve. Now it has triple redundancy with Depositfiles, Turbobit, and Let It Bit. If Depositfiles goes down, it will lose all its old content, but it will never be prevented from posting new content—and even if the site itself is taken down, the same scanslations are available on three different sites.)

The issue is that most of the files uploaded to Megaupload are on third-party servers that Megaupload pays to hold the files. Megaupload's next payment(for the third party to continue to hold the files) is Thursday, but they can't pay because the Feds froze Megaupload's assets...

The lawsuit coming against the federal government over the collateral damage is going to be huge. Assuming the storage companies do delete the files because the feds refuse to allow Megaupload to pay for the storage(or allow people to gain access to their uploaded files to retrieve them)...

The good news: Now everyone knows that Cloud storage is probably not a smart idea moving forward. Not least because the government can, at any time, decide to shut down the site, and confiscate the files involved(or get them deleted if files ore stored by a third party).

Well, the article I linked on the previous page says the FBI is no longer holding onto Megaupload's files or something, and that what happens to them now is out of the FBI's hands. *shrug* If there's any employees of Megaupload that weren't arrested, I'd suggest any customers contact them and the server companies. Cuz it sort of seems like they're just going to be sitting there for a little while.

Ninjaed. Also, cloud storage?

edited 30th Jan '12 5:46:50 PM by AceofSpades

The problem with reinstating the servers now is that MegaUpload's money is still frozen by the FBI, meaning they can't pay their fees to the companies running/owning their servers (and thus hosting all their data). It's all in the article.

edited 30th Jan '12 5:49:08 PM by MarqFJA

PBS News Hour article on the Megaupload takedown: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june12/megaupload_01-20.html (note: 10 days old)

Well then, the United States government should do everything in their power to keep the servers up and running, even if they have to pay the fees themselves. To let the material be deleted because of their own actions could not only be unreasonable seizure, but would almost certainly be spoliation of evidence. Definite legal problems here.

They already have all the information pertinent to their case. As in, they probably have hard copies and digital copies. It wouldn't be a spoilage of evidence. As for what happens with the rest of the information... I don't know.

The Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees right to a speedy trial. This is so that "The prosecution may not excessively delay the trial for its own advantage". The whole idea is to ensure that the accused will not be incurred irreparable loss, the kind of loss that would occur by a delayed trial even if the verdict is an acquittal. Trying to make Megaupload files get deleted or expired is just unfair.

That's not really how evidence collection and custody works...

Because the "hard copies" are the servers themselves, the government cannot have them and give them back to the storage company at the same time. Thus the government would only have digital copies of the files...

If the information is deleted off of the servers, then there could be a case to be made of the government possibly falsifying evidence. If only because the servers where the files were supposedly stored no longer hold said files, and thus no evidence that the files were actually on the server to begin with.

It's essentially the police raiding a storage unit for stolen art, taking pictures of the art inside, and then allowing the owner of the storage unit to burn everything inside the storage unit because "they have the pictures of the evidence and that's all the government needs" and the rent on the unit is past due...

edited 30th Jan '12 6:30:31 PM by Swish

Basically, the United States needs to make sure they don't do anything that could possibly give MegaUpload a legal advantage. The more legal legs MegaUpload gets to base their case on, the more likely that they could win their case.

It's not like the government hasn't lost cases yet, though. Why the ego?

I think it's less the government not wanting to lose the case and more the corporate giants that are spearheading the "anti-piracy" campaign not wanting to lose more ground to the protestors, and so are using every possible resource in their hands to pressure the government and/or its agencies to deprive MegaUpload of any legal advantage whatsoever.

Exactly. Guilt or innocence isn't the issue. This is an attack on Megaupload using the FBI as a tool. Freezing assets and ensuring that payments can't be met is part of that.

So, wait a minute... The FBI froze Megaupload's assets (money and whatnot), right? Then how are they going to be able to get their own lawyers (Is that the right term? I mean the guy that helps the defendant win a case)? Now I realize that if you can't afford a lawyer, you'll have one (and likely ONLY one) assigned to you, but that's nothing when compared to the elite troops the big coorperations will undoubtly use.

Bingo. Acts like these are why peopel are sure FBI raid was ordered by MPAA/RIAA/MAFIAA/whatnots.

Don't most people who go on trial have their assets frozen?

No of course not :P What kind of world would that be? The Soviet Union?

The only time financial assets are frozen is if you're suspected of doing something illegal with those specific assets.

Isn't the idea that, if someone faces being fined a lot of money and/or losing a bunch in a civil suit, they'll transfer all the money they've got so it's not technically in their name anymore, and so avoid having to pay up if the court case doesn't go their way?