RIP Megaupload

I don't know whether their assets were frozen or not, but either way they have to let them hire lawyers. If they don't, it will be such a blatant violation of their rights that the case will get laughed out of court. Considering our current Supreme Court, if it goes high enough it might literally get laughed out.

edited 31st Jan '12 8:38:13 AM by Discar

This court tends to favor police action over citizen's rights... And would likely find that because a Public Defender is available, Constitutionality isn't an issue. Although, even though corporations are citizens, they're preferred citizens. So it would be interesting to see such a case before the Supreme Court(of course, a ruling of "frozen assets can still be used by the company to hire lawyers" would benefit the Mafia and other criminal organizations the most)...

That said, the people accused in Mega Upload(unless said people have other money to pay them) would need to find lawyers who would basically work for free until the case was won and the assets unfrozen. If that didn't happen, then the lawyer wouldn't be capable of getting the money because in such an instance the money would be considered "free taxes."

Update: MegaUpload's data will be safe for two more weeks!

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/31/10279582-report-megaupload-data-safe-for-two-more-weeks

Presumably people with frozen assets aren't left to starve to death, so there must be some way for them to get access to necessary funds, and if you're on trial I'd count lawyers' fees as necessary.

Well, they've only seized assets related to Megaupload, those being the relevant ones. If any of them are married their spouse's income is not subject to the seizure, and no doubt their families are helping out anyway they can. Still, depending on their independent wealth (which I really don't know) they may be dependent on the court provided lawyer. (Which won't necessarily be a bad one, considering the seriousness of the issue. Also, given this is international, the respective countries might provide lawyers for their citizens. Not really sure how this works on the international level, though.)

edited 31st Jan '12 5:48:45 PM by AceofSpades

People with frozen assets tend to not make bail, and thus don't starve to death due to being in jail for the duration of the trial(those that do make bail, tend to have the bail money paid for by someone other than themselves, and thus probably have friends/relatives to ensure they're okay for the duration). That said, people with frozen assets tend to lose their houses and other items they make payments on due to being unable to continue paying for them...

Companies are a different beast entirely... But the biggest hurt, outside of the company essentially ceasing to exist, tends to be the loss of payroll for the employees...

I thought most of the time when someone's assets are frozen it's because of a civil suit, not a criminal one?

Only the government(or a bank itself) can freeze your assets... The only civil case in which you'll find no access to your accounts available is one against the bank(s) where your money is held.

The average judge isn't going to prevent someone from using their money in a lawsuit. Not until said lawsuit is over with. Lying about what finances you have during a civil suit is a crime, though...

Because the federal government is the only one that can order your assets frozen, it's only in criminal cases where your assets will likely be frozen. And it's only if the government can prove, "reasonably," to a judge that the assets frozen were retrieved during a commission of a crime. If you have two accounts, they can only stop the one that has the "criminal" money. Not both. And if they can't prove which is which then they can't freeze either... Theoretically. Judges do let that last bit slide sometimes and allow both the be frozen.

Then I guess Wikipedia's page on Asset Forfeiture needs some updating, 'cause according to it:

I haven't heard anything that states this is a forfeiture case, though, so that's a little off topic — though US forfeiture law is one of those "should be unconstitutional but DRUG WAR!!!" abominations.

Yeah. Asset freezing is, AFAIK, a civil action that essentially falls under "you have no rights, and if you do, we'll simply ignore you when you exercise them."

Well, forfeiture does make some sense, since the claim is that they made money doing illegal things. They'll want to freeze those assets to make sure they and any proof they provide don't disappear into the Caiman Islands or whatever. Stuff unrelated to Megaupload would be left alone. (I think that's the claim, something to do with money laundering?)

@Aceofspades: The problem with forfeiture of anything Megaupload related is that forfeiture laws run on the principle of "guilty until proven innocent." And quite often, "guilty even when proven innocent." Challenging a civil forfeiture successfully can incite the government to either throw roadblocks in your way, or simply refuse to obey the court order point-blank.

edited 1st Feb '12 8:31:52 PM by Ramidel

And Megaupload is hardly going to be the first corporation/group of people who've had their assets frozen like this. It just doesn't make sense to not hold onto assets you think might be illegally gotten. In this day and age, you have to make sure that proof stays where you can get it. (And this is a general statement, not aimed specifically at this case.)

And if you're successful in challenging the forfeiture, the government has to give you your assets back. End of story.In this case, I would assume that would also include proving Megaupload innocent of the alleged crimes. Otherwise, it can be sued for more.

@Ace of Spades: "Have to" doesn't mean "will." The government is very good at ignoring inconvenient court orders until the plaintiffs run out of money. (There were several cases that Harry Browne mentioned waaay back in 1995 when arguing against it, but I don't have his book in front of me to quote, and in any case he needs to be taken with a slight grain of salt, since he was a slightly nuttier Ron Paul.)

Thread Hop:

Copyright infringement isn't theft, its copyright infringement. It would be theft if you deprived them of the good as well

If the government deletes Megaupload and my legitimate files stored there, is that theft?

No because governments can't steal.

Its like raiding a pawn shop and the police take the items

Destruction of property isn't theft.

Though the government claims they have no control over whether a third party deletes the info...

I'm not familiar with Megaupload's Terms of Service, but I'm pretty sure you don't retain ownership of the files they host. Almost all sites with user submitted content have a "your files can be deleted for any reason or no reason" disclaimer.

That kind of legal protectionism may be SOP for online agreement forms, but it's still iffy as far as actually holding up in court goes.

Meanwhile, the RIAA is hoping the shut-down of Megaupload will increase the amount of users that download legally from places like itunes. From illegal to legal means.

http://www.myce.com/news/riaa-closing-megaupload-means-more-users-will-flock-to-legit-music-services-57886/

Anyone here remembers Megaupload's privacy policy?

This whole thing is absolutely fascinating. Must be a new thing. Instead of suing the people who download or upload, you go after the sites themselves. The only downside is on Youtube where people keep reposting Mike Mozart's "Megaupload's Dangerous Secrets" video. . . .people are believing the fear mongering of a toy reviewer. Again, the investigation is after the owners, not the end users. . .it's been said in a number of articles.

Also discovered this from another forum. Appartanly thousands of germans are being sent letters that they owe money due to downloading songs from Megaupload. Apparantly it's a scam though

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1769494/pg1

edited 2nd Feb '12 7:53:29 AM by primeyandereheika

I can see why the RIAA did that. But however, Limewire was used for simply music and hence the uprise in Itunes traffic. The same can't be true for Megaupload, even if there was some huge deal with singers to get revenue.

See, it's a file-sharing site, not a music-sharing site.

I'd say even e-mail is a more likely avenue for sharing music than Megaupload, unless you're talking about mass-downloading soundtracks.

''Meanwhile, the RIAA is hoping the shut-down of Megaupload will increase the amount of users that download legally from places like itunes. From illegal to legal means. http://www.myce.com/news/riaa-closing-megaupload-means-more-users-will-flock-to-legit-music-services-57886/''

Honestly, it's had the opposite effect on me. I find music (at least what legal options are here) to be absolutely ridiculously overpriced. I've been downloading stuff as fast as I can before all the filehosts go down. I could never buy it all.

Maybe I don't have enough appreciation for it.....but I just don't think many albums are worth the cost they charge. I'm not much of a pirate beyond music.