Great News!!! Piracy Website Shut Down by Feds!

[muman613]

I think this is great news considering the whoopa with SOPA... I hope that the prosecution has shut down a source which people use to pirate commercial programs. If they can do this without SOPA then I am satisfied...


http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/19/feds-shut-down-file-sharing-website/

Feds say 7 from Megaupload.com ran massive worldwide piracy website
Published January 19, 2012 | FoxNews.com

McLEAN, Va. –  Federal prosecutors in Virginia have shut down one of the world's largest file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, and charged its founder and others with violating piracy laws -- a day after a 24-hour blackout of popular websites such as Wikipedia drew national attention to the issue.

The indictment is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States, according to the FBI.

It accuses seven individuals and two corporations -- Megaupload Limited and Vestor Limited -- of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. The indictment, which was unsealed on Thursday, says that at one point Megaupload was the 13th most popular website in the world.

Megaupload.com has claimed it is diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material.

The individuals in the criminal enterprise -- a worldwide ring led by Australians Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz, and Kim Tim Jim Vestor -- each face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on racketeering charges, five years for conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, 20 years on money laundering charges and five years on related charges.

The indictment comes the day after a 24-hour "blackout" of Wikipedia, a protest doodle on the homepage of Google, and numerous other protests across the Internet against proposed anti-piracy legislation that many leading websites -- including Reddit, Google, Facebook, Amazon and others -- contend will make it challenging if not impossible for them to operate.

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[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

"Great" news for whom? It's "great" that a couple of kids with too much time on their hands are facing a longer sentence than most murderers?

[briann]

IF the file uploading sites become a target... they will move offshore.

Sites that are SPECIFICALLY for piracy... (indexing sites like piratebay, etc) have already done so.

[muman613]

"Great" news for whom? It's "great" that a couple of kids with too much time on their hands are facing a longer sentence than most murderers?

Why are you calling them kids? It appears that these two are responsible for practically $500Million worth of piracy..

Do kids start sites with the express goal of stealing copyright protected material?

[muman613]

IF the file uploading sites become a target... they will move offshore.

Sites that are SPECIFICALLY for piracy... (indexing sites like piratebay, etc) have already done so.

These two are from Australia...

[muman613]

I have no pity on these:
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Megaupload was led by colorful Australian Kim Dotcom -- aka Kim Schmitz, or Kim Tim Jim Vestor. He is a a resident of both Hong Kong and New Zealand, and a dual citizen of Finland and Germany, who legally changed his last name to "Dotcom."

The website's founder and "chief innovation officer" was once convicted of a felony but has repeatedly denied engaging in piracy, according to CNET.com -- and he made more than $42 million from the conspiracy in 2010 alone, according to the indictment.

The indictment comes the day after a 24-hour "blackout" of Wikipedia, a protest doodle on the homepage of Google, and numerous other protests across the Internet against proposed anti-piracy legislation that many leading websites -- including Reddit, Google, Facebook, Amazon and others -- contend will make it challenging if not impossible for them to operate.

The Protect Intellectual Property Act under consideration in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House are bills backed by the motion picture and recording industries intended to eliminate theft online once and for all. S. 968 and H.R. 3261 would require ISPs to block access to foreign websites that infringe on copyrights.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/19/feds-shut-down-file-sharing-website/#ixzz1jwUWMWAV

[muman613]

It seems a lot of people are very protective of pirates, but they will immediately bleet and cry when a black steals a dollar...

THEFT IS THEFT!

[Zelhar]

I think it's lame going after upload sites and like briann says it would fail because you can't enforce the law offshore.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

Heavy-scale internet "piracy" goes back more than a dozen years... anyone remember the doomsayers that vowed that Napster was going to be the end of commercial music? (Ironically enough, it was multimillionaire stars like Metallica and Dr. Dre that were making these claims, not struggling small indie artists that would have stood the most to lose from piracy.)

I think the piracy question comes down to the free market. If a legitimate market for a service or product exists, we will continue to see a market for it no matter what. If no market for it exists, we won't. I don't see how Chinese nationals "illegally" downloading Western-made movies will hurt the Western entertainment industry substantially. If anything, what is harming the domestic entertainment industry is the fact that people without jobs don't have much disposable income to spend on music and movies.

In a way the whole "piracy" debate is similar to the mega-bailouts we saw four years ago. The government is interfering with the free market in the name of fighting for the free market. It's ridiculous. If the banks and insurance companies were all failing, obviously they either didn't run their businesses with any acumen or their services no longer had a market. Likewise with the entertainment industry--if these people are putting out superior films and CDs, people will eat them up (if they have the income to do so). If they're not, it's not the government's job to step in and rescue them from people's own decisionmaking processes. But we live in an era where the vast majority of Western citizens have an entitlement complex and believe they are owed x, y, and z without working for it--remember, something like 76% of Americans feel health care is an "inalienable right" after all.

[Zelhar]

Heavy-scale internet "piracy" goes back more than a dozen years... anyone remember the doomsayers that vowed that Napster was going to be the end of commercial music? (Ironically enough, it was multimillionaire stars like Metallica and Dr. Dre that were making these claims, not struggling small indie artists that would have stood the most to lose from piracy.)

I think the piracy question comes down to the free market. If a legitimate market for a service or product exists, we will continue to see a market for it no matter what. If no market for it exists, we won't. I don't see how Chinese nationals "illegally" downloading Western-made movies will hurt the Western entertainment industry substantially. If anything, what is harming the domestic entertainment industry is the fact that people without jobs don't have much disposable income to spend on music and movies.

In a way the whole "piracy" debate is similar to the mega-bailouts we saw four years ago. The government is interfering with the free market in the name of fighting for the free market. It's ridiculous. If the banks and insurance companies were all failing, obviously they either didn't run their businesses with any acumen or their services no longer had a market. Likewise with the entertainment industry--if these people are putting out superior films and CDs, people will eat them up (if they have the income to do so). If they're not, it's not the government's job to step in and rescue them from people's own decisionmaking processes. But we live in an era where the vast majority of Western citizens have an entitlement complex and believe they are owed x, y, and z without working for it--remember, something like 76% of Americans feel health care is an "inalienable right" after all.

I think you are correct that most of the so called piracy is done by people who are never going to be paying clients and are not doing commercial use with the downloaded material.

For example, a teenager who "pirates" adobe photoshop and use it to create amateur art etc. would never ever pay the hundreds of dollars for the license fees. But when he grows up he may actually get a job as a graphic designer and so directly or via the employer become a paying customer for adobe. I don't see how adobe loses any dollars by going after such offenders. They should go after people and businesses who do commercial use of the software without buying license.

Now when it comes to the entertainment industry, I think what the industry needs to do is adopt and offer the consumers the type of services they seek and are willing to pay for because they are convenient and reasonably priced. Netflix, Itunes etc. for example offer this type of services. But the music and film industry for years before refused to adopt and tried to force people to buy expensive bloated content in obsolete formats like CD albums and DVD boxes.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

For example, a teenager who "pirates" adobe photoshop and use it to create amateur art etc. would never ever pay the hundreds of dollars for the license fees. But when he grows up he may actually get a job as a graphic designer and so directly or via the employer become a paying customer for adobe. I don't see how adobe loses any dollars by going after such offenders. They should go after people and businesses who do commercial use of the software without buying license.

Not only is the above a "victimless crime", but it only helps Adobe in the long run. When this kid has the money after he makes it big as a professional designer, he more than likely will become a major customer of Adobe. A smart software corporation would make a personal-use version of said program available as freeware (and several have done this in fact), and therefore the whole "piracy" question is circumvented entirely.

[angryChineseKahanist]

oh those poor rap studio giants
why would anyone want garbage "music" or those disposable garbage "movies"?

[muman613]

These pirates are some real creeps. They deserve everything they are getting... Engaging in a criminal enterprise of piracy is a crime. I dont care if you don't like the movies or music, don't watch them or listen to them....

[Maimonides]

These pirates are some real creeps. They deserve everything they are getting... Engaging in a criminal enterprise of piracy is a crime. I dont care if you don't like the movies or music, don't watch them or listen to them....

It's one thing to punish the pirates, but its another thing to take down websites just because they link to pirated material.

If someone posted a link to copyrighted material on JTF.org should JTF.org be taken down?

[muman613]

It's one thing to punish the pirates, but its another thing to take down websites just because they link to pirated material.

If someone posted a link to copyrighted material on JTF.org should JTF.org be taken down?

This story is about a big time piracy ring which was responsible for up to 500Million dollars in piracy.

My point is that with or without SOPA I support stopping piracy of copyrighted material. A person has a right to earn a living developing content for the various media devices which are created. I work at a company which creates hardware/software which delivers media content to the user.


Regarding your question. No a link is not the issue. The server which hosts the content and who owns and operates it are responsible for the copyright infringement.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

These are allegations unproven in a court of law. How would you know exactly how much money this operation came up with? If these operations were destroying the livelihood of the entertainment industry, how come the entertainment industry is thriving?

[muman613]

These are allegations unproven in a court of law. How would you know exactly how much money this operation came up with? If these operations were destroying the livelihood of the entertainment industry, how come the entertainment industry is thriving?

Its thriving? According to who?

You always talk about these 'big corporations' and 'special interests' but don't you realize that the small businesses which are involved in distribution and production of this content are being ripped off? I thought that you were a moral person but lately I have come to think that many here don't care about morals, they care about themselves. If they can rip someone off without getting caught they will do it. If there is a risk of getting caught they will blame those trying to enforce the law.

I know many companies which are trying to work on home media systems and without content they will go out of business.

These two in todays article, if they ran Megaupload site, are deserving of this as they knew it was used to pirate. How else do you make money by running a site which hosts media content which you did not pay royalties for?

[Zelhar]

I know many companies which are trying to work on home media systems and without content they will go out of business.

How about don't base their company their company on the wrong business model. In your specific example there are actually existing and successful home media products.

The content providers are the enemies of technological development. When audio recorders first came about to the mass market they tried to make it illegal to posses. When the video recorder was first on the market, they tried to stop that too. They also tried to fight TiVo and youtube etc.

[muman613]

How about don't base their company their company on the wrong business model. In your specific example there are actually existing and successful home media products.

The content providers are the enemies of technological development. When audio recorders first came about to the mass market they tried to make it illegal to posses. When the video recorder was first on the market, they tried to stop that too. They also tried to fight TiVo and youtube etc.

 I strongly disagree!

Remember the case of VHS versus Sony betamax ?

 In this case sony lost because it lacked content. Also more recently in the competition between rival formats HDVD and Bluray it turns out that HDVD lost because of lack of content. I know because I'm a sucker who bought the thing ..

 I'm posting this from my android so my typing sucks.

[Zelhar]

Muman that's not the issue we are dealing with here. The big content providers tried to make it illegal to sell video recorder device of any format. They said it should be illegal to record a show from TV and watch it afterwards. If you wanna watch a video, you must buy or rent the cassette with the movie from them.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

I thought that you were a moral person but lately I have come to think that many here don't care about morals, they care about themselves.

I am going to ask for you to apologize for this silly personal attack that borders on slander. I don't download anything. Then again, I rather doubt the sincerity of some of the posts around here so maybe none of it is really meant.

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

Muman that's not the issue we are dealing with here. The big content providers tried to make it illegal to sell video recorder device of any format. They said it should be illegal to record a show from TV and watch it afterwards. If you wanna watch a video, you must buy or rent the cassette with the movie from them.

If something is released on the public airwaves, it's public property as far as I am concerned. They're getting compensated by commercial time. Needless to say hundreds of millions of people have recorded shows (usually to watch one time and then tape over) and it hasn't doomed the television industry.

[Rubystars]

I notice that some of the copyright notices on movies always said you weren't supposed to show it in public (like a movie theater type situation) without a license, but I was curious as to how many people this  applies to. If you have one of those fancy home theater setups and your kid has all his or her friends over for a sleepover, and they watch a movie, is that in violation?

[Dr. Dan]

If you ask me, I don't really care. These Hollywood types deserve to be screwed over as well as the people that cheat them by copyrighting their material...Kind of like Qaddafi against the rebels. My view is, let them kill each other.

So as far as bootleggers and Hollywood movies and illegal copyrighting of these movies for free uploads etc etc etc...let them have a bloodbath. Both are evil.

[syyuge]

Anti piracy actions may sometimes be going too far to strangulate the basic concepts of the free market. Mostly only those companies resort to anti piracy actions who have internally already lost their initiatives and drive for innovations.