MegaUpload, one of the largest file-sharing sites on the Internet, has been shut down by federal prosecutors in Virginia. The site’s founder Kim Dotcom and three others were arrested by the police in New Zealand at the request of US authorities. MegaVideo, the streaming site belonging to same company, and a total of 18 domains connected to the Mega company were seized and datacenters in three countries raided. An indictment unsealed today by the Department of Justice claims MegaUpload has caused the entertainment industries more than $500 million in lost revenue and generated $175 million “in criminal proceeds.”
Two corporations – Megaupload Limited and Vestor Limited – were indicted by a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia on January 5th, 2012, and charged with “engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement.” Today, the authorities executed in excess of 20 search warrants in the United States and eight other countries and seized approximately $50 million in assets. A total of 18 Mega-related domains were seized including Megastuff.co, Megaworld.com, Megaclicks.co, Megastuff.info, Megaclicks.org, Megaworld.mobi, Megastuff.org, Megaclick.us, Mageclick.com, HDmegaporn.com, Megavkdeo.com, Megaupload.com, Megaupload.org, Megarotic.com, Megaclick.com, Megavideo.com, Megavideoclips.com and Megaporn.com.
Data centers in the Netherlands, Canada and Washington were raided. In an apparent reference to the latter, a source has just informed TorrentFreak that the FBI are currently detaining everyone at the ISP Cogent Communications’ headquarters in Washington DC, in connection with a Mega-related search warrant. In addition to MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom, another six alleged members of the Mega “conspiracy” were charged in the indictment, including residents of Germany, Slovakia, Turkey, Estonia and Netherlands. Owner Dotcom, Batato, Ortmann and van der Kolk were arrested today in Auckland, New Zealand, by authorities there. Bencko, Echternach and Nomm are still at large.
Oh wow. See, if they just did this instead of the whole SOPA/PIPA bills, then people would be happy. They have enough power to do this, yet they complain they don't have enough...
In this instance though, it sounds like the whole racketeering and money laundering angle is the reason the feds are involved. The copyright infringement part sounds like just a footnote in the whole thing, as it's only a 5 year stretch compared to those other potential 20 year sentences.
Basically, MegaUpload got a bunch of famous musicians to make a music video (called MEGA SONG) and put it up on the youtubes. Label Universal got it taken down, despite not having any right to do so, just because some of the artists are on their label. MegaUpload were going to take them to court about it, but I am not sure what happened after that.
Oh no, I really needed to go to the DoJ website! Thanks Anon for pointlessly misdirected vigilante justice, again. If you're going to pick a target, at least pick one that taxpayers won't have to foot the bill for like, oh, I don't know, UNIVERSAL? Because there's at least a slim chance of them pulling the strings of their government puppets.
I totally disagree with authorities power to arrest people in situations like this. Surely there is another way to resolve legal disputes, especially someone that has lawyers constantly working to keep their business within legal parameters. In virginia they had some sort of court hearing before making these arrests - were the defendants invited to object or requested to make comments? No.. element of cuntrape surprise, fuck them. So uncivil.
There is no point in attacking an organizations public information website, if they want to do some damage you have to attack business, financial institutions and popular sites. Attacking sites that essentially serve as a informative poster is like a suicide bomber blowing himself up in the desert, nobody else is affected.
I've always wondered how a company that openly charged for pirated material hadn't been taken down while the RIAA and MPAA had so much free time to chase after single mums and teenage kids for negligent copyright infringements and call them terrorists.
There is no point in attacking an organizations public information website, if they want to do some damage you have to attack business, financial institutions and popular sites. Attacking sites that essentially serve as a informative poster is like a suicide bomber blowing himself up in the desert, nobody else is affected.
Actually attacking a public info website is the best way to make a lot of noise quickly, by the fact that it's public and the hack can be verified and viewed by anyone (esp. the press) - adding to publicity. However your actual message can get lost in the noise. Then again many of these "hackers" are just kids and can't hold a coherent though for too long ...
“Police arrived in two marked police helicopters. Despite our staff clearly identifying themselves, Mr Dotcom retreated into the house and activated a number of electronic locking mechanisms,” Detective Inspector Grant Wormald told the court.
“While police neutralized these locks he then further barricaded himself into a safe room within the house which officers had to cut their way into,” Wormald added.
Anyone else worried that because of this retarded shit that services like dropbox might also get shitcanned and hosted/cloud storage goes down the shitter
I heard that nearly all of these filesharing sites are registered outside of the US and that megaupload wasn't so thats why they were able to raid them. Dunno if its true or not but yeah.
americans are fuckwits.. why is that a warning sign? what are they warning us of? shouldnt it be a notice not a warning - warnings are for crocodiles up in your swimming holes
Some very interesting analysis and commentary on the claims made against megaupload. Suggestion is that several of the things they are being pinged on had almost been considered 'best practice' based on previous court cases, things like not having a search function, which they are accused of, was recommended after other sites were hit for having a search function
And not including copyright violating material in the top 100 downloads also goes against them as a point for conspiracy, where including violating files was seen in another case as encouraging their infringement.
I don't understand why people buy huge houses like that. Such a waste of money plus it would take a shitload of time to keep it looking good. I could understand a normal sized house on a massive block of land but mansions with 10 bathrooms is just ridiculous.
I do, I'd have a room for TV/Movies
1 room for each child
1 room for ironing
1 room for computers
2 or 3 rooms for guests/parties
1 room for myself
1 room for my wife
1 room that I would keep pitch black 24x7, so you could sleep no matter the time
etc etc
plus when you're rich as fuck you dont spend any time keeping it looking good
you pay someone else to do it
I don't understand why people buy huge houses like that. Such a waste of money plus it would take a shitload of time to keep it looking good. I could understand a normal sized house on a massive block of land but mansions with 10 bathrooms is just ridiculous.
Spoken by someone who hasn't experienced the joy of owning a massive house :P
Security sites are reporting Anon is using a 'new' tactic to DDoS website (such as the FBI in this case):
In December of 2011, just weeks before the takedown, Digital Music News reported on something new that the creators of #Megaupload were about to unroll. Something that would rock the music industry to its core. ( http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2011/111221airvinyl )
I present to you... MegaBox. MegaBox was going to be an alternative music store that was entirely cloud-based and offered artists a better money-making opportunity than they would get with any record label.
"UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings," MegaUpload founder Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz told Torrentfreak
When you think about it, any artist who can makes half decent cash "busking" original music, they could/would make a killing from what MegaBox (if even true) were about to launch. When you can increase your exposure on that scale, you don't need to pay a middle man and his entire team to do the exposure for you.
if we are going to do this, I've got a couple of things I'v come across..
so megauploads is having a tiff with universal, who are 49% owned by GE and 51% owned by Comcast,
now the man running the show for comcast was also a board member for the bank of new york, during its transition to becoming bank of new york mellon, the "largest holders of assets in the world".
also, the main character running GE has a government position "Chairperson of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness", perhaps a conflict of interest for a weapons & energy conglomerate?
Banks in bed with the media, who are flirting with the government. Mega uploads has pissed of someone with very powerful friends. the question of justice is out the window now I guess, unless you find justice in the anonymous attacks.
Megaupload Seizure Order “Null and Void” Says High Court
In another astonishing development in the Megaupload saga, a judge in New Zealand’s High Court has declared the order used to seize Kim Dotcom’s assets as “null and void”. The blunder, which occurred because the police applied for the wrong type of court order, means that the Megaupload founder could have his property returned.
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