Sopa/pipa

[scandyflick]

So no doubt some of you would have noticed Wikipedia, Google, reddit, and some 75,000 other websites went dark on the 18th in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act, and the Protect IP Act that were meant to come before the House of Representatives, and the Senate in the US.

Some may well be thinking, 'well okay... something American, what's it got to do with me?'

Well... In short. A whole lot. We last heard of something like this back in 2008*... That didn't go down too well, but back then, even America was against censorship on the internet.

To save all the hugely ambiguous jargon, watch this.

As it stands, unless you have friends or family in the US that can have a chat with their local candidates on this issue there's unfortunately not a whole lot we can do. If it passes however, it sets and extremely dangerous precedent. Without the free circulation of information, we really are at the mercy of our governments. For those thinking it'll never happen here, well, they've already tried once, and with the backing of the 'leader of the free world', it may well be different the next time they try.

* the Australian attempt was to be fair, it's own monster. But at the end of the day, censorship is censorship.

[illmatic]

I cant think how it will actually be achievable in the first place, people will be work out how to circumvent any filtering that goes on pretty damn quickly. Seems like a massive waste of time and dollars

[scandyflick]

The blocks will be easy for most people to get around. America already has systems in place to help people in cohbtries already experiencing media censorship.

But that really isn't the point.

[heslo]

The US government has now taken down Megaupload and secured warrants for those involved in the site, including it's founder/operator who lived in New Zealand. To me this is a dog act and just shows to me who really is behind this, not the US government but those who fund it like the MPAA and RIAA. In a return act of aggression Anonymous have taken down the US Department of Justice, FBI, Universal Music, RIAA, and MPAA sites

[Damo_R34]

long live anon! although im not sure how safe it is to say that on the internet at the moment...

Mind you, how do you get sued for owning megaupload? It is basically just a fileshare, the content is all user uploaded, it isnt like the owners of the site are taking their handycams into cinemas then uploading the files themselves!

[heslo]

Apparently they think that the owner was paying people to upload illegal content

[scandyflick]

And even if that claim is completely false (which it is), it doesn't matter, with the amount of weight being thrown behind the charges before the MU people have a chance to state their case, they're already cooked.

[jrm]

Taking MegaUpload down was pretty legit in my opinion - and it also goes to prove why SOPA/PIPA are totally unnecessary - the government already has provisions to take these sites down.

Here's a rundown from reddit.com:

I mean, I've now spent some time reading the indictment, and if we take the Grand Jury (which would include probable cause and due process) and FBI at good faith for the time being, it seems to me like the members of the "mega conspiracy" have done nothing but be criminally stupid, while earning tons of money on intentionally and willfully infringing on copyrights.

There is more info in the indictment backing up each of these, but you can read for yourselves. Let's take just a few of the statements:

They used MegaUpload as a place to get their own pirated material. Here's one statement of at least tenfolds through the indictment:

> Conspirators have searched the internal database for their associates and themselves so that they may directly access copyright-infringing content on servers leased by the Mega Conspiracy.

They didn't really delete files when they got DMCA and abuse requests:

> 23. [...] During the course of the Conspiracy, the Mega Conspiracy has received many millions of requests (through the Abuse Tool and otherwise) to remove infringing copies of copyrighted works and yet the Conspiracy has, at best, only deleted the particular URL of which the copyright holder complained, and purposefully left the actual infringing copy of the copyrighted work on the Mega Conspiracy-controlled server and any other access links completely intact.

They themselves used it, rather stupidly, to spread infringing material (lots of emails and such through the text):

> Members of the Mega Conspiracy are aware of the way that their sites are actually used by others; have themselves used the systems to upload, as well as reproduce and distribute, infringing copies of copyrighted content; and are aware that they have financially benefitted directly from the infringement of copyrighted works that they are in a position to control.

They did not meet the demands for DMCA safe harbor provisions:

> Internet providers gain a safe harbor under the DMCA from civil copyright infringement suits in the United States if they meet certain criteria. The members of Mega Conspiracy do not meet these criteria because they are willfully infringing copyrights themselves on these systems; have actual knowledge that the materials on their systems are infringing (or alternatively know facts or circumstances that would make infringing material apparent); receive a financial benefit directly attributable to copyright-infringing activity where the provider can control that activity; and have not removed, or disabled access to, known copyright infringing material from servers they control.

They had a register of MD5 hashes of the files and could use them to take down exact copies of what they took down through DMCA or abuse notices, but didn't:

> In addition to copyrighted files, other types of illicit content have been uploaded onto the Megaupload.com servers, including child pornography and terrorism propaganda videos. Members of the Conspiracy have indicated to each other that they can automatically identify and delete such materials on all of their servers by calculating MD5 hash values of known child pornography or other illicit content, searching the system for these values, and eliminating them; in fact, such files with matching hash values have been deleted from the Mega Conspiracy’s servers. Members of the Mega Conspiracy have failed to implement a similar program to actually delete or terminate access to copyright infringing content.

A very serious one: They downloaded quite a lot of YouTube videos, attempting to have a 1:1 copy of YouTube obviously infringing copyright, to bootstrap their MegaVideo service. Here's from page 30 of the indictment:

> h. In approximately April 2006, members of the Mega Conspiracy copied videos directly from Youtube.com to make them available on Megavideo.com.

> i. On or about April 10, 2006, VAN DER KOLK sent an e-mail to ORTMANN asking “Do we have a server available to continue downloading of the Youtube’s vids? … Kim just mentioned again that this has really priority.”

> j. On or about April 10, 2006, VAN DER KOLK sent an e-mail to ORTMANN indicating “Hope [Youtube.com is] not implementing a fraud detection system now… * praying *”

They knowingly rewarded users who uploaded infringing content:

> r. On or about February 5, 2007, VAN DER KOLK sent an e-mail to ORTMANN entitled “reward payments”. Attached to the e-mail was a text file listing the following proposed reward amounts, the Megaupload.com username, and the content they uploaded:

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] 5845 files in his account, mainly Vietnamese content

100 USD [uSERNAME DELETED] Popular DVD rips

100 USD [uSERNAME DELETED] Some older DVD rips + unknown (Italian serries?) rar files

1500 USD [uSERNAME DELETED] known paid user (vietnamese content)

To me, again taking the indictment at good faith, it seems like these guys are pretty much screwed. Not only did they run a file uploading service which can be perfectly legal, but they intentionally did not take the appropriate steps to take down infringing material, and they used it themselves for infringing activities and earned lots of money from it.

They have over 50 different bank accounts, a bunch of nice cars, and so on, which have now been seized as part of the proceeds from the operation. I was hoping for some more juice on the racketeering and money laundering charges, but it's basically just using the money from infringement to buy nice things. No tax evasion and such as far as I can see.

I'm all for copyright reform and I find the current regime lacking, but the law is the law. And most reformists, including myself and actual political entities like the Pirate Party of Sweden, believe there should be copyright protections, albeit limited, on commercial activity.

To me, this action seems pretty damn solid. I'd like to hear why I'm wrong.

Edit: Oh, one more thing – this is a Grand Jury indictment which the FBI acts on behalf of, so it's been through due process.

Seems pretty solid to me - the owners of the site did majorly wrong.