Megaupload

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Megaupload

Wonder who is next?

    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine

Megaupload

Filesonic springs to mind, plus eBookSpot. Too many new books OCR'd and online.

Let's Keep Our Cool About This

joannebarbarella's picture

Megaupload are accused of copyright piracy. I'm not saying they are guilty but if you were a published author relying on the royalties from your books how would you feel about somebody downloading them for free?

Joanne

megaload megaopload etc

If you notice, Mega >fill in the variant< is a hosting firm, wow they don't upload thins themselves. If your product (book, song etc) is hosted by them you can fill a complaint form so that they'll remove it. Just the same as with Youtube. But that means that every hosting server/site can be affect if they notice something a little late (think I remember Erin posting something like that 2).

Got about a dozen other places to visit. Wondering how they'll fix the international part of it. In the EU it's legal to copy as backup and if it's for a member of your family (dependin on the subject and it's been a very long while since I had copright classes so could have changed in the last few years) (family not defined).

mega...

Over here in Germany the main point in the news is that they are accused of paying others to upload copyrighted material like movies.

Martina

"Internet may be doomed"

Not if this case is anything to go by. The site had already been blocked in Hong Kong, India, Saudia Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia; so it wasn't just the US Government going after the site - and in this particular case also had the cooperation of authorities in Hong Kong and New Zealand.

Added onto which, the case rests on existing law - and not just the DMCA.

The indictment concluded that Megaupload differed from other online file storage businesses. It suggested a number of design points of its operating model as being evidence of criminal intent and venture:

  1. In practice, the "vast majority" of users do not have any significant long term private storage capability. Continued storage is dependent upon regular downloads of the file occurring. Files not downloaded are rapidly removed in most cases, whereas popular downloaded files are retained.
     
  2. Because a small proportion of users pay for storage, the business is dependent upon advertising. Adverts are primarily viewed when files are downloaded and the business model is therefore not based upon storage but upon maximising downloads.
     
  3. Persons indicted have "instructed individual users how to locate links to infringing content on the Mega Sites ... [and] ... have also shared with each other comments from Mega Site users demonstrating that they have used or are attempting to use the Mega Sites to get infringing copies of copyrighted content."
     
  4. Persons indicted, unlike the public, are not reliant upon links to stored files, but can search the internal database directly. It is claimed they have "searched the internal database for their associates and themselves so that they may directly access copyright-infringing content".
     
  5. A comprehensive takedown method is in use to identify child pornography, but not deployed to remove infringing content. (item 24)
     
  6. Infringing users did not have their accounts terminated, and the defendants "made no significant effort to identify users who were using the Mega Sites or services to infringe copyrights, to prevent the uploading of infringing copies of copyrighted materials, or to identify infringing copies of copyrighted works" (item 55–56)
     
  7. An incentivising program was adopted encouraging the upload of "popular" files in return for payments to successful uploaders. (item 69e et al)
     
  8. Defendants explicitly discussed evasion and infringement issues (69i-l)
Source: Wikipedia

Note also that similar services such as RapidShare and MediaFire haven't been targeted, and RapidShare has convinced a German court that only a minority of the files it hosts are illegal, and that it swiftly complies with takedown requests.


As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!

A tentative sigh of relief...

Andrea Lena's picture

...what's been set aside can always be picked up once again, but SOPA and his annoying but dangerous twin PIPA have been put on the back burner of the extremely messy stove we call Congress:

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/74238.htm and from the article:

Anyway, it's all very democratic and grass-rootsy to see so many websites fly the banner, distribute information, and angle for widespread public opposition to bills most people probably weren't aware were even being considered a few days prior. And if Wednesday's action does prove to be a main factor in SOPA's and PIPA's unraveling, it'll show that a great big protest still can make a difference in the passage of legislation.

Let's just hope that if and when any legislation comes back, it is presented solely to deal with illegal downloading and piracy and is much more narrow in scope and limited in power, aye?

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena