Megaupload - Shutdown...

[Macman]

Seen this - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16642369

What I'm curious about is...

If we know we will never be able to eradicate Crime itself; however, we can lower it but never get rid of it.

So sites similiar to Megaupload or Torrent p2p etc... Just how much are the government(s)/agencies going to spend enforcing the appropiate laws, chase down witnesses, court cases etc etc.

I'm not saying the government SHOULDN'T be enforcing Anti-Piracy laws; but at any point is this going to get out of hand?

It seems to be; Government(s)/Agencies act on intel and attempt to prosecute and shut down the offending site. Then these anomonous hacker groups start going on a random spree targeting specific sites.

It jsut seems to be a never ending cycle but on the increase.

Just something I've thought about, what are your views on this?

[Hoonigan]

If they give up on fighting crime, then we've lost. Crime always needs to be fought!

Then these anonymous hacker groups start going on a random spree targeting specific sites.

Wut?

[roachcoach]

I'll be watching that one with great interest indeed. They're damning allegations, but can they be proven? If the allegations are true, these guys are ****ed. If they're not, I can only imagine the counter-suit.

A strange site to target since it was endorsed by a number of artists.

(The other thing that's fishy is the CEO has oddly been left alone. Because he's in bed with the industry perhaps?)


Edit: The international nature of it does question the supposed 'need' for SOPA.

[streetster]

The part that I don't understand is: How is [insert file upload website here] any different to [insert video upload website here]...

Ie MegaUpload vs. YouTube.

Users will upload legal and illegal files to both, in volumes far too high to be checked by hand, both have reporting facilities to have content removed from the website.

I know that Rapidshare will also check (presumably MD5) hashes of files such that if a previously reported file is attempted to be re-uploaded it is automatically blocked again -- I wouldnt've though the same is true for somewhere like YouTube where it's a video and the encoding will mean a completely different set of bits and bytes.

If MegaUpload falls, then presumably Rapidshare, HotFile and the like will go the same way... what's to stop all cloud-based storage sites getting closed down too.

Or is crux of the issue that people will pay a subscription fee to these sites to be able to download more?

[roachcoach]

This explains it better than I can


http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...megaupload.ars


Like I say, if the allegations are true they're toast.


Edit: As I understand it, rapidshare has spent so long in court they're practically on first name terms with the staff there - they've won (sometimes on appeal) EVERY TIME so far.

[Larkspeed]

I know they claim this was planned two weeks ago but I just see this as a desperate retaliatory strike by the US to try and reinforce the need for SOPA and PIPA after it lost so much support in the Senate.

Shutting these sites down does nothing, all the copyrighted files that were available on Megaupload would have been available in 500 other locations around the net, the only files that may suffer were the actual legitimate files that were shared there and only there.

What are they going to do next? try and shut down Google since you can find copyrighted material using Google?

Someone came up with a valid point.

You download a pirated DVD and watch it on your DVD player. Are they going to ban DVD players because they allow you to watch pirated material?

Hell why not just ban computers all together since they are the tools used to share and download this copyrighted material.

I'm sorry the more they shut down sites and try and control the internet the more they are just going to piss off the population at large.

And lets face this is all about the US wanting to police the entire world anyway.

And as I read somewhere else Hollywood, the main driving force behind all this, was founded by stealing other peoples ideas and circumventing copyright to start with

[cptwhite_uk]

Absolutely futile. Piracy is fluid, law is not = Piracy > Law

I've said it many times now, the entertainment industry needs a complete overhaul - distribution methods, payment methods. From the ground up. Piracy is not only more flexible, more orgnaised and easier to obtain content from, it's also often better quality than legal alternatives.

The legal options fail is every aspect and they want us to pay for a worse service?!

Develop a system people want to use and they will pay you - Steam did it for games, it's not impossible....

[Hoonigan]

If Spotify could've managed to remain as they were when they first kicked off, I'd still be using it now, that was an absolutely brilliant program until they imposed shed-loads of limits to it

The companies need to adapt, quickly, and provide a very good service, that's worth paying for.

[Krakkenbus]

Why did they just shut down megaupload, it's only one small fish in a massive ocean, other sites such as rapidshare, fileserve etc etc. Do exactly the same thing as megaupload..

EDIT:
Apparently they thought it was the most popular, i should really have read the whole article.

[Larkspeed]

Why did they just shut down megaupload, it's only one small fish in a massive ocean, other sites such as rapidshare, fileserve etc etc. Do exactly the same thing as megaupload..

yes but Megaupload was the biggest that's why they hit them first

[streetster]

Why did they just shut down megaupload, it's only one small fish in a massive ocean, other sites such as rapidshare, fileserve etc etc. Do exactly the same thing as megaupload..

Reading the Ars Technica page suggests that one of the main reasons is that, allegedly, the MU employees were fully aware of the fact that the majority of the content was pirated, had an internal search engine to facilitate the searching of content and downloaded/uploaded copyright content themselves...

Whoops.

[SeriousSam]

What I find most amusing about all of this is the fact that Companies / Government seem to have forgotten one VERY important fact...

Everything is run by computers these days and the people that know the most about these things are nerds*. Now nerds "live" on the internet, so messing with that is likley to make them angry. Then as it only takes a few of them to cause havoc globally this legislation is pretty much like poking a hornets nest and expecting not to get stung...

*Before anyone starts jumping up and down about derogatory terms, I am one and proud to be one

And remember