Read more.Pirate Parties worldwide rise to the occasion to gather information for a case.
Read more.Pirate Parties worldwide rise to the occasion to gather information for a case.
Gimme back my porn and warez !
Just sign here that you own that account.
OK, here's your fine and jail term
Really? Seriously?Making our stance clear, we understand that much illegal activity was conducted on the MegaUpload site and that action needed to be taken, however when we consider that students may have lost coursework, with firm communications potentially disrupted and personal material lost, we do feel that the FBI's approach to dealing with the matter was irresponsible and overplayed.
A few students "may" have lost coursework, assuming of course that their primary version was killed after Mega was taken down and before they had a chance to back up anywhere else, and assuming they were idiot enough to have their only backup in a location they had no control over, then the FBI are somehow at fault in taking down an operation so overtly dominated by criminal activity?
Maybe those few students ought to grow some brains and keep more than one copy, such as on a DVDR or a pendrive, too, rather than being naive enough to rely on a single online backup. After all, a pendrive, or even a plug-in USB hard drive aren't exactly bank-bustingly expensive, and a simply sync utility will keep such backups up-to-date.
If their "work" is important enough to matter, they need to take responsibility for keeping it safe, and if it isn't, what the bleep are the suing the FBI for?
watercooled (28-01-2012)
im prety much agreed with Saracen however not having megaupload peeved me off as there were countless XDA roms on there lol, felt lost for almost a week however they're now elsewhere so im not fussed.
Maybe it could have been handled differently but if it was then it probably wouldnt have worked, megaupload regardless had a significant amount of pirated content. People say that its impossible to manage the pirate content and to stop it getting on these websites, bull i say! Im not being funny but these sites are raking in a ton of money and to just hire ONE person to work normal hours to simply type on google... Film X, Game X, TV show X, would find them effortlessly and remove them instantly.
Yes its impossible to get it 100% clean but to get it to a reasonable level doesn't take much at all, so yes they're totally right to take the prats down, same as the piratebay owners etc. The only issue i have is that there were like 1% legitimate users and hopefully somethings been worked out (or have correctly claimed) for their refund etc, apart from that i have no sympathy for the owners as they're criminals in their own lives let alone organising a pirating sharing site
I doubt anything will come from this, theres bound to be a clause in some sort of "Anti-terrorist" law in the US that will cover the FBI's arse and no doubt the MPAA or whoever will throw money into the whole tihng to make sure that nothing is paid out to users.
I say may, I'm just being subtle and citing examples, again on average the chance that some did is almost certain. The main issue is that perhaps some did take extra measures and may have used a dual service, but many services have been unexpectedly (yet expectedly) affected by what has gone on. It's not just a fact of file loss, unavailability or delay can have serious repercussions as well. However this is just an example, which I cited because we often place little value on students and what impact our actions can have on their futures, we could say short sightedness is their fault, but then they are students (that means still learning) and it doesn't change the fact that their data was taken by a group of people who should know better and are well aware of the harm they may be causing.
To cite an extreme example, I wouldn't blame my neighbours death on them failing to install a blast wall because they chose to move into a neighbourhood with unsightly characters where the authorities felt a bomb would be the most effective means of dealing with the matter. The responsible action would have been to fully scope the situation and enforce the law without impacting innocent bystanders. Extreme, yes, but the extremity shouldn't affect the morality of the matter.
What if MegaUpload did offer a guarantee of data safety? I somehow expect the result would have been the same only users would more so, not have been able to make an informed decision when it came to protecting their data. I'm sorry but I don't think even one person should be 'robbed' for the sake of protecting another from the potential of reduced profit, which when you take away property and services, virtual or not, is the effect of such actions. The FBI could have seized control, closed off hotlinks or new account registrations and allowed for data recovery or private downloads, with a view to new management in the future by selling the firm off were the owners convicted or to reimburse users where possible. They haven't even announced their plans to allow for informed user actions post closure. I don't even feel comfortable commenting too much on the level of piracy until a court hearing, as at this point the only figures up for offer have been formed by the prosecution.
Aside form piracy, which undoubtedly was its main use (no signups needed..)
If you wanted to store say 5GB of data, and frequently copy that between tens of users across the country - it was a good (free) service for that I suppose.
Agreed that they've should've backed up, but based on what little I know, I fully back suing the FBI.
Put in the material world, imagine that you, or one of your friends had a self-storage unit somewhere with a load of valuable items in it. Possibly family heirlooms or personal collections, not necessarily something with a direct cash alternative.
The police determine that a vast majority of these self-storage units are being used to hold stolen goods, so they smash open all the doors, remove all the items and incinerate them. When you ask "what happened to my items", you're told that there was a lot of illegal material in the warehouse, so they thought the best option was to burn it all to make sure they got the whole lot. Would anybody accept that? So why do we accept it in a virtual context?
I completely agree with SnootyJim here, as much as SOME of the traffic was piracy, SOME was legit. The idea of taking a sledgehammer to break an egg just proves the complete lack of grasp these US agencies have, or the complete lack of care they give
Wow (shadowsong): Arthran, Arthra, Arthrun, Amyle (I know, I'm inventive with names)
This is the death-rattle-desperate action of the Hollywood cartel, with their ancient and failing business model to stop themselves falling. I for one want to watch them burn. I know a lot of people here aren't going to like this - but I've spent a long time now studying patent/copyright law and it's effects on society (hint: incredibly negative)- and I don't care about piracy anymore. And this is from someone who has had his music torrented, file-lockered etc in the past to a decent amount of folk. It's what spurred me on to find out about this stuff! Screw Hollywood and their paid-for American agency chums.
am i old fashioned in thinking that a backup meant a copy of something? a spare copy in case something happened to the original? thus if something happened to the original, you would then turn to the backup?
thus if something happened to the backup, you would still have the original?
thus with these online backups disappearing the only people who could potentially lose anything would be those who lost the original file and had the only backup copy on that site and didn't pay attention to any warnings from the site to not use it as the only backup and made no other backups anywhere else or had any hard copies such as print outs?
Some would, however majority of people dont have 'groups' of pirates so renaming it wouldnt exactly get much exposure!. No, in america there is nothing illegal about having dvd backups (england there still is..) but thats different, if you are uploading your own backup then you wont be sharing that link so basically no one can google it and download it.
Thats the difference between hosting for private use and public use...
This really pisses me off, i actually back everything up, i keep all my college work on the College PC's, Dropbox and copy everything to my flash drive every day.
Yet if a student loses all his work from a dead flash drive for whatever, THEY GET GIVEN EXTRA TIME.
So there is no point backing anything up really, as there is no real loss.
agreed format, my university doesnt do this... if you forget it or unable to hand in for whatever reason you get 0.
Unless ofc its a medical reason then you fill out a form etc. Im going to guess here and Pancake you go to a College, i.e not a university?
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