January 20, 201213 yr SOPA is DEAD.... http://mashable.com/2012/01/20/sopa-is-dea...ith-pulls-bill/ .....for now.. Wonder if we'll get back MegaUpload/MegaVideo.. Edited January 20, 201213 yr by Oricon
January 20, 201213 yr Author SOPA is DEAD.... http://mashable.com/2012/01/20/sopa-is-dea...ith-pulls-bill/ .....for now.. Wonder if we'll get back MegaUpload/MegaVideo.. Indeed, the bast*rds will likely try and get it through the backdoor... Probably, as someone else suggested, by making it an Anti-Child Porn thing.... -_-
January 20, 201213 yr Author Oh thank FUCK for that! Still got PIPA though.... Hope that follows suit. I was under the impression that PIPA went first.... :huh:
January 20, 201213 yr I was under the impression that PIPA went first.... :huh: Yeah, you're right it has! Fingers crossed this is all we here of this whole debacle, I expect it will rear it's ugly head at some point though...
January 20, 201213 yr Hmm.... citzRjwk-sQ Maybe I'm late to the party on ACTA....but it seems dangerously similar to SOPA and it's European. Edited January 20, 201213 yr by Sabrewulf
January 20, 201213 yr Well none of it really matters anyway. Look: It's probably because the country has so many hackers and tech geeks that people are constantly finding innovative ways of downloading music without paying. I don't think music consumption's changed, just that America's been cursed by its own intelligence. As long as we have those oh so intelligent American hackers we'll all be FINE! Why even bother with crappy traditional sites like MegaUpload when you can use NEW, INNOVATIVE methods of downloading your illegal warez. "ACTA" is news to me.
January 20, 201213 yr Is there any chance of a MegaUpload return? I mainly use MediaFire but I've been using MegaVideo increasingly often lately.
January 20, 201213 yr Is there any chance of a MegaUpload return? I mainly use MediaFire but I've been using MegaVideo increasingly often lately. Not likely with the US Government holding the sites owners in prison. This ACTA looks pretty nasty too. Lawmakers need to understand that the public does not want any anti-illegal downloading legislation. Only the entertainment industry does and the elected government in theory answers to US not to them.
January 20, 201213 yr MegaUpload/MegaVideo won't come back second thoughts.. In less than 24 hours, Megaupload has gone from the world's largest broadcaster of pirated material to the most interesting criminal case in US digital law. Megaupload's seizure came just a few hours after the news broke that its CEO was Swizz f***ing Beatz, leaving the world's head spinning as it struggles to figure out how the guy who left his lady for Alicia Keys and produced this DMX song was at the head of a piracy ring. Almost immediately after Megaupload was shut down, Anonymous responded by crashing the websites of the FBI, MPAA, RIAA and Universal Music Group. A lot of people in "the media" have been talking about the case today, but no one seems to have taken the time to read through the leaked 72-page US government document regarding the indictment. What with Megaupload down, we had nothing better to do so we read the whole thing cover to cover. Here are the juicy details: - The indictment points to "popular linking" sites that help drive traffic to Megaupload. They name Ninjavideo, but Icefilms is never mentioned. How old is this thing? - Elite employees at Megaupload had access to an unadulterated search engine of Megaupload's contents. That is f***ing awesome. - Once Google realized what Megaupload was up to, they pulled all of their Adsense ads. Megaupload responded by developing their own advertising network called Megaclick. - The DMCA compliant tool Megaupload had installed to help major US institutions pull copyrighted files from Mega servers was, of course, flawed. If a user uploaded something like, say, The Hangover, Megaupload would search its servers for a matching file. It would delete the link submitted despite knowing about tens or hundreds or even thousands of other links to the same file. Basically it was a super clever f*** you to the copyright holder. - The US government is clinging to evidence that Megaupload's owner, Kim Dotcom, shared the song "Nah" by 50 Cent featuring Mobb Deep in 2006. Seriously. This is one of their major claims. "On or about December 3, 2006, KIM DOTCOM distributed a Megaupload.com link to a music file entitled “05-50_cent_feat._mobb_deep-nah-c4.mp3." He is also accused of having a really f***ing stupid name. - Kim is a resident of Hong Kong and New Zealand. He is also a citizen of Finland and Germany. - According to the US government, Kim made $42 million off of Megaupload in 2010. - Megaupload has servers in Virginia, DC, California, and Toronto. - $110 million has flowed through Mega's Paypal account since 2006. - Megaupload sought to download and re-upload all of YouTube's content onto its own site, Megavideo, to mask the pirated content that lurked beneath its front page. - "Mega Conspiracy has paid more than $65 million to hosting providers around the world for computer leasing, hosting, bandwidth… Mega Conspiracy affirmatively chose to financially reward specific uploaders of infringing copies of copyrighted content." - Private emails between Megaupload employees make it very clear that they were were running an illegal operation but didn't really care. In one exchange, an employee wrote, “We have a funny business... modern days pirates :)” to which another responded, “We’re not pirates, we’re just providing shipping services to pirates :)” - Thanks to their rewards program for loyal uploaders, they paid out 55k to a user who had 5,845 files of Vietnamese content, at least 10 DVD rips, some porn, and (what looked like) an Italian TV series. - Megaupload was paying Carpathia, their Virginia-based hosting company, between $700,000 and $1 million per month from a bank account in Hong Kong. - Cogent Communications, an Atlanta-based ISP, was making a steady $1 million per month from May 2009 until February 2011. - Megaupload spent $2.4 million on yacht rentals in June 2011 alone. - The US government is after $175 million in assets, including 59 different bank accounts. Many of them Chinese. Two are from Citibank. - The US is looking for at least 14 Benzes, a Predator statue, two 108 inch TVs, a Seadoo, a 1957 Cadillac, a Maserati, and a Mini Cooper. -Kim owned a Rolls Royce Phantom with a license plate that read "GOD." Some of the tags on his other cars included: GUILTY, STONED, GOOD, CEO, MAFIA, and HACKER. Ultimately, what we can learn from this whole Megupload fiasco is that, yes, Mega was completely aware they were running a criminal operation. They made a gigantic amount of money and it will certainly go down as one of the most insane digital operations ever. Unfortunately, its timing around the SOPA controversy will probably function as a severe detriment to the freedom of the internet, but only time will tell. For now we can only marvel at the legacy of a man who built a multi-million dollar fortune off of DVD rips. UPDATE: The Fader is now reporting Swizz Beatz was not Megaupload's CEO, and was "never involved in any meaningful way." http://www.vice.com/read/we-read-the-megau...don-t-have-to-1
January 26, 201213 yr There's an irish version of SOPA coming around now. A minister by the name of Sean Sherlock is behind it: http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/reader-irelands-sopa-a-faq/ There's a petition set up to stop it too: http://stopsopaireland.com/
January 26, 201213 yr Since I live in Northern Ireland, it does concern me some bit as its in the same piece of land. Who knows if the UK will be next.. Edited January 26, 201213 yr by Oricon
January 26, 201213 yr There's an irish version of SOPA coming around now. A minister by the name of Sean Sherlock is behind it: http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/reader-irelands-sopa-a-faq/ There's a petition set up to stop it too: http://stopsopaireland.com/ Which of course could be bad news for our music bloggers like Nialler9, who could be forced to shut down if it passes.
January 27, 201213 yr It would basically spell the end of the Irish internet. We'd quite easily be cut off from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr etc etc. It'd be a disaster for our I.T sector too and we can't really afford to be sacrificing sections of our economy to please a few music industry blacksuits right now.
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