Megaupload.com Slain, Founders Charged With Piracy

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/technology/indictment-charges-megaupload-site-with-piracy.html?_r=2

Also

http://rt.com/usa/news/anonymous-doj-universal-sopa-235/

Looks like war of the internet has begun.

 

Anonymous is going to lose this fight in the long run, I suspect.

 

Megaupload sucks

 

I hope they don't charge anyone who's ever uploaded a file to megaupload with piracy as well.

 

They're primarily foot soldiers who just make a lot of noise and cause minor annoyances. I would think there are some heavy hitters out there (not associated with Anonymous) who would step to the plate and start doing serious damage if they cared to do so.

And EStreet, that's always a possibility. If IP records were in tact at the time of seizure, they could go after uploaders later on.

 

They did with Napster but now in broad spectrum, seemed like they cherry picked the odd case more than anything.

 

Did Alicia Keys practice her signature before getting married?

"Mrs. Alicia Beatz. Ms. Alicia Keys-Beatz. Mr. and Mrs. Swizz Beatz."

 

Keep the torrents on the down-low and we're cool.

 

Slain?

 

So people would rather pay this douche than pay the rightful copywriter holders, who produced the artworks that people watch? I don't get it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/21/kim-dotcom-megaupload-arrest_n_1220491.html

 

TigerVols: I've been trying to get digital content from games to movies legally since my first computer 30 years ago – and probably spent more on it than my house. But I live in Europe these days and a lot of companies are doing everything possible to keep me from buying stuff legally anymore.

Amazon and major other major folks deny music purchases, none of the legal TV/movie streams like Netflix are available, I can't get anyone to ship Wii games here (apparently thinking I have a European machine that won't play them) and so on.

One positive: NFL offered online Gamepass subscriptions starting a few years ago when they weren't available in the U.S. (I don't know if that's still the case).

Megaupload was a major site and is getting a lot of headlines, but there are a LOT of similar ports out there and the history of piracy suggests they're always going to be there, short of a North Korea-like firewall. I remember similar headlines when they shut down allofmp3.com years ago and things barely paused a beat.

Obviously there's an enormous piracy problem (although the industry is continuing the long delusion of counting every download as a lost sale in its estimate of damages). But history also shows everything from copy-protected discs to these site showdowns mostly screw honest people (or mostly so) while doing little to stop the pirates who make money at this sort of thing.

That said, I'll concede the Megaupload founder isn't exactly the most sympathetic character. Amazed that many people paid for access rather than tolerate a few delays and pop-up ads.