This is a little bit late to post, but I'm unsure if everyone is aware. On January 19th, Megaupload was seized by the FBI and the US Department of Justice with charges of Copyright Infringement, Racketeering, and Money Laundering. Also, to clarify, this has nothing to do with SOPA. It is an entirely different scenario, but this does show that the US Government will be cracking down on these type of sites regardless if SOPA or PIPA passes or not. The following image is displayed upon visiting the site: It is speculated that other similar sites like Rapidshare, Multiupload, and even Mediafire could receive similar takedowns within the coming months. More information: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-01-20/megaupload-arrests-FBI/52697186/1
well if its the FBI and the department of justice then you know they've been doing some bad stuff plus they laid down some serious charge's no wonder they took it down....... and arrested the owners of the site for allegedly operating as an organisation dedicated to copyright infringement.[5]
Thing is, alot of people lost their money because of this. Think of people who have just bought Megaupload premium. Also, megaupload lost alot of files that people had uploaded (like music) so people on YouTube could download them....
Knowing the FBI, they probably did this for good reason. I didn't have Megaupload Premium, thankfully. At least Mediafire n' crap is open. Now, inb4 "SOPA Isn't passed, but they took down Megaupload THIS IS INFRINGEMENT OF PRIVACY11!!!1"
The government is just proving they can take down a site if they want to, they don't need a bill saying they can. It might be related, but Songmeanings.net had all the lyrics pulled from the site this morning. They are back now, but is said "due to copyright infringement." Hopefully this won't start spreading around.
i.ll say this ... i whent my hole life not knowing about this site and this is the first time iv heard of it so i honestly cant bring myself to care about it being taken down for reasons that fall's within the law, iv survived without it and so can everyone else if not then that is there problem (that may be harsh but its truth none the-less)
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1996 allows Congress to do this. The US Government can't do anything unless a bill says they can. Nearly $500 million dollars was lost in revenue due to the amount of pirated content was downloaded from the site. I completely agree. I was aware of Megaupload's existence, but have never used it. I hope you realize however that the point of my thread wasn't to complain, but to inform. The DoJ and the FBI were definitely justified in this takedown.
im aware that your intent was to inform others, i am a man who puts Philosophy above religion and science bringing me to the understanding to learning of a deep understanding of the two both all forms of religion and cults and all forms of science thus i am a man who dose not judge weather one is innocent or not of anything, therefor i never call out anyone on anything unless it is said with blind arrogance
I suppose I just over analyzed your previous post. For some reason I thought that it was referring to me. Silly misunderstandings.
my motto: do not judge first without trying to understand i can understand that many people are upset thinking that even tho sopa was stopped my country is still going with it and i can also understand my country's need to lay down some law's on what they think is stealing its money, if anyone from my country hasn't noticed we are still close to a great depression (tho not as publicly said anymore) and still putting money into rebuilding the towers destroyed by the tragedy of 9-11 (which is allot so every dollar bill counts)
I know megauploads should be taken down because of the content they had. I was more worried about songmeanings having all the lyrics down. It may be unrelated, I have no clue. I just can't see why song lyrics are a bad thing.
Technically speaking, posting song lyrics violates copyright as the record label owns exclusive rights to not only the song, but all parts of it, including its lyrics. However I can not recall a case where someone was arrested for posting song lyrics, so I would say there is little chance here of getting in trouble. There are nearly 100's of sites that are exclusively created for song lyrics and have not received any takedowns excluding songmeanings.net although I wouldn't consider that as a 'takedown'. Also, piracy laws are rarely enforced against individual people. The government simply doesn't have the time or force to track every little downloader down, which is why they simply remove the site altogether. This is why media industries want SOPA to be passed, so that it expands into every possible location infringement can take place: YouTube, Facebook, Equestria Daily, any blog or site that users can comment on, etc.
I think Megaupload got shut down over something like Pirate Bay due to torrents being more difficult to deal with, but also the fact that Megaupload was now native to the US. I hear it's coming back, just more restricted, but like that's ever meant anything to the undernet.
