FBI charges Megaupload operators with piracy crimes

[bubusam13]

The FBI has busted the alleged operators of Internet locker service Megaupload, which had become one of the most popular video destinations on the Web, according to a statement from the U.S. Justice Department.

Seven people have been named in an indictment and four suspects have been taken into custody, according to a statement issued by the Justice Department. They have been charged in Virginia with crimes related to online piracy, including racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, and conspiring to commit money laundering.

According to the Justice Department, the indictment alleges that Megaupload is led by Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz, a German with a colorful history who was once convicted of a felony but he has repeatedly denied engaging in piracy.

DotCom and three others were arrested in Auckland, New Zealand by New Zealand police, who "who executed provisional arrest warrants requested by the United States," the Justice Department.

Along with Dotcom, Kim Tim Jim Vestor, 37, a resident of Hong Kong and New Zealand was also arrested. Authorities say that Dotcom founded Megaupload and is the director and sole shareholder of Vestor Limited, which has been used to hold his ownership interests in the Mega-affiliated sites.

"This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States," the Justice department said in a statement. The arrests "directly targets the misuse of a public content storage and distribution site to commit and facilitate intellectual property crime."

In August, CNET profiled DotCom after he was sued by a porn studio for copyright violations and after film industry sources told me that Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) had complained to law enforcement officials numerous times that Megaupload was getting rich by helping millions of people store and distribute pirated films and TV shows.

Link

[Faun]

And suddenly piracy news are on a fling.

[thetechfreak]

Oh well..

[Arsenal_Gunners]

Megaporn is dead too.Not that I ever visited it or anything...

[Faun]

Originally Posted by Arsenal_Gunners

Megaporn is dead too.Not that I ever visited it or anything...

Sure, you did.

[d6bmg]

They are goners.

[bubusam13]

New Zealand police arrested Megaupload founder.
Megaupload Shut Down
The real question is are these sites not ready for something like this. They should have some reasonable excuse to put in court to keep their business running.

[Liverpool_fan]

Stay on topic, people. No "Support" piracy crap.

SOPA thread is this - SOPA - the Death of internet as we Know!

[bubusam13]

The main point of piracy is cost. If the softwares, audio, videos are available cheap, no body will indulge in piracy. And truly speaking it feels nice when you buy something original.

In Assam, in order to stop piracy, video and music discs are priced between Rs 25 to Rs 50. So you will get very little Assamese videos online or pirated discs in the market because people buy original discs.

And mostly illigal downloads are made by people who cannot pay for it. So the companies are not loosing much money. Such people will not by because they can't afford to buy.

[Liverpool_fan]

As Gabe Newell said to stop piracy a better service has to be provided to the customers than what pirates can offer. Have to say Steam does well there.

Regarding Megaupload, there's no escape if the allegation about the e-mails are true. Though I cannot rule out the mafIAA digging up e-mails from just random employees and using it in the worst possible manner.

[Stuge]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/te...racy.html?_r=1

[Anorion]

OpMegaupload
#OpMegaupload - Pastebin.com
Elephants dont disturb hornet nests.

no price is not really the problem, in fact, if the movie is selling for 2000 rupees, more people may buy it than if it is selling for 700 rs, and ofc, there will be those selling movies for 50 rs and 0 rs as well
the prolem is its a fight between screens - TV and PC, if the ISP could charge your bank balance for the month for all your content needs, then the theatres, and DTH and cable companies have no eyeballs to sell the advertisers

this transition is late, could have happened at least 10 years ago, or even 20-50 years ago they could have maintained one line for phone and television instead of two

digital delivery offers some exciting options, and its inevitable that things will head that way, meanwhile those affected immediately by the transition will fight for things to say the same

yeah Steam does well here, so does the iStore, but they deal with software, for music and movies computers are very disruptive to the industry

[bubusam13]

I agree to you but price is surely a problem. Who can buy a Rs 2000 movie ? Those who can pay for it. Right? What about others ? I am not supporting piracy but suggesting a way to tackle it.
There are guys who connect their mobile phones to their PCs the whole night so that they can download stuff using GPRS. Why they do so? GPRS cost Rs 98 for 2GB. Isn't that piracy ? Do you expect them to buy a RS 2000 worth movie ?

[Liverpool_fan]

Originally Posted by Anorion

yeah Steam does well here, so does the iStore, but they deal with software, for music and movies computers are very disruptive to the industry

That is not true really to be fair. Whatever damage is caused is simply because the big labels are like dinosaurs who are simply not accepting new technology and innovating to keep up with the technology and only smash DRM on the faces of the customer and even further damaging their quality of service. Whatever innovations have been there in that industry with respect to internet has profited them immensely - iTunes, Spotify, Netflix, etc.

Originally Posted by bubusam13

I agree to you but price is surely a problem. Who can buy a Rs 2000 movie ? Those who can pay for it. Right? What about others ? I am not supporting piracy but suggesting a way to tackle it.
There are guys who connect their mobile phones to their PCs the whole night so that they can download stuff using GPRS. Why they do so? GPRS cost Rs 98 for 2GB. Isn't that piracy ? Do you expect them to buy a RS 2000 worth movie ?

As Gabe Newell said, bring a good service. Unlimited fast and cheap internet, music and music streaming from cloud at say Rs.5-10 per track (Indian) and Rs.50-100 per movie will get plenty of customers in India. Yes there would be plenty of pirates but at least legitimate users will get proper service as they deserve. Not a worse service which they often get with idiotic DRM.

[noob]

Whats next? Amazon S3? Dropbox ?

[krishnandu.sarkar]

Check this Anonymous Goes on Megaupload Revenge Spree: DoJ, RIAA, MPAA, and Universal Music All Offline

[Sam]

Originally Posted by bubusam13

The main point of piracy is cost

Humble Indie Bundle & Android apps. both these cost a few dollars. but still almost half of the download comes illegally.

[Anorion]

cost is not the point, its the ease of the distribution channel. if payment and delivery are easier than piracy, then it wont get pirated. price will tend to reach the lowest possible levels.

[bubusam13]

A few dollars make a sense in India since 1$ = about Rs 50
In those days of black and white phones, didn't people downloaded picture messages for Rs 5 and Ringtones for Rs 15.

Just as I said above about GPRS cost. Pay for the app and also internet on phone and plus broadband on PC. And again most people does not have internet on their phone and android market needs internet on your phone. So they download from other websites where its mostly cracked version.

And secondly most people using android handsets doesn't know what the android market app in their phone is for even they have internet in their phones.

I think the discussion is leading in a different direction till it become a debate between us.

As posted by Liverpool_fan

As Gabe Newell said, bring a good service. Unlimited fast and cheap internet, music and music streaming from cloud at say Rs.5-10 per track (Indian) and Rs.50-100 per movie will get plenty of customers in India.

[bubusam13]

And yes I agree, proper distribution also matters. Why would people use songs , pk if the CD is available at a store near you at a low price. CD sounds great than MP3s

And as said by bubusam13

You cannot stop a thief from stealing but you can definitely reduce the number for people becoming thieves.
-bubusam13

[Liverpool_fan]

Humble bundle could have been bought for even $0.01(₹0.50) (if someone wanted to be that cheapo) so that should tell you how "much" cost has relation to piracy. Android apps are normally less than ₹200 as well.

[sygeek]

$500 Million of lost revenue?

According to what scale? The scale that consumers have been rejecting for the last 10 years?

[Interesting discussion over at reddit]

[rajeevk]

What about the torrent sites?

[noob]

Originally Posted by rajeevk

What about the torrent sites?

they dont host actual content on their website.

[bubusam13]

Originally Posted by rajeevk

What about the torrent sites?

You want the torrent sites to be dead or what ?

[noob]

[bubusam13]

Originally Posted by Liverpool_fan

Humble bundle could have been bought for even $0.01(₹0.50) (if someone wanted to be that cheapo) so that should tell you how "much" cost has relation to piracy. Android apps are normally less than ₹200 as well.

I would definitely pay for it.

[sygeek]

Originally Posted by rajeevk

What about the torrent sites?

You may want to check the "legal subaddress of a famous torrent site".

Well, meh

[bubusam13]

You cannot stop piracy but can reduce it. Piracy was there even in the days of VCR s and cassettes. Low cost will reduce it to some extent.

[noob]

ha ha ha..I <3 reddit

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