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Megaupload shut down

Treacle

Treacle

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Dec 15, 2002
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Megaupload, the popular file-sharing site, was shuttered Thursday and its executives indicted by the Justice Department in what the authorities said was “among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States.”

Seven individuals connected to the Hong Kong-based site were indicted on a variety of charges, including criminal copyright infringement and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Four of the members of what the authorities called a five-year “racketeering conspiracy” were arrested Thursday in Auckland, New Zealand, the authorities said.

One of those arrested was Kim Schmitz, aka Kim Dotcom, Megaupload’s founder. His attorney, Ira Rothken of California, said neither he nor his 37-year-old client, who resides in Hong Kong and New Zealand, was given the opportunity to surrender. Schmitz was arrested without notice, he said.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/megaupload-indicted-shuttered/

There's a load more in that link. Just didn't want to post a full page.
 
Clocked that on the BBC a minute ago. Wild. Sets a precedent for all those sites to be shutdown, I don't see what would make Megaupload any worse than the others. There's loads of them & about a dozen that you see links for all the time. I guess Megaupload must be the biggest one since Rapidshare went to shit. Hotfile etc must be shitting it.

I've went to back to using torrents for films etc. Still sometimes use these sites for individual tunes found using Google, tends to be hulkshare.com or zippyshare.com though, occasionally mediafire or wupload etc. Can't remember the last time I downloaded anything from a megaupload link.

If they're trying to do them for racketeering then that's bonkers. That shit's used for the mafia or Avon Barksdale normally is it not?
 
Was just about to say I can't believe Rapidshare is still going despite this, it really must just because of how shit it got.
 
It was almost exclusively used for hosting warez lol. If you were gonna upload a file to send a link to your pal you wouldn't do it to one that'll make him wait 60 seconds or pay a monthly subscription, there's plenty of other filehosting sites that don't do that. The reason the likes of Megaupload, Rapidshare etc are used is because they pay the uploaders depending on amount of downloads, or amount of new subscriptions got through their links etc, which is why they're pretty much 100% dodgy.

You'd expect the rest of them to all close or get closed but I doubt it'll happen. They seem to always just try & make an example of a particularly big site. Like Piratebay, it was doing nothing different from the 100s of other torrent sites but was heavily targeted, still going though haha.
 
Good old torrents. Thank god they can't really do anything about them. I've used Megaupload for some stuff, but mainly small files. The limits for a free user were too bothersome.
 
not too sure where I am gonna get my obscure celeb porn videos now! I am pretty sure megaupload had most of them =D;)=D
 
parttime crackhead said:
It was almost exclusively used for hosting warez lol. If you were gonna upload a file to send a link to your pal you wouldn't do it to one that'll make him wait 60 seconds or pay a monthly subscription, there's plenty of other filehosting sites that don't do that. The reason the likes of Megaupload, Rapidshare etc are used is because they pay the uploaders depending on amount of downloads, or amount of new subscriptions got through their links etc, which is why they're pretty much 100% dodgy.
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I never actually knew this. I knew they were obviously making money from the paying users, but not actually paying users to upload copyrighted works. Crazy shit. I think the article is a bit over the top, though - saying they're some massive copyright ring, with money laundering charges being brought against them.
 
omg, I just read part of the article that states '[megaupload] gets about 50 million hits daily and claims 4 percent of all internet traffic'.

4%!!!!!

I would be amazed if that was true.
 
Treacle said:
I never actually knew this. I knew they were obviously making money from the paying users, but not actually paying users to upload copyrighted works. Crazy shit. I think the article is a bit over the top, though - saying they're some massive copyright ring, with money laundering charges being brought against them.
Click to expand...

They don't pay them specifically to upload copyrighted stuff though, that's their get out clause. They say you can't upload copyrighted stuff, everyone obviously just does, gets them loads of clicks/subscriptions then they apparently remove the copyrighted stuff if they receive a complaint about it, they don't check the files as they get uploaded.

FlippingTop said:
omg, I just read part of the article that states '[megaupload] gets about 50 million hits daily and claims 4 percent of all internet traffic'.

4%!!!!!

I would be amazed if that was true.
Click to expand...

That can't be right.
 
I dunno, I imagine sites like rapidshare and megaupload, where you can just download gigs and gigs of stuff would take up huge amounts of bandwidth, if millions of users are at it. Then again, everything else sounds exaggerated, like the $500,000 loss to the industries, so this could be. I wouldn't be that surprised, though.
 
$500,000,000 isn't it? Even that isn't that much when you consider millions of people are using it and I expect the prosecutors are probably looking at RRPs for products on there rather than the actual discounted prices most people buy them for. So they'll probably count each DVD/CD as $10 at least. Games about $50, stuff like Photoshop and InDesign $300-500, the higher end and more specialised sound, video and graphics stuff can run into tens of thousands once you start accumulating esoteric plugins - $500,000,000 starts to look like the tip of the iceberg!

Nice timely example - Antares Autotune, the gargling robot vocal sound which thankfully seems to be on the way out but which infected every genre for a while - is $649 and all over every track from the top of the charts to youtube Balkan grime vids with 11 listens. That's been pirated millions and millions of times and I bet a lot of that went through Megaupload.
 
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Friend told me a few hours ago, I'm vaguely bothered by this now, many EPs get uploaded to their, how will I get them now?
Oh wait... Very private trackers...
 
gutted about this

I've been streaming HD films and tv via sites that host on megaupload through XBMC on my telly, I had more choice than on paid services like netflix as well as it being better quality and free. all hosted on megaupload.

lots of people were at this, i can see the 4% easy.
 
Always stuck to Torrent for my main downloads although have had to use mega a few times from links for the odd bit of software .

They don't seem able stop torrent not matter how hard they try, its all BS ...same arguments used with the compact cassette and VHS video recorder and funnily enough the music industry and film industry make more money today than ever
 
Check the guy that owns megavideo out, kim dotcom. dodgy git :D

megagun.jpg


they seized $50 million in assets from him including some of his cars, check out the plates.

megacars.jpg


MORE
 
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My life is fucked if they stop all these file hosting sites, I cant stand using torrents.
 
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