You're correct, and there's big difference between RapidShare and the likes of Dropbox. MegaUpload, RapidShare etc is clearly profiting from copyrighted content. They pay users to upload popular files, and in 99% of cases it is pirated content. In turn they profit when users want to access those files. It's a huge "industry", and there will most likely be many more arrests when the list of affiliates that directly made money by uploading copyrighted content without permission goes public.
Dropbox doesn't have any such incentive for users, and they're free to download from. It's the uploader that pays for file upload space just like with web hosting, and he (nor Dropbox) cannot make money by uploading pirated content.
Dropbox is not an online backup solution, its a file synchronization solution. So yes, you delete it from the dropbox folder on one computer, and any other computer synced to that same folder will get it deleted as well. So copy your files out of that folder (cause moving will delete them on the others as well) before you delete them. Its a project management feature, not some nefarious evil filesharing scheme.
and any other computer synced to that same folder will get it deleted as well.
Provided three things are true: #1 - the computers are actually syncing (and not, say, on a turned-on laptop currently disconnected from any wireless networks) and #2 - the file has not been copied to another folder on another machine it was previously synced to and #3 - the file has not been edited and re-saved by someone else, marking it as "theirs" instead of "yours" according to Dropbox.
It's not a backup solution. It's a Sync tool. Like SVN. If they took the servers down tomorrow drop box wouldn't get the latest list of files and wouldn't change the data on your pc.
And you are probably correct, if they took the server down no data would be deleted.
That would be why I specifically asked about the data being deleted.
However, consider what would happen if someone disconnected the front end web farm from the storage system during a federal seizure. Also, what about catastrophic failure at the datacenter?
Are we certain that the dropbox servers wouldn't assume that there was no data for a little while?
I haven't seen the code, so we can only hope that the system is properly designed.
Or, we can do exactly what I said in the original post, and KEEP LOCAL BACKUPS.
While both you and I are aware of that, there are many people who are mislead into believing that dropbox is a backup service. Heck, go look at their sales pitch. "Dropbox - Secure backup, sync and sharing made easy"
Yep, typical marketing lies. The problem with these marketing lies like this, compared to regular false advertising, is they aren't so blatant, because they rely on peoples' poor understanding of terminology.
Dropbox is only "backup" in the very loosest sense of the word.
Why is it a "lie" that dropbox is a backup? With dropbox I have a secure, offsite copy of all of my files, with automatic versioning so that I can rollback deletes or accidental changes. How is that not a backup?
Sorry, I didn't know they had automatic versioning. I was just going off of what the previous posters in this thread were saying, which was that it only had file synchronization capability. Yes, I'd say automatic versioning definitely qualifies as "backup" in the IT sense of the term. I guess we need another new Slashdot negative mod for me: "-1, previous posters were wrong, should check with more authoritative sources before making judgments":-) Of course, someone else will say that checking with auth
However, consider what would happen if someone disconnected the front end web farm from the storage system during a federal seizure. Also, what about catastrophic failure at the datacenter?
Or suppose during that seizure, the feds plugged in a USB drive and "moved" my files to their drive. Since the files are now gone from dropbox's copy of my directory, would their mv command delete the files from my directory on my machine, too? Seems to me it likely would.
Anyone know for sure?
(I don't actually have a dropbox account. I've considered it, but I haven't convinced myself that I understand their marketing jargon. I've seen disasters caused by "backup" software that responds to a file de
Or suppose during that seizure, the feds plugged in a USB drive and "moved" my files to their drive. Since the files are now gone from dropbox's copy of my directory, would their mv command delete the files from my directory on my machine, too? Seems to me it likely would.
Maybe. If a client deletes a copy, the other clients lose their local copy too.
If deleted on the server directly, I don't know what happens (who would except Dropbox?). But Dropbox does atomic(ish) updates in a way not too dissimilar fr
I'm pretty sure it doesn't quite work the way you present it. Judiging by how things work @ dropbox (and yes I do have an account unlike you so that makes me the expert and you the scaremonger), they have a database that keeps track of all files they have sitting in some huge database (might not even be a filesystem as we know it but rather some highly compressed blob) holding the contents and some identifying properties for each file (size, hash(es), etc..). In some other table or databases they hold the l
Quibble: it's not like SVN, unless it maintains copies of all the older versions of your files (in which case it'd really be more like ZFS with snapshots), lets you diff different versions of files, etc. Instead, it's like rsync, or perhaps even unison (which is basically two-way rsync). SVN isn't a sync tool, it's a centralized revision control system. It can be used as a sync tool, clumsily, but it isn't a very good tool for that. rsync is absolutely what Dropbox (haven't used it personally) sounds li
It does maintain old copies of files. For 30 days, files you delete can be restored, and you can revert files to earlier versions. For a fee (an add-on called PackRat), they will keep old versions and deleted files indefinitely.
You have access to the code and know how it would behave in such a case?
The sync server being down would most likely have the same result as not having a network connection at all; Dropbox would just wait until it can connect, not affecting your files in any way.
The sync server being down would most likely have the same result as not having a network connection at all; Dropbox would just wait until it can connect, not affecting your files in any way.
Down is one thing, but the GP postulates that rights holder may be able to force the deletion of files not only on drop box, but also on your computer by simply continuing to run the servers. Anything in your shared area (as opposed to your encrypted area) could be (possibly) be deleted from your hard drive via this method.
Doing so would seem to be a legally risky move, but who you gonna sue? The DOJ?
Of course no one would have any way of knowing what is in your encrypted area. *Cough* [dropbox.com].
If your client is set to automatically synchronize all file operations including deletion (which is usually the default), then your local copy exists at the mercy of the server. Of course you can rest assured that if anyone compromises the server, they would simply take it offline rather than instructing it to send a deletion command to all clients, but if you don't want to rely on that, you should better make sure that your local copy is as safe as you want it to be.
"Of course you can rest assured that if anyone compromises the server, they would simply take it offline rather than instructing it to send a deletion command to all clients"
How can you be so sure?
Why they closed megaupload? Why they would close Dropbox?
Exactly: because they host copyrights infringing data. So, what would be better than seize that cave of pirates *and* delete all that data that is ruining all those poor entertaiment megacorps?
If the dropbox frontend servers are left to run, but the dropbox DATA servers are taken offline, the theory goes that the dropbox frontend might indicate a "no data" result to every single client, causing the local clients to delete any previously cached data.
Or so the theory goes. There's also the theory that someone nefarious might re-code the frontend servers to issue "delete all data" commands to any incoming client connection.
"What happens..." is that the dropbox server effectively has a version control system, and files can be rolled back including deletes. It's a totally valid replacement for local backup procedures, with different pros and cons as for any solution. What happens when someone drops the backup tape in their cup of coffee? There are always failure points, but it's silly to say dropbox is "not a valid replacement" because you can conceive of a [mitigated] point of failure.
The trouble is, thats like saying Toshiba, Seagate, Samsung, Hitachi and Western Digital are profiting from Pirating because people store illegally acquired content on their hard drives. Going after these services is treating a symptom, not the root cause. Companies like dropbox are not deliberately making money from 'pirated' content. They make money because people pay them to host files. Now, those files could be pictures of cats, nuclear secrets, or a stolen copy of 'ghostbusters' without deeply invading the privacy of their users, there is no practical means by which they could ensure that every file they host is legal. It is not their place, nor should they be expected to, Police the content their users upload.
It's not a matter of expecting them to police content or users, it's a matter of MegaUpload's intentions. The site was clearly profiting from piracy. Likewise, not all hosting companies are going to be illegal just because police bust a hosting company that clearly is profiting from illegal content, for example by naming themselves "Child Porn Hosting" or "Warez ISP" or where it can be proofed that the company is actively acting as such. In this case MegaUpload's internal emails also showed they were fully aware of this. On top of that they went around DMCA laws by not actually deleting the files. If other user uploaded the same file, it was not actually uploaded again but was only given private url. When DMCA notice came, only the specific URL was disabled and the infringing content was still available at any other URL. Then there is still the whole matter of directly profiting from it.
It's not a matter of expecting them to police content or users, it's a matter of MegaUpload's intentions. The site was clearly profiting from piracy. Likewise, not all hosting companies are going to be illegal just because police bust a hosting company that clearly is profiting from illegal content, for example by naming themselves "Child Porn Hosting" or "Warez ISP" or where it can be proofed that the company is actively acting as such. In this case MegaUpload's internal emails also showed they were fully aware of this.
Do you think police would find similar emails in mailboxes of most hosting providers' personnel, considering that they are very aware how the dedicated servers are being used for various illegal activities?
Why are they not held responsible, and yet they profit from those activities (and are fully aware of it)?
The Indictment is a classic one-side-of-the-story document; even the most mediocre lawyers can paint any picture they want when unchallenged. That's why the government is not supposed to dole out punishments based on accusatory instruments, but only after those accusations are proved in an adversarial proceeding.
What you have done is convict MegaUpload based on nothing more than an assertion by the government, likely at the prodding of *AAs. The story told in the indictment may or may not be true and it definitely presents only one side of the story. Its this sort of rush to judgment, that allows the government to exercise due process free detention and execution and barely anybody bats an eye. Glen says it better than me though:
Whatever else is true, those issues should be decided upon a full trial in a court of law, not by government decree. Especially when it comes to Draconian government punishments - destroying businesses, shutting down websites, imprisoning people for life, assassinating them - what distinguishes a tyrannical society from a free one is whether the government is first required to prove guilt in a fair, adversarial proceeding. This is a precept Americans were once taught about why their country was superior, was reflexively understood, and was enshrined as the core political principle: "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." It's simply not a principle that is believed in any longer, and therefore is not remotely observed.
It's simply not a principle that is believed in any longer, and therefore is not remotely observed.
Good points all, but the real reason for this is not that those ideals are not believed in. It's unfortunately a matter of political survival that government has to listen to big corporations.
Listen to this talk by Jimmy Carter [abc.net.au], at one point he says the same thing. Back then, he was able to run a campaign on a shoestring, hardly having to raise money at all.
Now, he says, candidates have to raise *hundreds of millions of dollars* to campaign. This has driven politics insane as corporate interests compete aga
No, it's not a matter of intentions. All the companies listed above (hard drive manufacturers) and many others (computer manufacturers, broadband ISPs, component manufacturers, encryption providers, etc.), directly or indirectly benefit from piracy, because to a significant portion of their users, that's a main or sole reason for using their product/service. That does not mean they are responsible for the actions of their users, any more than the telephone company can be sued under anti-telemarketing laws even though they very well know some users are violating them.
Also, your naming bit fails to make sense. The site was called "MegaUpload". "Mega" is a very common prefix, and "Upload" is exactly what the site allowed its users to do. I fail to see how that connotes illegal activity. Nor do I see how the internal emails matter-I'm sure any site that allows user uploads discusses internally the likelihood that some of those are copyright violations and what to do about them. I imagine you'd find similar emails at Flickr or Youtube, and I know you'd find discussions of that sort on Wikipedia. It's an inevitability of running a user-generated content site.
Faking compliance with DMCA requests, on the other hand, is likely to land you in trouble-and is the only thing you list that should land you in trouble. I haven't seen anything about that though, could you please provide your source for that?
When will the average American (or, perhaps more importantly, politicians) learn to distinguish punishment for illegal activity from prior restraint?
Hint: in general terms, it is not permissible in this country to prevent people from performing a certain act simply because some of them might commit a crime.
Laws exist to punish actual criminals, not to prevent people from committing innocent acts just because their neighbor might be a criminal. The former represents justice, the latter unconstitutional government oppression.
"Faking compliance with DMCA requests, on the other hand..."
Even the DMCA goes too far, however, by forcing acts based on mere accusations, before there can be any "due process".
"Look up "induced infringement." It absolutely is a matter of intention."
Perhaps, but that is only part of the point. If you are going to use intent as the basis for enforcing a law, then you have to demonstrate that the intent actually existed.
But unfortunately for that argument, the fact is that all of MegaUpload's inducements apply equally well to perfectly legal, legitimate uses. So it is not valid to claim that they were "inducing" illegal activity.
any more than the telephone company can be sued under anti-telemarketing laws even though they very well know some users are violating them.
If they profit from it and subtly encourage it for the sake of profit, absolutely they can.
In fact if I recall that was the huge point of contention in the many Youtube cases: did youtube get its start by encouraging illegal content or not? Youtubes intentions were very relevant to the case.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Saturday January 21, 2012 @07:41PM (#38777323)
Who doesn't benefit from copyright infringement? Think about this: how many people would pay $50 or so for high speed internet every month if they couldn't download whatever they wanted? If you were restricted to only going to public domain sites, previewing one tenth of a song only before buying it, not allowed to download a movie and see it pixellated before going to theaters or buying the DVD, or couldn't download an ebook of a book to flip through before buying it, how much would that influence whether you even decided to keep an internet connection or not? Imagine if any of these actions which could lead to purchases resulted in an immediate arrest with no possibility of not getting caught (imagine a rigid system for this hypothetical situation). Would you still use the internet that much? What would the internet then become? A giant outlet for shopping, wikis, and social networks, and that's it?
A good question is what percentage of the internet relies on piracy -- both services like Wordpress and paid storage like GoDaddy hosting? Are subscriptions to high speed internet contingent upon users being able to pirate every now and then even if it's not to a really huge degree? How much would 4Mbps versus 1Mbps matter if you literally couldn't download DVDs, MP3s, pdfs, etc. without knowing you'd get caught? If you were restricted to mostly non-media-rich sites, how much would you need those extra Mbps?
Then what about the recording industries? How many people would buy songs happily if they could only legally hear it on the radio or listen to a:30 second preview before buying it? How much buyers regret would be there? What about films? How many people were introduced to their favorite films by seeing them online through some pirated means? And after that, how many bits of merchandise did they buy? And books, how many people bought new books after downloading a.pdf and loving it?
The problem with piracy isn't that they simply lose money, it's that piracy both stimulates and hurts their profits and there's a happy medium that needs to be reached in order to keep both the industries and the users feeling satisfied. They can't happily say to pirate and yet if they got rid of all of it, imagine how fewer tv series, movies, books, and songs you'd be exposed to if you couldn't first experience some crappy version of it online before opting to buy it as well as merchandise from the company that released it.
Another issue is the fact that they're spending ridiculous amounts of money on combating piracy but not in a way that doesn't adversely affect the harmless user. Encryption that doesn't play well with every platform and causes the average user issues, DRM that's harmful or debilitating, lawsuit after lawsuit, them trying to infringe upon our digital freedoms, despirately grasping onto a few dollars. After seeing the RIAA's profit listings on their website pdfs, I'd put good money on the fact that they're losing insanely more money creating DRM and paying for lobbyists and lawyers to sue some kid in the boondocks for downloading a DVD because the economy is too dead for anyone to afford one than they'd actually lose if they didn't despirately grasp so hard at every last dollar. Meanwhile, there are a lot of users they don't think about who use piracy to expose themselves to new products that they then purchase...
Perhaps if they "unclench" a little and just accept losing a little money (who isn't doing terribly besides the gas companies in this economy), they'd have more profits than in their kicking-and-screaming method that's currently making them more enemies than friends... Think, now that they've DRMed us to death, sued a bunch of kids across the country who now have their lives and futures ruined from a non-violent crime (serious, serious shame), and spent more money on lobbying than most of us make in a few years just to pass laws that infringe upon our freedoms, how much do you want to buy a CD or DVD from them now? Or is this bad publicity just making people more cautious but resulting in the masses wanting to vindictively ream them a hell of a lot harder now...?
How much would 4Mbps versus 1Mbps matter if you literally couldn't download DVDs, MP3s, pdfs, etc. without knowing you'd get caught? If you were restricted to mostly non-media-rich sites, how much would you need those extra Mbps?
This is true, but you seem to be forgetting about the existence of Netflix and Hulu(/Plus), and a bunch of other similar VOD sites. I've seen estimates that show Netflix usage accounting for a huge amount of bandwidth usage in residential areas.
I don't see the rest of the world putting so much effort into copyright enforcement for the MAFIAA as I do the USA. So this discussion, being "what's the point of a high-bandwidth internet connection if you can't download pirated content without a high risk of getting in trouble?", really is fairly USA-specific. I'm pretty sure internet users in, say, Bulgaria, don't have to worry much about getting sued by the MPAA.
Think about this: how many people would pay $50 or so for high speed internet every month if they couldn't download whatever they wanted?
People that prefer to use streaming services from places like netflix.
And again, you are forgetting that there is a whole world out there, outside USA, who can not use Netflix.
I can understand that many americans don't realize there are other countries on this planet, which are not US states, but they really shouldn't publicly stress it.
And again, you are forgetting that there is a whole world out there, outside USA
No, i forget nothing and know there is something beyond our borders. I just don't care.
We spend far to much time, money, resources and bend too much to the whims of your 'outside the USA' entities, for me to give a damn if you can watch netflix ( an American company btw ) or not.
I appreciate the sentiment, $deity knows I agree with you, but the point still stands. Here in the UK we now have the option of streaming with Netflix (yep, we just got it, so its not just the US anymore) or Lovefilm (frankly, its shite, and we welcome Netflix).
Who doesn't benefit from copyright infringement? Think about this: how many people would pay $50 or so for high speed internet every month if they couldn't download whatever they wanted? If you were restricted to only going to public domain sites, previewing one tenth of a song only before buying it, not allowed to download a movie and see it pixellated before going to theaters or buying the DVD, or couldn't download an ebook of a book to flip through before buying it, how much would that influence whether
In the UK, one of the most popular sites in terms of the amount of data downloaded is BBC iPlayer. That is 100% legal, and you need a pretty fast Internet connection if you want to stream their high definition videos.
Who doesn't benefit from copyright infringement? Think about this: how many people would pay $50 or so for high speed internet every month if they couldn't download whatever they wanted?
Rather a lot of people. We have a high speed internet connection, and there is so much legally available content. TV station's catchup services like iView, Plus7, etc. Digital delivery of paid content, such as Steam. And then there's all the other uses such as Skype for video chat with family overseas, etc. I suspect we are a typical family for the country I live in. Not only is pirated content unnecessary, it sounds actually fairly inconvenient -- iView (a legitimate free streaming service) works on t
I'm not intimately familiar with their process, but (for instance) Android ROMs are popular, as linked by xda, as is other original/personally owned content. The model works quite well for legal content of paying contributors while (optionally) charging for popular files, I'd think.
No Megaupload was profiting from, selling advertising by people visiting the site and by selling premium access for uploads and downloads from the site.
The people who profited from the 'piracy' were of course the advertisers, who paid for advertising space upon the basis of the value they believed the site provided in gaining access t
But they weren't busted for their intentions, they were busted for breaking DMCA and other laws.
Megaupload did not 'break' DMCA. They were probably one of the most compliant sites out there (YouTube probably being the best one, since they did overdo everything in regards to takedowns, but they also have funds and contacts to do it).
I am still in shock after reading points 22 and 23 in indictment, I can't believe anyone could seriously put those things there. it is going to hurt prosecution, because that shows how desperately they are trying to paint a dirty picture.
No, the issue isn't about storage of pirated files, it's about leveraging access to pirated content in order to make money.
The difference between MU and hard drive makers is that hard drive makers don't have revenue sharing schemes whereby they pay people who advertise and sell hard drives filled with pirated content. The more apt comparison would be a situation wherein Toshiba, Seagate, etc. are paying private individuals who possess pirated content to make that content available to the public in a scheme to drive hard drive sales.
The same could be said for Google (search), Microsoft (search), Apple (you can pull songs off their i* products to another computer), and (I'm sure) a thousand other technology companies.
People like you simply don't get it: You can not penalize the provider of a service which can be and probably will be leveraged for illegal purposes when there is a legitimate use for said service or product - particularly when that legitimate use is easily conceived within the legal definitions of what is allowed.
You got there before I could, I always bring up the firearms argument because it is one that is so unique to America. Specifically, handguns. Handguns are usually banned (or at least under much more restriction) in most countries, as opposed to other firearms, because they serve next to no legal purpose. Rifles, shotguns, etc. can and are used for hunting. Nobody hunts deer with a handgun or PDW type weapon. I know, I know, I hear you say you go to the range with it. Sure, but why are you practicing using a
MegaUpload's revenue sharing scheme was based on popular content. In fact, I seem to recall lots of people complaining over the years about them refusing payouts because the content in question was pirated; the indictment even references an internal e-mail in which they mention doing this, though it spins it rather interestingly. There were presumably other similar even more clear e-mails not referred to in the indictment.
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Saturday January 21, 2012 @05:21PM (#38776433)
The standard created by the grokster SCOTUS case rest upon if they are "inducing" users to infringe copyright. I think that rapidshare and megaupload clearly fit that standard based upon their business models but dropbox does not.
Then again, maybe not. IDK about megaupload but rapidshare deliberately makes it impossible to search their servers for files. It is not indexed. This way (in theory) the only users who get access to a file are those who are given a direct link (presumably by the uploader). This is supposed to discourage filesharing.
That's as stupid as the argument that iPod and MP3 player owners in Canada should pay a levy on their devices because they store music. It's not the same as the CD levy, where once burned, the music is PERMANENT.
...Toshiba, Seagate, Samsung, Hitachi and Western Digital are profiting from Pirating because people store illegally acquired content on their hard drives.
Somewhere a lawyer smiled in his sleep and kicked his feet like a puppy after a bunny rabbit.
The trouble is, thats like saying Toshiba, Seagate, Samsung, Hitachi and Western Digital are profiting from Pirating because people store illegally acquired content on their hard drives.
In Finland, we call it Hyvitysmaksu [hyvitysmaksu.fi].
The root cause is lack of a basic income, an expanded gift economy, or improved subsistence technology, and/or better government planning (which could all support artists and other creators).
With a basic income (or those other things), creative people would not have to worry where their next meal is coming from, and would not have to engage in the legal, but increasingly immoral (in the internet age),
i'm merely responding to the allegation that DropBox (and other services like it, that do not purposefully traffic in infringing material) are at risk due to the precedent set by MegaUploads demise. The article alleges this, and I was merely pointing out how retarded that would be. *just as you described* 'thank you for your reading comprehension'
charging piracy for this is incredibly problematic, though. if the model is basically "we pay if your file is popular", but there is no checking of the actual file, whether the user has actual rights to the file or not, or encouragement of piracy specifically, all that's left is accusing MegaUpload of encouraging popular files.
last i checked, not only is it NOT illegal to pay for popular things, it's ALSO one of the fundamental principles behind the "free market".
this whole thing is troubling. especially since services like MegaUpload CAN serve as alternative distribution channels out of the control of old media. if old media can get these services shut down, it's not because of any criminality: it's because they're trying to eliminate competing business models.
if the model is basically "we pay if your file is popular", but there is no checking of the actual file, whether the user has actual rights to the file or not, or encouragement of piracy specifically, all that's left is accusing MegaUpload of encouraging popular files.
Note the IF. What you describe is not how MegaUpload operates. If the indictments are to be believed, the operators were caught numerous times encouraging the sharing of content that they knew to be pirated.
You're correct that a truly content-agnostic file storage and sharing site should have nothing to fear. DropBox is safe. The operators of MegaUpload, however, serve as a textbook example of purposely avoiding all the safe harbor opportunities. This isn't because they were stupid -- far from it -- but because this is their very business model.
The legal concept of mens rea -- latin for "guilty mind" -- applies here. The MegaUpload guys, through their actions, have been nailed fair and square. This is their choice. They took the lucrative, but risky, path, of actively courting piracy. Their business model is wholly different than that of DropBox.
The MegaUpload guys, through their actions, have been nailed fair and square. This is their choice. They took the lucrative, but risky, path, of actively courting piracy. Their business model is wholly different than that of DropBox.
What blows my mind is that this Kim Dotcom guy could be THAT greedy. Obviously he has some minimal amount of required intelligence to get the infrastructure and technology in place to operate at the massive scale that MU was at. However, it seems to me that anyone in their right mind would bail from something so risky after reaping a few tens of millions of dollars. He could have stopped a year or two ago, after putting away millions of dollars, and claimed that although he tried to run a legitimate, legal online business, too many people were taking advantage of his site in ways he didn't intend or condone, but it would require too many resources to try and police all the uploaded files. So his only recourse was to shut down the sites and close up shop. He'd have almost certainly escaped any legal problems once everything was shut down, and he could've just quietly taken his money and lived high off the hog for the rest of his life.
But no, this guy was greedy. REALLY greedy. $4.9 million in cars alone at his main residence. $24 million dollar estate. $12,000 PER DAY rent for their office headquarters in Hong Kong. Money was his downfall, that's for sure.
What I don't get is why he operated the servers inside the US, since that's the most dangerous place for this kind of activity. I realize that's also where the most users are, and the bandwidth to Vanuatu isn't that great, but why not locate them in Canada or someplace else where the bandwidth is good enough?
It still remains to be seen if this will be his downfall. Even IF MU is found guilty in court that process is going to take years and the guy will have plenty of time to move money(through proxies since he's under arrest) from at least several of the accounts listed in the indictment that is situated in countries that might not cooperate with US authorities fast enough to prevent a transfer someplace safer.
And even if he's found guilty in a US court he can still contest the charges in an NZ court and if su
If you're going to steal, go big! You'll get the same prison term stealing a few blu-ray players from your local retail establishment as you will tens of millions through some financial or copyright scheme.
I suspect the part of the plan that failed was thinking he was immune from prosecution by the US by living in New Zealand.
Only until the government says it isn't in an indictment. Then it's lights out for the company. Utterly wiped out, domains seized, all on a mere accusation. And once they make the accusation, you'll buy it as gospel truth the same as you bought their accusations against Megaupload.
If you find the closure of Megaupload troubling, just read the indictment. I won't consider the legal matters here, but the emails cited in the indictment paint a pretty clear picture of intent. They show that:
A) In many cases, Megaupload employees knew that *specific* files on the site were in violation of copyright, but they took no action to remove the content
B) Knowing specific files were copyrighted, megaupload still paid out rewards to those files' uploaders
C) In a few instances, staff members shared links to copyrighted content with eachother and with the internet at large.
Those are just the most egregious points, which basically demolish their claim of safe-harbor. But there's more: The claim of conspiracy at first sounds ridiculous and overblown, but it begins to make sense when the indictment describes all the ways Megaupload is alleged to have actively worked to conceal piracy. Claims of DCMA compliance are shot to pieces by an allegation that certain links were the subject of takedown notices, but remained active for over a year. I could go on, but just read the thing yourself, it's actually pretty interesting for a while.
The guys at Megaupload sound hella guilty. The only other explanation is a massive conspiracy involving the FBI and the Justice Department, but I have trouble believing that.
Those internal communication mean nothing - and here lies one of the core problems with all this.. The **IAA wants to pass the the buck and have the providers police their users. The only problem with that, is that any sys admin/tech support employee is *not* a lawyer (most likely), and if they want to keep their customer(s) - just because they find an mp3/divx/avi/iso file, they need to make sure that 1) it is copyrighted and 2) MORE importantly, that the customer does *not* have the right to re-distribute the given material and that is impossible to tell unless your an expert in the area. If employee X does not have that information and just because they see an mp3 file with the name Brittany Spears in it they suspend the entire account - they could be loosing a customer very quickly if it was legit and not to mention a potential law suit, as in think "slamming Brittany Spears" or something.
I work for a fairly large web hosting company, and we used to police our selves - if during any routine investigation (as in if someone reported a problem with their account) and we found anything suspicious we would suspend if it was "seemingly" obvious, although two specific incidents changed our policy on that relatively quickly. The first had to do with a Microsoft Development edition of some sort - it turned out the customer was a reseller and had the full right to have that on his site for purchase/download. The second was with a small record label out of the UK, iirc, selling/offering their own goods. Both incidents highlighted the fact that we were not qualified to tell whether something was illegal or not - so we essentially backed completely off, and unless we get a DMCA notice or one sent to the customer - all we do IF we see something very, very suspicious and they are somehow in violation of our RUP/TOS - then we only send them a ticket, if they dont respond with in a given amount of time that is something else entirely.
The point being, is that just because something seems to be illegal - doesn't mean it is, you/we have NO idea if the customer in question has some kind of weird contract with the copyright holder and if they are in violation of it or not - THAT is up to a judge and/or contract attorney to decide, no one else. We see stuff all the time across our large fleet of servers, and the fact that internal communications between employees reflect this is only pointing out something interesting is all. Whether something is actually illegal or not, is a point of contract law - not mere speculation of someone NOT well versed in this.
The flip side of this issue is that the Internet is a VERY large place, and it's simply next to impossible to check every nook and cranny for your various IP'd material - which where logically the rights holders would try and force the providers to police them self, which as noted above is impossible as well.
Conclusion - simply trying to fit a square block (brick and mortar business model) into a round hole (cyber space) just does not fit:-P
In prosecuting copyright cases, internal communications mean everything. I'm not speaking in the abstract here; incriminating emails were instrumental in the Napster case and some other major copyright cases, going back to the BBS days. It's an all-too-common pattern: publicly, the company claims that it doesn't know that copyrighted information is being shared in an unauthorized manner; their internal emails reveal that they do know this; plausible deniability i
It is how the law works when dealing with allegations of corporate copyright infringement. Arresting them was extremely heavy handed, especially arresting all of them. Why not just go after Dotcom and allow his employees to continue running the company in the mean time? Copyright infringement is normally a civil matter anyway, not a criminal one.
After all, no one arrested all employees of the same media companies that demanded this when they committed multi million dollar copyright infringement against thei
That indictment is basically still just allegations and not necessary true. Don't make any assumptions based on it until there is atleast some substance to back them.
If it turns out that just a few of those allegations are true then yes MU has completely blown their DMCA safe harbor protection to kingdom come and those behind MU will be in Prison for a long time and we will probably see another new astronomical damage calculation from the **AA's.
You should probably read the indictment more critically.
In many cases, Megaupload employees knew that *specific* files on the site were in violation of copyright, but they took no action to remove the content
Could they legally? I can't remember what the law is on this.
Knowing specific files were copyrighted, megaupload still paid out rewards to those files' uploaders
It doesn't actually say this. It mentions e-mailed spreadsheets of users, the payout amounts they would be getting and the kind of content the payout was for - some of which was obviously pirated - but it doesn't actually say whether they were actually paid, with one exception. That exception was a user who was uploading Vietnamese content that the staff couldn't identify. It leaves you to in
> last i checked, not only is it NOT illegal to pay for popular things, it's ALSO one of the fundamental principles behind the "free market".
Sure, it is called selling content. But you can only sell content you own, not content that someone pirated for you.
Dropbox and similar services get around this problem by offering a service, not content. You can upload your files, you can download your files, and you can even share your files. Dropbox has no incentive for illegal content.
It's been on Slashdot [slashdot.org] before. If not directly in the headline, it had a host of these stories in the comments section.
I think you'll find this [slashdot.org] comment interesting:
I'm in Sioux City, Iowa of all places, and our band has seen this shit tried on two bars that I've played at. We called the fine gentleman who left his card and told him we were not ASCAP members and played only original music. He responded that it only takes four chords before we infringe on his artists' songs, and it was simply not possible for us not to infringe.
Yeah.. I really don't know what to respond to that.
You're correct, and there's big difference between RapidShare and the likes of Dropbox. MegaUpload, RapidShare etc is clearly profiting from copyrighted content. They pay users to upload popular files, and in 99% of cases it is pirated content. In turn they profit when users want to access those files. It's a huge "industry", and there will most likely be many more arrests when the list of affiliates that directly made money by uploading copyrighted content without permission goes public.
So, for the sake of the argument, let's assume that 'pay for downloads' program is still running on Mega.
And decides to upload a new song that (s)he just made.
And 50 million people download it.
And (s)he gets paid by Mega.
Would you have any objections to that?
Program in itself is not a problem. Problem is that most popular downloads were those that infringed copyright and were uploaded by random people.
Not only that but Google does the exact same thing on YouTube. You can post a video and get paid for advertising shown with the video. They have a ton of things you have to agree to that it's not pirated content and you own the copyright, but still...
It's the uploader that pays for file upload space just like with web hosting, and he (nor Dropbox) cannot make money by uploading pirated content.
Yes, Dropbox provides no incentive for users to upload copyrighted content, and you have to pay to upload content (aside from the 2GB of free space you get with a free account).
But technically one could argue that Dropbox itself profits more heavily from the users uploading copyrighted content (than the users who are just uploading their personal stuff). If you host a file-sharing site that's cashflow-positive and that has a scalable business model, any super popular (most likely copyrighted) content that i
Just take our financial system as an example, that system is flawed too, and thousands of financial industry executives and mortgage brokers have taken advantage of that fact, but you don't see the FBI or the Federal Reserve suddenly storming those guy's mansions with SWAT teams and throwing them in jail.
Agreed; we need more technically competent people to abandon their roles and seek government positions, because those positions are currently mostly filled by people close to "too-big-to-fail finance". Unfortunately, most technically competent people enjoy controlling machines more than they enjoy controlling humans. What is really too big to fail? Fucking physics. And it's already been proven to fail (was different at the big bang; is different within a black hole; and might be different as the unive
Dropbox doesn't have any such incentive for users, and they're free to download from.
Minor nit. Are you suggesting that Megaupload requires downloaders to pay? That's false.
It is true, however, that it is slow/inconvenient for people to download from Megaupload for free.
Agree in general with your distinction between the business models of Dropbox and Megaupload/Rapidshare/et. al.
Finally, if Dropbox is in trouble, then so is Google (via Google Docs).
You're correct, and there's big difference between RapidShare and the likes of Dropbox. MegaUpload, RapidShare etc is clearly profiting from copyrighted content.
No. They're profiting from advertisements and premium accounts. They provide a service. It has nothing to do with copyright infringement. But I guess websites that have users who may or may not be doing illegal things shouldn't be allowed to have advertisements or make money from the website at all because some of their users may be doing illegal things.
who have profited to the tune of many, many millions of dollars from piracy?
How so? Show me where they were withholding links to copyrighted material specifically and forcing people to pay to download the files. If they did that, then I would agree that they profited from 'piracy'.
However, they merely provided a service. They didn't profit directly from piracy. They profited from people viewing their ads, and from premium accounts. Neither are directly related to piracy. Their users' intentions are irrelevant here.
Dunno about Dropbox, but neither MegaUpload nor Rapidshare charge(d) for downloads. You can pay for increased bandwidth, parallel downloads and similar premium services, but you can download everything without paying them a dime. They make money on providing convenience benefits to people already downloading, not for access to the content. That's a huge difference legally.
Regardless of whether a mission expands or contracts, administrative
overhead continues to grow at a steady rate.
Yes (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Yes (Score:5, Informative)
Dropbox doesn't have any such incentive for users, and they're free to download from. It's the uploader that pays for file upload space just like with web hosting, and he (nor Dropbox) cannot make money by uploading pirated content.
At least on dropbox (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:At least on dropbox (Score:5, Informative)
if they close it I've still got my files locally
Are you certain of that?
If I delete a file from my dropbox folder on my laptop, it gets removed on my desktop.
What happens is someone with access to the dropbox server deletes a file?
Online "backup" services ARE NOT A VALID REPLACEMENT LOCAL BACKUP PROCEDURES.
They are for convenience and additional protection only.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Dropbox is not an online backup solution, its a file synchronization solution. So yes, you delete it from the dropbox folder on one computer, and any other computer synced to that same folder will get it deleted as well. So copy your files out of that folder (cause moving will delete them on the others as well) before you delete them. Its a project management feature, not some nefarious evil filesharing scheme.
posted AC cause I deleted my /. long ago.
captcha: overshot
Re: (Score:2)
and any other computer synced to that same folder will get it deleted as well.
Provided three things are true:
#1 - the computers are actually syncing (and not, say, on a turned-on laptop currently disconnected from any wireless networks) and
#2 - the file has not been copied to another folder on another machine it was previously synced to and
#3 - the file has not been edited and re-saved by someone else, marking it as "theirs" instead of "yours" according to Dropbox.
This is one of the big things that freaks o
Re:At least on dropbox (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a backup solution. It's a Sync tool. Like SVN. If they took the servers down tomorrow drop box wouldn't get the latest list of files and wouldn't change the data on your pc.
Re:At least on dropbox (Score:5, Informative)
Heck, go look at their sales pitch.
"Dropbox - Secure backup, sync and sharing made easy"
This is plastered all over their web site [google.com], advertising, and over a million linked sites [google.com]
And you are probably correct, if they took the server down no data would be deleted.
That would be why I specifically asked about the data being deleted.
However, consider what would happen if someone disconnected the front end web farm from the storage system during a federal seizure. Also, what about catastrophic failure at the datacenter?
Are we certain that the dropbox servers wouldn't assume that there was no data for a little while?
I haven't seen the code, so we can only hope that the system is properly designed.
Or, we can do exactly what I said in the original post, and KEEP LOCAL BACKUPS.
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So data deduplication is a crime?
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According to the MPAA, yes.
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While both you and I are aware of that, there are many people who are mislead into believing that dropbox is a backup service.
Heck, go look at their sales pitch.
"Dropbox - Secure backup, sync and sharing made easy"
Yep, typical marketing lies. The problem with these marketing lies like this, compared to regular false advertising, is they aren't so blatant, because they rely on peoples' poor understanding of terminology.
Dropbox is only "backup" in the very loosest sense of the word.
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Sorry, I didn't know they had automatic versioning. I was just going off of what the previous posters in this thread were saying, which was that it only had file synchronization capability. Yes, I'd say automatic versioning definitely qualifies as "backup" in the IT sense of the term. I guess we need another new Slashdot negative mod for me: "-1, previous posters were wrong, should check with more authoritative sources before making judgments" :-) Of course, someone else will say that checking with auth
Re: (Score:3)
However, consider what would happen if someone disconnected the front end web farm from the storage system during a federal seizure. Also, what about catastrophic failure at the datacenter?
Or suppose during that seizure, the feds plugged in a USB drive and "moved" my files to their drive. Since the files are now gone from dropbox's copy of my directory, would their mv command delete the files from my directory on my machine, too? Seems to me it likely would.
Anyone know for sure?
(I don't actually have a dropbox account. I've considered it, but I haven't convinced myself that I understand their marketing jargon. I've seen disasters caused by "backup" software that responds to a file de
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe. If a client deletes a copy, the other clients lose their local copy too.
If deleted on the server directly, I don't know what happens (who would except Dropbox?). But Dropbox does atomic(ish) updates in a way not too dissimilar fr
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure it doesn't quite work the way you present it. Judiging by how things work @ dropbox (and yes I do have an account unlike you so that makes me the expert and you the scaremonger), they have a database that keeps track of all files they have sitting in some huge database (might not even be a filesystem as we know it but rather some highly compressed blob) holding the contents and some identifying properties for each file (size, hash(es), etc..). In some other table or databases they hold the l
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Quibble: it's not like SVN, unless it maintains copies of all the older versions of your files (in which case it'd really be more like ZFS with snapshots), lets you diff different versions of files, etc. Instead, it's like rsync, or perhaps even unison (which is basically two-way rsync). SVN isn't a sync tool, it's a centralized revision control system. It can be used as a sync tool, clumsily, but it isn't a very good tool for that. rsync is absolutely what Dropbox (haven't used it personally) sounds li
Re:At least on dropbox (Score:5, Informative)
It does maintain old copies of files. For 30 days, files you delete can be restored, and you can revert files to earlier versions. For a fee (an add-on called PackRat), they will keep old versions and deleted files indefinitely.
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You have access to the code and know how it would behave in such a case?
The sync server being down would most likely have the same result as not having a network connection at all; Dropbox would just wait until it can connect, not affecting your files in any way.
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The sync server being down would most likely have the same result as not having a network connection at all; Dropbox would just wait until it can connect, not affecting your files in any way.
Down is one thing, but the GP postulates that rights holder may be able to force the deletion of files not only on drop box, but also on your computer by simply continuing to run the servers. Anything in your shared area (as opposed to your encrypted area) could be (possibly) be deleted from your hard drive via this method.
Doing so would seem to be a legally risky move, but who you gonna sue? The DOJ?
Of course no one would have any way of knowing what is in your encrypted area. *Cough* [dropbox.com].
Sharing copyrighted m
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Hello DCTech, DavidSell, InsightIn140Bytes etc.
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Or it would just not connect.
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if they close it I've still got my files locally
Are you certain of that?
If I yank the network cable out of my computer, I still have my files.
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If your client is set to automatically synchronize all file operations including deletion (which is usually the default), then your local copy exists at the mercy of the server. Of course you can rest assured that if anyone compromises the server, they would simply take it offline rather than instructing it to send a deletion command to all clients, but if you don't want to rely on that, you should better make sure that your local copy is as safe as you want it to be.
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"Of course you can rest assured that if anyone compromises the server, they would simply take it offline rather than instructing it to send a deletion command to all clients"
How can you be so sure?
Why they closed megaupload? Why they would close Dropbox?
Exactly: because they host copyrights infringing data. So, what would be better than seize that cave of pirates *and* delete all that data that is ruining all those poor entertaiment megacorps?
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Online "backup" services ARE NOT A VALID REPLACEMENT LOCAL BACKUP PROCEDURES.
You should never keep your backups at the same physical location as the originals. Always backup to another location that you control.
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Test it yourself unplug you network cable and see if yor files disappear.
I try not to be snarky but really did you even pause for a minute to think about it?
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If the dropbox frontend servers are left to run, but the dropbox DATA servers are taken offline, the theory goes that the dropbox frontend might indicate a "no data" result to every single client, causing the local clients to delete any previously cached data.
Or so the theory goes. There's also the theory that someone nefarious might re-code the frontend servers to issue "delete all data" commands to any incoming client connection.
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"What happens..." is that the dropbox server effectively has a version control system, and files can be rolled back including deletes. It's a totally valid replacement for local backup procedures, with different pros and cons as for any solution. What happens when someone drops the backup tape in their cup of coffee? There are always failure points, but it's silly to say dropbox is "not a valid replacement" because you can conceive of a [mitigated] point of failure.
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Sync is not a backup solution. If you lose the file in one location it gets removed in the other.
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
It's not a matter of expecting them to police content or users, it's a matter of MegaUpload's intentions. The site was clearly profiting from piracy. Likewise, not all hosting companies are going to be illegal just because police bust a hosting company that clearly is profiting from illegal content, for example by naming themselves "Child Porn Hosting" or "Warez ISP" or where it can be proofed that the company is actively acting as such. In this case MegaUpload's internal emails also showed they were fully aware of this.
Do you think police would find similar emails in mailboxes of most hosting providers' personnel, considering that they are very aware how the dedicated servers are being used for various illegal activities?
Why are they not held responsible, and yet they profit from those activities (and are fully aware of it)?
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
You have made a couple assumptions in your post by relying solely on the indictment. As Glenn Greenwald pointed out in his article on the civil liberties issues at play here, http://www.salon.com/2012/01/21/two_lessons_from_the_megaupload_seizure/singleton/ [salon.com] :
What you have done is convict MegaUpload based on nothing more than an assertion by the government, likely at the prodding of *AAs. The story told in the indictment may or may not be true and it definitely presents only one side of the story. Its this sort of rush to judgment, that allows the government to exercise due process free detention and execution and barely anybody bats an eye. Glen says it better than me though:
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It's simply not a principle that is believed in any longer, and therefore is not remotely observed.
Good points all, but the real reason for this is not that those ideals are not believed in. It's unfortunately a matter of political survival that government has to listen to big corporations.
Listen to this talk by Jimmy Carter [abc.net.au], at one point he says the same thing. Back then, he was able to run a campaign on a shoestring, hardly having to raise money at all.
Now, he says, candidates have to raise *hundreds of millions of dollars* to campaign. This has driven politics insane as corporate interests compete aga
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's not a matter of intentions. All the companies listed above (hard drive manufacturers) and many others (computer manufacturers, broadband ISPs, component manufacturers, encryption providers, etc.), directly or indirectly benefit from piracy, because to a significant portion of their users, that's a main or sole reason for using their product/service. That does not mean they are responsible for the actions of their users, any more than the telephone company can be sued under anti-telemarketing laws even though they very well know some users are violating them.
Also, your naming bit fails to make sense. The site was called "MegaUpload". "Mega" is a very common prefix, and "Upload" is exactly what the site allowed its users to do. I fail to see how that connotes illegal activity. Nor do I see how the internal emails matter-I'm sure any site that allows user uploads discusses internally the likelihood that some of those are copyright violations and what to do about them. I imagine you'd find similar emails at Flickr or Youtube, and I know you'd find discussions of that sort on Wikipedia. It's an inevitability of running a user-generated content site.
Faking compliance with DMCA requests, on the other hand, is likely to land you in trouble-and is the only thing you list that should land you in trouble. I haven't seen anything about that though, could you please provide your source for that?
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
When will the average American (or, perhaps more importantly, politicians) learn to distinguish punishment for illegal activity from prior restraint?
Hint: in general terms, it is not permissible in this country to prevent people from performing a certain act simply because some of them might commit a crime.
Laws exist to punish actual criminals, not to prevent people from committing innocent acts just because their neighbor might be a criminal. The former represents justice, the latter unconstitutional government oppression.
"Faking compliance with DMCA requests, on the other hand..."
Even the DMCA goes too far, however, by forcing acts based on mere accusations, before there can be any "due process".
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No, it's not a matter of intentions.
Look up "induced infringement." It absolutely is a matter of intention.
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"Look up "induced infringement." It absolutely is a matter of intention."
Perhaps, but that is only part of the point. If you are going to use intent as the basis for enforcing a law, then you have to demonstrate that the intent actually existed.
But unfortunately for that argument, the fact is that all of MegaUpload's inducements apply equally well to perfectly legal, legitimate uses. So it is not valid to claim that they were "inducing" illegal activity.
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any more than the telephone company can be sued under anti-telemarketing laws even though they very well know some users are violating them.
If they profit from it and subtly encourage it for the sake of profit, absolutely they can.
In fact if I recall that was the huge point of contention in the many Youtube cases: did youtube get its start by encouraging illegal content or not? Youtubes intentions were very relevant to the case.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Who doesn't benefit from copyright infringement? Think about this: how many people would pay $50 or so for high speed internet every month if they couldn't download whatever they wanted? If you were restricted to only going to public domain sites, previewing one tenth of a song only before buying it, not allowed to download a movie and see it pixellated before going to theaters or buying the DVD, or couldn't download an ebook of a book to flip through before buying it, how much would that influence whether you even decided to keep an internet connection or not? Imagine if any of these actions which could lead to purchases resulted in an immediate arrest with no possibility of not getting caught (imagine a rigid system for this hypothetical situation). Would you still use the internet that much? What would the internet then become? A giant outlet for shopping, wikis, and social networks, and that's it?
A good question is what percentage of the internet relies on piracy -- both services like Wordpress and paid storage like GoDaddy hosting? Are subscriptions to high speed internet contingent upon users being able to pirate every now and then even if it's not to a really huge degree? How much would 4Mbps versus 1Mbps matter if you literally couldn't download DVDs, MP3s, pdfs, etc. without knowing you'd get caught? If you were restricted to mostly non-media-rich sites, how much would you need those extra Mbps?
Then what about the recording industries? How many people would buy songs happily if they could only legally hear it on the radio or listen to a :30 second preview before buying it? How much buyers regret would be there? What about films? How many people were introduced to their favorite films by seeing them online through some pirated means? And after that, how many bits of merchandise did they buy? And books, how many people bought new books after downloading a .pdf and loving it?
The problem with piracy isn't that they simply lose money, it's that piracy both stimulates and hurts their profits and there's a happy medium that needs to be reached in order to keep both the industries and the users feeling satisfied. They can't happily say to pirate and yet if they got rid of all of it, imagine how fewer tv series, movies, books, and songs you'd be exposed to if you couldn't first experience some crappy version of it online before opting to buy it as well as merchandise from the company that released it.
Another issue is the fact that they're spending ridiculous amounts of money on combating piracy but not in a way that doesn't adversely affect the harmless user. Encryption that doesn't play well with every platform and causes the average user issues, DRM that's harmful or debilitating, lawsuit after lawsuit, them trying to infringe upon our digital freedoms, despirately grasping onto a few dollars. After seeing the RIAA's profit listings on their website pdfs, I'd put good money on the fact that they're losing insanely more money creating DRM and paying for lobbyists and lawyers to sue some kid in the boondocks for downloading a DVD because the economy is too dead for anyone to afford one than they'd actually lose if they didn't despirately grasp so hard at every last dollar. Meanwhile, there are a lot of users they don't think about who use piracy to expose themselves to new products that they then purchase...
Perhaps if they "unclench" a little and just accept losing a little money (who isn't doing terribly besides the gas companies in this economy), they'd have more profits than in their kicking-and-screaming method that's currently making them more enemies than friends... Think, now that they've DRMed us to death, sued a bunch of kids across the country who now have their lives and futures ruined from a non-violent crime (serious, serious shame), and spent more money on lobbying than most of us make in a few years just to pass laws that infringe upon our freedoms, how much do you want to buy a CD or DVD from them now? Or is this bad publicity just making people more cautious but resulting in the masses wanting to vindictively ream them a hell of a lot harder now...?
They need to reassess their strategy...it sucks.
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How much would 4Mbps versus 1Mbps matter if you literally couldn't download DVDs, MP3s, pdfs, etc. without knowing you'd get caught? If you were restricted to mostly non-media-rich sites, how much would you need those extra Mbps?
This is true, but you seem to be forgetting about the existence of Netflix and Hulu(/Plus), and a bunch of other similar VOD sites. I've seen estimates that show Netflix usage accounting for a huge amount of bandwidth usage in residential areas.
Mind you, I'm not arguing in favor of
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This is true, but you seem to be forgetting about the existence of Netflix and Hulu(/Plus), and a bunch of other similar VOD sites.
You seem to be forgetting that there is a whole world out there, outside USA.
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I don't see the rest of the world putting so much effort into copyright enforcement for the MAFIAA as I do the USA. So this discussion, being "what's the point of a high-bandwidth internet connection if you can't download pirated content without a high risk of getting in trouble?", really is fairly USA-specific. I'm pretty sure internet users in, say, Bulgaria, don't have to worry much about getting sued by the MPAA.
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Think about this: how many people would pay $50 or so for high speed internet every month if they couldn't download whatever they wanted?
People that prefer to use streaming services from places like netflix.
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Think about this: how many people would pay $50 or so for high speed internet every month if they couldn't download whatever they wanted?
People that prefer to use streaming services from places like netflix.
And again, you are forgetting that there is a whole world out there, outside USA, who can not use Netflix.
I can understand that many americans don't realize there are other countries on this planet, which are not US states, but they really shouldn't publicly stress it.
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And again, you are forgetting that there is a whole world out there, outside USA
No, i forget nothing and know there is something beyond our borders. I just don't care.
We spend far to much time, money, resources and bend too much to the whims of your 'outside the USA' entities, for me to give a damn if you can watch netflix ( an American company btw ) or not.
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Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
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In the UK, one of the most popular sites in terms of the amount of data downloaded is BBC iPlayer. That is 100% legal, and you need a pretty fast Internet connection if you want to stream their high definition videos.
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Who doesn't benefit from copyright infringement? Think about this: how many people would pay $50 or so for high speed internet every month if they couldn't download whatever they wanted?
Rather a lot of people. We have a high speed internet connection, and there is so much legally available content. TV station's catchup services like iView, Plus7, etc. Digital delivery of paid content, such as Steam. And then there's all the other uses such as Skype for video chat with family overseas, etc. I suspect we are a typical family for the country I live in. Not only is pirated content unnecessary, it sounds actually fairly inconvenient -- iView (a legitimate free streaming service) works on t
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not intimately familiar with their process, but (for instance) Android ROMs are popular, as linked by xda, as is other original/personally owned content. The model works quite well for legal content of paying contributors while (optionally) charging for popular files, I'd think.
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No Megaupload was profiting from, selling advertising by people visiting the site and by selling premium access for uploads and downloads from the site.
They did not 'pirate' content, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy [wikipedia.org] or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement [wikipedia.org]. The person who pirated content was the uploader.
The people who profited from the 'piracy' were of course the advertisers, who paid for advertising space upon the basis of the value they believed the site provided in gaining access t
Re:SideReel (Score:2)
SideReel might be a honeypot.
The only time I visited them, I got a Copyright Infringement Letter via my ISP about three days later. That chilled me to the bone.
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But they weren't busted for their intentions, they were busted for breaking DMCA and other laws.
Megaupload did not 'break' DMCA. They were probably one of the most compliant sites out there (YouTube probably being the best one, since they did overdo everything in regards to takedowns, but they also have funds and contacts to do it).
I am still in shock after reading points 22 and 23 in indictment, I can't believe anyone could seriously put those things there. it is going to hurt prosecution, because that shows how desperately they are trying to paint a dirty picture.
It's not like anyone from prosecutio
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the issue isn't about storage of pirated files, it's about leveraging access to pirated content in order to make money.
The difference between MU and hard drive makers is that hard drive makers don't have revenue sharing schemes whereby they pay people who advertise and sell hard drives filled with pirated content. The more apt comparison would be a situation wherein Toshiba, Seagate, etc. are paying private individuals who possess pirated content to make that content available to the public in a scheme to drive hard drive sales.
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The same could be said for Google (search), Microsoft (search), Apple (you can pull songs off their i* products to another computer), and (I'm sure) a thousand other technology companies.
People like you simply don't get it: You can not penalize the provider of a service which can be and probably will be leveraged for illegal purposes when there is a legitimate use for said service or product - particularly when that legitimate use is easily conceived within the legal definitions of what is allowed.
* Selling
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MegaUpload's revenue sharing scheme was based on popular content. In fact, I seem to recall lots of people complaining over the years about them refusing payouts because the content in question was pirated; the indictment even references an internal e-mail in which they mention doing this, though it spins it rather interestingly. There were presumably other similar even more clear e-mails not referred to in the indictment.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Informative)
The standard created by the grokster SCOTUS case rest upon if they are "inducing" users to infringe copyright. I think that rapidshare and megaupload clearly fit that standard based upon their business models but dropbox does not.
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Now that's a stretch, buddy (Score:2)
That's as stupid as the argument that iPod and MP3 player owners in Canada should pay a levy on their devices because they store music. It's not the same as the CD levy, where once burned, the music is PERMANENT.
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Re:Yes (Score:5, Funny)
...Toshiba, Seagate, Samsung, Hitachi and Western Digital are profiting from Pirating because people store illegally acquired content on their hard drives.
Somewhere a lawyer smiled in his sleep and kicked his feet like a puppy after a bunny rabbit.
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The trouble is, thats like saying Toshiba, Seagate, Samsung, Hitachi and Western Digital are profiting from Pirating because people store illegally acquired content on their hard drives.
In Finland, we call it Hyvitysmaksu [hyvitysmaksu.fi].
The root cause is lack of a basic income (Score:2)
"Going after these services is treating a symptom, not the root cause."
See: http://www.basicincome.org/bien/ [basicincome.org]
The root cause is lack of a basic income, an expanded gift economy, or improved subsistence technology, and/or better government planning (which could all support artists and other creators).
With a basic income (or those other things), creative people would not have to worry where their next meal is coming from, and would not have to engage in the legal, but increasingly immoral (in the internet age),
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Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
last i checked, not only is it NOT illegal to pay for popular things, it's ALSO one of the fundamental principles behind the "free market".
this whole thing is troubling. especially since services like MegaUpload CAN serve as alternative distribution channels out of the control of old media. if old media can get these services shut down, it's not because of any criminality: it's because they're trying to eliminate competing business models.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
if the model is basically "we pay if your file is popular", but there is no checking of the actual file, whether the user has actual rights to the file or not, or encouragement of piracy specifically, all that's left is accusing MegaUpload of encouraging popular files.
Note the IF. What you describe is not how MegaUpload operates. If the indictments are to be believed, the operators were caught numerous times encouraging the sharing of content that they knew to be pirated.
You're correct that a truly content-agnostic file storage and sharing site should have nothing to fear. DropBox is safe. The operators of MegaUpload, however, serve as a textbook example of purposely avoiding all the safe harbor opportunities. This isn't because they were stupid -- far from it -- but because this is their very business model.
The legal concept of mens rea -- latin for "guilty mind" -- applies here. The MegaUpload guys, through their actions, have been nailed fair and square. This is their choice. They took the lucrative, but risky, path, of actively courting piracy. Their business model is wholly different than that of DropBox.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
The MegaUpload guys, through their actions, have been nailed fair and square. This is their choice. They took the lucrative, but risky, path, of actively courting piracy. Their business model is wholly different than that of DropBox.
What blows my mind is that this Kim Dotcom guy could be THAT greedy. Obviously he has some minimal amount of required intelligence to get the infrastructure and technology in place to operate at the massive scale that MU was at. However, it seems to me that anyone in their right mind would bail from something so risky after reaping a few tens of millions of dollars. He could have stopped a year or two ago, after putting away millions of dollars, and claimed that although he tried to run a legitimate, legal online business, too many people were taking advantage of his site in ways he didn't intend or condone, but it would require too many resources to try and police all the uploaded files. So his only recourse was to shut down the sites and close up shop. He'd have almost certainly escaped any legal problems once everything was shut down, and he could've just quietly taken his money and lived high off the hog for the rest of his life.
But no, this guy was greedy. REALLY greedy. $4.9 million in cars alone at his main residence. $24 million dollar estate. $12,000 PER DAY rent for their office headquarters in Hong Kong. Money was his downfall, that's for sure.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/01/21/megaupload-founder-kim-dotcom-by-the-numbers/?iid=biz-main-mostpop2 [time.com]
Re:Yes (Score:5, Funny)
What blows my mind is that this Kim Dotcom guy could be THAT greedy.
Exactly, he should have taken a lesson from the 1% and stopped at ... destruction of society?
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destruction of society
Citation, please.
The Occupy movement.
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What I don't get is why he operated the servers inside the US, since that's the most dangerous place for this kind of activity. I realize that's also where the most users are, and the bandwidth to Vanuatu isn't that great, but why not locate them in Canada or someplace else where the bandwidth is good enough?
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He got extradited from New Zealand. Would the location of the site's servers have prevented this?
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And even if he's found guilty in a US court he can still contest the charges in an NZ court and if su
If you're going to steal $2M, why not $2B? (Score:2)
If you're going to steal, go big! You'll get the same prison term stealing a few blu-ray players from your local retail establishment as you will tens of millions through some financial or copyright scheme.
I suspect the part of the plan that failed was thinking he was immune from prosecution by the US by living in New Zealand.
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Only until the government says it isn't in an indictment. Then it's lights out for the company. Utterly wiped out, domains seized, all on a mere accusation. And once they make the accusation, you'll buy it as gospel truth the same as you bought their accusations against Megaupload.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
A) In many cases, Megaupload employees knew that *specific* files on the site were in violation of copyright, but they took no action to remove the content
B) Knowing specific files were copyrighted, megaupload still paid out rewards to those files' uploaders
C) In a few instances, staff members shared links to copyrighted content with eachother and with the internet at large.
Those are just the most egregious points, which basically demolish their claim of safe-harbor. But there's more: The claim of conspiracy at first sounds ridiculous and overblown, but it begins to make sense when the indictment describes all the ways Megaupload is alleged to have actively worked to conceal piracy. Claims of DCMA compliance are shot to pieces by an allegation that certain links were the subject of takedown notices, but remained active for over a year. I could go on, but just read the thing yourself, it's actually pretty interesting for a while.
The guys at Megaupload sound hella guilty. The only other explanation is a massive conspiracy involving the FBI and the Justice Department, but I have trouble believing that.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
I work for a fairly large web hosting company, and we used to police our selves - if during any routine investigation (as in if someone reported a problem with their account) and we found anything suspicious we would suspend if it was "seemingly" obvious, although two specific incidents changed our policy on that relatively quickly. The first had to do with a Microsoft Development edition of some sort - it turned out the customer was a reseller and had the full right to have that on his site for purchase/download. The second was with a small record label out of the UK, iirc, selling/offering their own goods. Both incidents highlighted the fact that we were not qualified to tell whether something was illegal or not - so we essentially backed completely off, and unless we get a DMCA notice or one sent to the customer - all we do IF we see something very, very suspicious and they are somehow in violation of our RUP/TOS - then we only send them a ticket, if they dont respond with in a given amount of time that is something else entirely.
The point being, is that just because something seems to be illegal - doesn't mean it is, you/we have NO idea if the customer in question has some kind of weird contract with the copyright holder and if they are in violation of it or not - THAT is up to a judge and/or contract attorney to decide, no one else. We see stuff all the time across our large fleet of servers, and the fact that internal communications between employees reflect this is only pointing out something interesting is all. Whether something is actually illegal or not, is a point of contract law - not mere speculation of someone NOT well versed in this.
The flip side of this issue is that the Internet is a VERY large place, and it's simply next to impossible to check every nook and cranny for your various IP'd material - which where logically the rights holders would try and force the providers to police them self, which as noted above is impossible as well.
Conclusion - simply trying to fit a square block (brick and mortar business model) into a round hole (cyber space) just does not fit
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"Those internal communication mean nothing"
In prosecuting copyright cases, internal communications mean everything. I'm not speaking in the abstract here; incriminating emails were instrumental in the Napster case and some other major copyright cases, going back to the BBS days. It's an all-too-common pattern: publicly, the company claims that it doesn't know that copyrighted information is being shared in an unauthorized manner; their internal emails reveal that they do know this; plausible deniability i
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It doesn't matter if the sound hella guilty, they still get their day in court before punitive action like destroying the entire business is taken.
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If (unlikely) Megaupload is found innocent, then their servers will be restored and service resumed.
What are you, 12 (asking because of a lack of historical perspective, not lack of logic, reasoning, etc.)? Ask Steve Jackson how that works out.
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It is how the law works when dealing with allegations of corporate copyright infringement. Arresting them was extremely heavy handed, especially arresting all of them. Why not just go after Dotcom and allow his employees to continue running the company in the mean time? Copyright infringement is normally a civil matter anyway, not a criminal one.
After all, no one arrested all employees of the same media companies that demanded this when they committed multi million dollar copyright infringement against thei
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If it turns out that just a few of those allegations are true then yes MU has completely blown their DMCA safe harbor protection to kingdom come and those behind MU will be in Prison for a long time and we will probably see another new astronomical damage calculation from the **AA's.
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You should probably read the indictment more critically.
In many cases, Megaupload employees knew that *specific* files on the site were in violation of copyright, but they took no action to remove the content
Could they legally? I can't remember what the law is on this.
Knowing specific files were copyrighted, megaupload still paid out rewards to those files' uploaders
It doesn't actually say this. It mentions e-mailed spreadsheets of users, the payout amounts they would be getting and the kind of content the payout was for - some of which was obviously pirated - but it doesn't actually say whether they were actually paid, with one exception. That exception was a user who was uploading Vietnamese content that the staff couldn't identify. It leaves you to in
Re:Yes (Score:4, Informative)
> last i checked, not only is it NOT illegal to pay for popular things, it's ALSO one of the fundamental principles behind the "free market".
Sure, it is called selling content. But you can only sell content you own, not content that someone pirated for you.
Dropbox and similar services get around this problem by offering a service, not content. You can upload your files, you can download your files, and you can even share your files. Dropbox has no incentive for illegal content.
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But you can only sell content you own
Clearly you're a bit behind the times [viewnews.com] there, mate.
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It's been on Slashdot [slashdot.org] before. If not directly in the headline, it had a host of these stories in the comments section.
I think you'll find this [slashdot.org] comment interesting:
I'm in Sioux City, Iowa of all places, and our band has seen this shit tried on two bars that I've played at. We called the fine gentleman who left his card and told him we were not ASCAP members and played only original music. He responded that it only takes four chords before we infringe on his artists' songs, and it was simply not possible for us not to infringe.
Yeah.. I really don't know what to respond to that.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
You're correct, and there's big difference between RapidShare and the likes of Dropbox. MegaUpload, RapidShare etc is clearly profiting from copyrighted content. They pay users to upload popular files, and in 99% of cases it is pirated content. In turn they profit when users want to access those files. It's a huge "industry", and there will most likely be many more arrests when the list of affiliates that directly made money by uploading copyrighted content without permission goes public.
So, for the sake of the argument, let's assume that 'pay for downloads' program is still running on Mega.
And decides to upload a new song that (s)he just made.
And 50 million people download it.
And (s)he gets paid by Mega.
Would you have any objections to that?
Program in itself is not a problem. Problem is that most popular downloads were those that infringed copyright and were uploaded by random people.
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Not only that but Google does the exact same thing on YouTube. You can post a video and get paid for advertising shown with the video. They have a ton of things you have to agree to that it's not pirated content and you own the copyright, but still...
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Don't worry, the website has already been seized, so it's a hypothetical we needn't concern ourselves with.
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It's the uploader that pays for file upload space just like with web hosting, and he (nor Dropbox) cannot make money by uploading pirated content.
Yes, Dropbox provides no incentive for users to upload copyrighted content, and you have to pay to upload content (aside from the 2GB of free space you get with a free account).
But technically one could argue that Dropbox itself profits more heavily from the users uploading copyrighted content (than the users who are just uploading their personal stuff). If you host a file-sharing site that's cashflow-positive and that has a scalable business model, any super popular (most likely copyrighted) content that i
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Just take our financial system as an example, that system is flawed too, and thousands of financial industry executives and mortgage brokers have taken advantage of that fact, but you don't see the FBI or the Federal Reserve suddenly storming those guy's mansions with SWAT teams and throwing them in jail.
Agreed; we need more technically competent people to abandon their roles and seek government positions, because those positions are currently mostly filled by people close to "too-big-to-fail finance". Unfortunately, most technically competent people enjoy controlling machines more than they enjoy controlling humans. What is really too big to fail? Fucking physics. And it's already been proven to fail (was different at the big bang; is different within a black hole; and might be different as the unive
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Dropbox doesn't have any such incentive for users, and they're free to download from.
Minor nit. Are you suggesting that Megaupload requires downloaders to pay? That's false. It is true, however, that it is slow/inconvenient for people to download from Megaupload for free. Agree in general with your distinction between the business models of Dropbox and Megaupload/Rapidshare/et. al. Finally, if Dropbox is in trouble, then so is Google (via Google Docs).
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That's like saying that antivirus developers are responsible for viruses because they profit from their existence.
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You're correct, and there's big difference between RapidShare and the likes of Dropbox. MegaUpload, RapidShare etc is clearly profiting from copyrighted content.
No. They're profiting from advertisements and premium accounts. They provide a service. It has nothing to do with copyright infringement. But I guess websites that have users who may or may not be doing illegal things shouldn't be allowed to have advertisements or make money from the website at all because some of their users may be doing illegal things.
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twist the concept of morality
What does that even mean?
who have profited to the tune of many, many millions of dollars from piracy?
How so? Show me where they were withholding links to copyrighted material specifically and forcing people to pay to download the files. If they did that, then I would agree that they profited from 'piracy'.
However, they merely provided a service. They didn't profit directly from piracy. They profited from people viewing their ads, and from premium accounts. Neither are directly related to piracy. Their users' intentions are irrelevant here.
Does "sticking it to the man" forgive all?
No, and that's just a straw man.
Who is this "Freecoder" guy? Is he from MAFIAA ? (Score:2)
Just read what this "Freecoder" has been writing in this thread
I'd bet this guy is from MAFIAA, or similar thuggery groups
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Dunno about Dropbox, but neither MegaUpload nor Rapidshare charge(d) for downloads. You can pay for increased bandwidth, parallel downloads and similar premium services, but you can download everything without paying them a dime. They make money on providing convenience benefits to people already downloading, not for access to the content. That's a huge difference legally.