+1
I’ve had some time to digest.
First,
I’d like to point out that I HAVE downloaded movies from the internet. But my argument isn’t that you shouldn’t do it, it’s that it IS and should be ILLEGAL; there COULD be consequences to pay. I love breaking the law, I do it all the time… but if I am caught I know there are potential consequences and I’m not afraid to admit it.
Second,
If downloading illegal media “isn’t wrong”, let’s assume that every single person downloads movies. Because we all know that if were totally legal, there would be some super simple interface to allow us to do so…
Do you think that you would have a show like “Entourage”? HBO gets money from subscribers, pays a production company to make it, then plays it on the air. No ad revenue (maybe some spiffs for product placement). Who the hell is going to pay for HBO when you can just DL it for free? Do you think that any production company is going to make a TV show and just give it away? Is stealing movies OK, but not stealing TV shows? How would you feel about going to the theater to see Entourage every week?
If a production company makes a movie that doesn’t go to theaters, how are they making money? Sure, AVATAR made millions in theaters and with subsequent branding, but I can tell you that my favorite movies didn’t make a ton of money in the theater… and there sure as shit are no The Royal Tennenbaum action figures. Movies like that would cease to exist.
Whelp, to each his own…
Moar Kim Dotcom porn I guess. This guy is quickly becoming my favorite public face!
The costs and profits in hollywood are outrageous, without a doubt. That doesn’t mean it’s morally correct to steal their product though. If you don’t like the costs, don’t consume it. If demand goes down, so will the prices and subsequent profits.
Who wears a vest into a hot tub?
Let me clarify. I didn’t say my situation applied to everyone, it applies to me. Yes it’s illegal, but it’s a victimless crime. If they did something that prevented me from doing so, I’d be pissed off and act accordingly. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there that download what they would otherwise buy, in which case they are losing money. I think everything is overpriced and lacking quality so I choose not to consume most of it (legally, anyway) and will still do so if I can’t download it.
HBO is a totally different matter as I subscribe to the HBO/Cinemax/Showtime package and they are also overpriced as fuck. However, I like their original content and the occasional movie enough that I pay their exorbitant monthly rates.
Has anyone else on here been keeping up with the Kim Dotcom / megaupload case? I look every day to see if there have been any new developments, but there has not beel a lot of activity lately.
For those that dont know what its all about, most of the info is on his wiki page-- specifically “Kim Dotcoms arrest in new zealand” and below. Seems like the info in the wiki is correct from all of the other articles I have read. There is a lot of small details that arent in the wiki.
I really do think that the US is behind everything that happened here. Why would the US use its political power, or more importantly, waste its time to go after this guy? If his “crimes” are soo bad that they spend this kind of money/time going after him, why were they unable to follow the law to “apprehend” him?
If sites like these are such a concern, why have they not gone after other sites like 4shared, mediafire, rapidshare, etc? I would like to see how much money is spent combating internet piracy every year.
---------- Post added at 03:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:45 PM ----------
Dotcom’s arrest in New Zealand
Megaupload.com
Main article: Megaupload
See also: Megaupload legal case
In February 2003, at the same time he registered Trendax, Dotcom set up another company called Data Protect Limited, but changed the name to Megaupload in 2005.[34] Megaupload is a file hosting and sharing business. In 10 Facts about the Megaupload Scandal, Dotcom describes the company like this: “Megaupload is a provider of cloud storage services. The company’s primary website, Megaupload.com, offered a popular Internet-based storage platform for customers, who ranged from large businesses to individuals. This storage platform allowed its users to store files in the Internet “cloud” and to use, if needed, online storage space and bandwidth.” The company was incredibly successful. Millions of people from across the globe used Megaupload to store and access copies of TV shows, feature films, songs, porn, and software.[40] Eventually it had over 150 employees, US$175 million revenues,[41] and 50 million daily visitors.[42] At its peak Megaupload was estimated to be the 13th most popular site on the internet and responsible for 4% of all internet traffic.[42][43]
On 5 January 2012,[44] indictments were filed in Virginia in the United States against Dotcom and other company executives with crimes related to online piracy, including racketeering, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, and conspiring to commit money laundering. Two weeks later (20 January), Kim Dotcom, Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk were arrested in Coatesville, Auckland, New Zealand, by New Zealand Police, in an armed raid on Dotcom’s house in which the police came in by helicopter. Assets worth $17 million were seized including eighteen luxury cars, giant screen TVs and works of art. Dotcom’s bank accounts were frozen denying him access to US$175m (NZ$218m) in cash, the contents of 64 bank accounts world-wide, including BNZ and Kiwibank accounts in New Zealand, Govern- ment bonds and money from numerous PayPal accounts. [45] According to Dotcom, about 80 police officers were involved in the operation;[46] the New Zealand police claimed it was between 20 and 30.[47]
Dotcom was remanded to Mt Eden prison. The first night he was not given toilet paper or other basic amenities and said: “Every two hours, they would wake me up. I was deprived of sleep. I wrote a complaint. I said, ‘This is torture, this is sleep deprivation’.” He said he was treated like a convicted criminal and was “stunned to be locked up in prison over claims of criminal copyright infringements when accused murderers were bailed to await trial”.</ref>Dotcom: I will beat charges, NZ Herald, 1 March 2012 </ref>
On 22 February, he was released on bail on condition that he remained within 80 km of his Coatesville residence. He was also barred from Internet access. Bail was granted after considering his flight risk and seizure of assets. Judge Dawson stated Dotcom has “every reason to stay to be with his family and fight to keep his assets.”
Political fallout from Dotcom’s arrest
On 28 June 2012, New Zealand High Court Justice Helen Winkelmann found the warrants used to seize Dotcom’s property did not adequately describe the offences to which they were related. “These categories of items were defined in such a way that they would inevitably capture within them both relevant and irrelevant material. The police acted on this authorisation. The warrants could not authorise seizure of irrelevant material, and are therefore invalid.”[48] News emerged later that the Crown knew it was using the wrong order while the raid was in progress.[49]
At a court hearing in June the Crown also revealed that police had handed seized hard drives to FBI staff who copied them at the police crime lab in South Auckland and sent the copies back to the US.[49] Justice Winkelmann ruled that handing the hard drives seized in the raid over to the FBI was in breach of extradition legislation and the FBI’s cloning of the hard-drives also invalid.[48]
This judgement may call into question the admissibility of the evidence that was gathered in later extradition hearings .[50] The judgement was also significant because the illegal seizure of his assets meant Dotcom was struggling to pay his mounting legal bills. In the High Court in Auckland on 28 August 2012, Justice Judith Potter allowed Dotcom to borrow approximately €6 million ($4.83m US) against a €10 million government bond. Dotcom was allowed the sale of nine of his cars. The amount released will cover €2.6 million in existing legal bills, €1 million in future costs, and another €1 million rent on Dotcom’s New Zealand mansion.[51]
On September 24, 2012 Prime Minister John Key revealed that, at the request of the police, the New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) had spied on Dotcom illegally helping police locate Dotcom and monitor his communications in the weeks prior to the raid on his house.[52] The GCSB is not allowed to spy on New Zealand citizens and Dotcom had been granted permanent residency. Three days later, the Prime Minister John Key apologized for the illegal spying. “I apologize to Mr Dotcom. I apologize to New Zealanders because every New Zealander…is entitled to be protected from the law when it comes to the GCSB [Government Communications Security Bureau], and we failed to provide that appropriate protection for him.”[53]
The mistakes by authorities have attracted widespread media coverage and John Key’s handling of the affair has come in for some stinging criticism from Opposition parties in Parliament. Political commentator Bryce Edwards said the GCSB’s involvement and the botched search warrants have “turned the pursuit of (Dotcom) and the operations of our law-enforcement agencies into the stuff of farce”. A Waikato Times’ editorial said that the announcement of the illegal spying has “heightened suspicions that this country’s relationship with the United States has become one of servility rather than friendship… It is preposterous to suggest Mr Dotcom threatens our national security. The Government’s unquestioning readiness to co-operate with American authorities seriously corrodes our claims to be an independent state.”[54] The case has also made headlines overseas including in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Guardian and the Hollywood Reporter which specialises in legal and entertainment issues.[55]
Dotcom’s perspective
In a lengthy article in TorrentFreak, Dotcom claims he was not guilty of insider trading in Germany. He said the judge and prosecutor offered him a suspended sentence if he pleaded guilty. “I took the deal and moved on with my life instead of spending the next few years in court rooms defending my innocence.” [56] Commenting on his business activities in Hong Kong, he said: “Hong Kong, what an awesome place to do business and to host my new phantom persona. I should write a book about doing business in Hong Kong, that’s how good it is.”
Dotcom also wrote: “I made mistakes when I was young and I paid the price. Steve Jobs was a hacker and Martha Stuart is doing well after her insider trading case. I think over a decade after all of this happened it should NOT be the dominating topic. I am 37 years old now, I am married, I have three adorable children with two more on the way (twin girls – yeah) and I know that I am not a bad person. I have grown and I have learned. Making this into an issue about my past is unfair to everyone else working at Mega…Mega has nothing to fear. Our business is legitimate and protected by the DMCA and similar laws around the world. We work with the best lawyers and play by the rules. We take our legal obligations seriously. Mega’s war chest is full and we have strong supporters backing us. We have been online for 7 years and we are here to stay, so no need to worry about us.”[56]
In regard to the specifics of the case, Dotcom believes Megaupload had actively tried to prevent copyright infringement - its terms of service forced users to agree they would not post copyrighted material to the website. Companies or individuals with concerns their copyright material was being posted on Megaupload were given direct access to the website to delete infringing links. Megaupload also employed 20 staff dedicated to taking down material which might infringe copyright.[57] Dotcom also explained that Megaupload was responsible for 800 files being transferred every second and that it would be impossible to police all that traffic. In addition, US privacy laws, such as Electronic Communication Privacy Act, prohibit the administrators from looking into the accounts of the users.
On 1 March 2012 Dotcom gave his first interview to New Zealand media after his arrest to John Campbell of Campbell Live.[58] He explained the close ties of his case to that of Viacom vs. YouTube; in which the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) shielded YouTube from the infringement of its users and described his surprise when he was arrested without trial or a hearing.[59] Dotcom has spoken out against his negative portrayal in the media, claiming to be a reformed character and a legitimate businessman who has been unfairly demonized by United States authorities and industry trade groups such as the RIAA and MPAA.[56] He contends that the services offered by his Megaupload site were not significantly different from those of comparable services such as Rapidshare[citation needed] or YouTube, and he has just been used as a scapegoat because of his hacker past.
Quoted from wiki for those who dont want to click.
repost
Josh nailed it here…
Whoops. Dunno how I missed that one in my search. Disregard.
Cliff notes?
Do illegal stuff
Hope the US fucks up the legal process based on the fact you live in another country
Claim you were innocent
Wait even longer because the US has no idea how to put together a case of this size.
Megaupload was created to allow anyone to upload a file and send a link for people to download it. Grew and turned into a huge filesharing site with videos, movies, porn, music, etc and was shut down over seas by the US government and the US wants a non US citizen to come back to the US to face trial for US crimes, again not being a US citizen. The bigger issue is where does website providers responsibilities go to monitor thier users. Does Facebook/YouTube need to make sure that every video on their site is owned by who posts it? The argument is that the site profited and paid users for content that was popular but YouTube shares revenue for videos with people and there is a ton of websites that also give users incentives for doing things and dont check everything you do unless it gets reported.
IC, modern napster, only living over seas
Kinda. Napsterand those enabled peer to peer sharing. Someone had to willingly share their music with other people. Napster never stored anything on their systems, the users did. Individual users were caught for sharing on those networks. That was a different argument with does Napster get in trouble people for allowing people a way to sharing music or is it their responsibility to monitor every file that gets sent between two users.
Megaupload is a host of files. They store them but again, are providers responsible for monitoring every file that comes in and out of their sites? They did have a take down policy which the US DMCA requires you to have that if someone did see their works on there, they can request it be removed and the supposedly honored it.
Threads merged, oh and Megaupload song! 
Have to give one thing to Kim, he’s got a great PR team. With this internet generation who will believe anything with a flashy video and catchy toon he might actually be able to convince a bunch of people that him being busted after profiting millions hosting a site that swapped almost entirely other people’s copyrighted works is a violation of free speech.
As soon as I saw Martin Luther King in that video I stopped watching. This guy is NOT Martin Luther King.
KONY!
lloll, swizzbeats, you suck at rapping, nobody will pay money for your cds, so you can fund your autotune programs