Megaupload closed down by the Feds.
- Thread starter Skwink
- Start date
plarq
Crazy forever
But it is my damned files that goes kaput, not the perp...
aimeeandbeatles
watermelon
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2007
- Messages
- 20,082
You misunderstand. If SOPA passed, you would not need to. It is like Canada's War Measures Act. Look it up sometime. You can arrest someone and throw them in jail without a due process.
CaptainF
The Professional Poster
You agree with warpus then, got it.
dominatr
Smoke Jaguar
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2010
- Messages
- 922
I honestly don't know what i should be thinking right now. I never really used MegaUpload, mediafire seemed to be of most service to me but its this which bugs me:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ent...-megaupload-shut-down-for-piracy-by-feds.html
"After receiving indictments from a grand jury in Virginia for racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and other charges on Jan. 5, federal authorities on Thursday arrested four people and executed more than 20 search warrants in the U.S. and eight foreign countries, seizing 18 domain names and an estimated $50 million in assets, including servers run in Virginia and Washington, D.C." -from the above article
How could federal authorities acquire search warrants for foreign countries? They seem to be going a bit out of their way to fight a crime which essentially isn't a major moral infraction if you are stealing something that doesn't tangibly exist from something that also doesn't tangibly exist. Just another example of how corporations are gradually usurping the government.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ent...-megaupload-shut-down-for-piracy-by-feds.html
"After receiving indictments from a grand jury in Virginia for racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and other charges on Jan. 5, federal authorities on Thursday arrested four people and executed more than 20 search warrants in the U.S. and eight foreign countries, seizing 18 domain names and an estimated $50 million in assets, including servers run in Virginia and Washington, D.C." -from the above article
How could federal authorities acquire search warrants for foreign countries? They seem to be going a bit out of their way to fight a crime which essentially isn't a major moral infraction if you are stealing something that doesn't tangibly exist from something that also doesn't tangibly exist. Just another example of how corporations are gradually usurping the government.
warpus
In pork I trust
kramerfan86
Deity
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2008
- Messages
- 3,572
Im getting tired of our broke government which faces real problems and major crimes is spending so much time and effort to protect a greedy and in many cases incompetent industry that shoots itself in the foot then wants to blame piracy completely for its problems and demands that daddy fed come save them.
BasketCase
Username sez it all
I've been through that already (though I forget exactly where--OP is getting real busy lately): no, I don't see a bypass around due process anywhere within SOPA. But, even assuming there was such a thing: so what? You still have to go through due process to arrest people. Web sites are inanimate piles of circuitry, and except for Johnny Five, inanimate piles of circuitry do not have rights.
Actually, no--I wasn't agreeing with you.That's what I said, thanks for agreeing.
CaptainF
The Professional Poster
Exactly.
We'll just start our own internet! With blackjack, and hookers!
CaptainF
The Professional Poster
Books are inanimate piles of paper. Burn them!
So you don't know what you wrote on your own post...right.
So web sites aren't property?
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Irrelevant. The data on the web sites are. And the guys at Megaupload were stealing that property. That's why they were arrested.
Evie
Pronounced like Eevee
The point I was making, which you turned into something completely different, is that it's virtually a given that any website or service which allow file transfer will also allow be usable for copyright infringement. After all, at their basis, the point is to permit users to upload files, that can then be downloaded by others (or, in the case of sites like YT, viewed). Demanding that such sites hand-check the copyright of each file before allowing them to be transfered is going to make it impossible to operate those sites, and even if they can operate, very cumbersome for users to upload files...especially those gray areas files (mods, etc) that are generally welcomed by the companies in charge but technically a big question mark copyright-wise.
Here, there are claims that the owners were actual pirates, etc, but the general thrust (and the reasoning cited for taking the site down, as opposed to arresting the people in charge of it) is that the site was used to allow for illegal file transfers. This is the public statement the entertainment industry and mass media are putting out; and since they're the ones filling complaints and pushing for new, thougher laws to give their complaints even more devastating powers, they're the ones I'm concerned with. Regarding the purely criminal accusations that MU's leadership profited from piracy, we'll see what the trial says.
Hence, my point. ANY site that allow for file transfers will be used for illegal ones. Going against those websites may harm piracy (although keeping in mind that pirates are generally more tech-savvy than most and will have an easier time finding workarounds), but it will also actively prevent a great deal of people from carrying out legitimate activities.
Trying to twist it into some kind of appeal to emotion or appeal for actual culprits not to be punished is the sort of dishonest twisting one would expect from the mass media.
Here, there are claims that the owners were actual pirates, etc, but the general thrust (and the reasoning cited for taking the site down, as opposed to arresting the people in charge of it) is that the site was used to allow for illegal file transfers. This is the public statement the entertainment industry and mass media are putting out; and since they're the ones filling complaints and pushing for new, thougher laws to give their complaints even more devastating powers, they're the ones I'm concerned with. Regarding the purely criminal accusations that MU's leadership profited from piracy, we'll see what the trial says.
Hence, my point. ANY site that allow for file transfers will be used for illegal ones. Going against those websites may harm piracy (although keeping in mind that pirates are generally more tech-savvy than most and will have an easier time finding workarounds), but it will also actively prevent a great deal of people from carrying out legitimate activities.
Trying to twist it into some kind of appeal to emotion or appeal for actual culprits not to be punished is the sort of dishonest twisting one would expect from the mass media.
Yeah, anyone could use facebook for copyright infringement if they wanted to. Just upload someone's images or photographs that are copyrighted, without the owner's permission. BAM shut down a site with over 500 million users. Really good work Basket, you have stopped piracy.
But at what cost? At what cost, BasketCase? Do you want to make the internet unusable?
Jeez, even a text-only exchange could break copyright. I could write down a huge excerpt from a book I was reading, or song lyrics, or a repeat a registered trademark. Should we shut down all of the IRC websites?
But at what cost? At what cost, BasketCase? Do you want to make the internet unusable?
Jeez, even a text-only exchange could break copyright. I could write down a huge excerpt from a book I was reading, or song lyrics, or a repeat a registered trademark. Should we shut down all of the IRC websites?
aimeeandbeatles
watermelon
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2007
- Messages
- 20,082
even if you shut down the internet that would not stop piracy
kramerfan86
Deity
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2008
- Messages
- 3,572
Im actually a little irked, so I will expand on my last thought. The taxpayer's money should not be spent protecting a greedy industry from its own incompetence. And let's be frank, piracy is simply the people voting with their wallets.
Movies have grown more and more bloated in cost both in the theater and on DVD. On top of that they want to double charge for digital and physical copies thanks to the ridiculous DRM on DVDs that does NOTHING to stop piracy but simply prevents the consumer from putting their purchased content on their digital devices. Video games are becoming a screw job as well. If you get a computer game they are slapping more and more brutal DRM on it or their favorite move of not releasing the whole game or releasing the whole game, but locking part of it on disc. Either way they charge you another 10-20 dollars for the "DLC" which is actually just the rest of your already purchased game. Microsoft and probably Sony eventually charge you to even play on line
And music? Get bent RIAA. For decades you sold millions upon millions of albums based upon 1-3 songs then the rest filler. Billions of dollars in profit and millions of consumers hosed because there was no way to get just the good stuff. Finally the internet rolls around, so the game changed. People dont have to put up with your garbage, with blindly buying albums without knowing if they were good, they rebelled or they just buy the songs you want. Either way your sale's went down, deal.
Finally, the movie, television, and music industries do their best to try and strangle any new legal method consumers have to consume their product. Anytime something like pandora, last fm, spotify, netflix, redbox, etc. comes along, gets people legally consuming and gets popular they get greedy and they try to strangle it, suck it dry of every last bit of blood and treasure. Look at netflix, as soon as it became popular the television and movie companies demanded more money, so netflix had to raise rates, and now its spiraling. Millions of legal consumers gone, quite potentially back to piracy.
But no, its not their fault. The government needs to come save them from the evil pirates who are costing them all their money because darn it they are trying their best and are being utterly victimized by anonymous banditos who steal for no reason from them!
tl;dr Im sick of our tax dollars being used to protect incompetence. The consumer is fed up and the government shouldnt make it so that the industry doesnt have to make changes.
Movies have grown more and more bloated in cost both in the theater and on DVD. On top of that they want to double charge for digital and physical copies thanks to the ridiculous DRM on DVDs that does NOTHING to stop piracy but simply prevents the consumer from putting their purchased content on their digital devices. Video games are becoming a screw job as well. If you get a computer game they are slapping more and more brutal DRM on it or their favorite move of not releasing the whole game or releasing the whole game, but locking part of it on disc. Either way they charge you another 10-20 dollars for the "DLC" which is actually just the rest of your already purchased game. Microsoft and probably Sony eventually charge you to even play on line
And music? Get bent RIAA. For decades you sold millions upon millions of albums based upon 1-3 songs then the rest filler. Billions of dollars in profit and millions of consumers hosed because there was no way to get just the good stuff. Finally the internet rolls around, so the game changed. People dont have to put up with your garbage, with blindly buying albums without knowing if they were good, they rebelled or they just buy the songs you want. Either way your sale's went down, deal.
Finally, the movie, television, and music industries do their best to try and strangle any new legal method consumers have to consume their product. Anytime something like pandora, last fm, spotify, netflix, redbox, etc. comes along, gets people legally consuming and gets popular they get greedy and they try to strangle it, suck it dry of every last bit of blood and treasure. Look at netflix, as soon as it became popular the television and movie companies demanded more money, so netflix had to raise rates, and now its spiraling. Millions of legal consumers gone, quite potentially back to piracy.
But no, its not their fault. The government needs to come save them from the evil pirates who are costing them all their money because darn it they are trying their best and are being utterly victimized by anonymous banditos who steal for no reason from them!
tl;dr Im sick of our tax dollars being used to protect incompetence. The consumer is fed up and the government shouldnt make it so that the industry doesnt have to make changes.
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
I hope they don't shut down Mediafire. I have backup of my musical files there - files that I no longer have available physically.
Get them and put 'em on Dropbox or more/other upload sites
