Megaupload Shutdown


Ad: Buy Girls Und Panzer Merch from Play Asia!

Kit-Tsukasa

-desu
Retired
So for those who don't know, Megaupload has been shut down by US officials due to online piracy. It seems that this is the target of SOPA and PIPA (unsurprisingly) as they attract the largest amount of downloaders.

Express your thoughts here.

Note: The thread about censoring the internet is a similar topic but this is a tangent related to Megaupload and other filesharing sites like rapidshare, etc... specifically.
 
I just read an (french) article about it now and wow... They really did it... They put megaupload down... Now this society will be like "Big Brother"... Everything will be controlled... I have lost my faith on humanity... really

But on a side note the United States Department of Justice site is dead too ! Coincidence ?

http://www.justice.gov/
 
So wait did those two bills pass or not now?
blink.gif


If so then why do I see DC becomming a total "warzone" overthis in the comming days. Granted it's ben kind of a "warzone" for other issues that they have been up to as of late.
dry.gif


In any case I'm sure that eventually MU will be back up and running sometime soon... I hope.
unsure.gif


*edit*

Oh yeah I almost forgot to mention this but it might be best to say this.

"So now, let the Internet RAGE begin over this now."
sleep.gif
 
QUOTE (Kit-Tsukasa @ Jan 19 2012, 04:02 PM)So for those who don't know, Megaupload has been shut down by US officials due to online piracy. It seems that this is the target of SOPA and PIPA (unsurprisingly) as they attract the largest amount of downloaders.

this is getting serious as not only filesharing sites will be hunted down next, to think all the thousands of people who bought life time memberships will complain and reclaim them somehow... if MU/megavideo is back someday I imagine it will be like napster since decades ago, uploading and sharing legal stuff only as happened with the torrent site mininova recently -.-


QUOTE (Nemingway @ Jan 19 2012, 04:33 PM)But on a side note the United States Department of Justice site is dead too ! Coincidence ?

http://www.justice.gov/

I don't think so as it's evident they know what's happening (or knew it earlier), most likely because people is complaining or hacking them after the shutdowns... so its the beginning of the end already, to think 2012 isn't simply a coincidence
dry.gif
 
QUOTE (Kid-Wolf @ Jan 19 2012, 01:47 PM) So wait did those two bills pass or not now?
blink.gif


If so then why do I see DC becomming a total "warzone" overthis in the comming days. Granted it's ben kind of a "warzone" for other issues that they have been up to as of late.
dry.gif


In any case I'm sure that eventually MU will be back up and running sometime soon... I hope.
unsure.gif

No. PIPA will go on vote on January 24 while SOPA will wait until February and I wouldn't be so sure about Megupload coming back up. They've already arrested many employees working for Megaupload and while Megaupload claims that majority of the traffic is legitimate, the US government seems very against them. Hoping for the best for Megaupload though. They may become another Pirate Bay though, which didn't turn out to be so bad.

Nevertheless, the next targets are likely Rapidshare, Fileserve, Filesonic, and Hotfile as they also charge for faster download speeds, which seems to be primary accusation. The accusation seems as if they have a problem with the content not being "free" rather than piracy as an issue though.


QUOTE But on a side note the United States Department of Justice site is dead too ! Coincidence ?

http://www.justice.gov/
The justice department issued a statement earlier so I wouldn't be surprised if the site is flooded at the moment or getting a DDOS
 
A certain well known hacking group took out the DOJ sites in retaliation.
Guardian article

Premium memberships were one element, but they also mention advertising revenue as being part of it. This might cause us some issues. This is exactly the reason why I'm getting a bit concerned about hosting DDLs.
 
Wow to hear that they are making a criminal charge out of a Civil case here is kind of showing how childish people are.

I mean most people use the site to check out things to see if they are worth thier time buying. I mean some things aren't even worth it, so why would anyone pay for things that aren't even worth thier time or effort?

Prety much it's just one of those major companies griping over losing money when their stuff is being promoted to the point of if you like it then why not pay for it. Besides I think some of these movie industries dug thier own grave when they said he's a digital copy for you so give it to everyone why don't you. At least that's what I get with that, but I don't know how those work though.

Anyways for them to take down a major site that people tend to go to or use pretty much opened up the can-of-worms that they shouldn't of messed with. If you ask me things may take a while before things stabilise on the internets if you ask me.
 
I hate this bull but I knew it would happen someday. Megaupload was probably one of my favourite file-sharing sites and now its pretty much gone forever.

Man, I have some really old links for megaupload given to me by a friend, I never finished downloading everything and now I can never use them.
dry.gif


I think they will be hunting the file-sharing sites more and more now but more will just be made to replace the ones that are lost.

I was wondering how the US government would arrest the rest of the world, if they had got the hands dirty according to them.
wink.gif
 
QUOTE (JCDRANZER @ Jan 19 2012, 08:17 PM) I was wondering how the US government would arrest the rest of the world, if they had got the hands dirty according to them.
wink.gif

I think what's interesting is that all of the accused are foreigners and none of the US employees involved were actually arrested or mentioned for that matter. It makes me question what is the ultimate goal here.

The problem is, will someone now come out and make a free file sharing site? and furthermore not supported by ads?

I think what a lot of people still in the industry do not realize is the damage done is actually quite minimal in terms of piracy:
Music: people blame piracy for the lack of CD sales. I think it's more of an issue that you have iTunes and Amazon music now that really carry the weight here. There is little to no incentive to buy music CDs anymore and have them simply gather dust on a shelf.

Movies and video games: While still not as digital as music, movies and video games damage by piracy is minimal overall. If anything, I'm pretty sure piracy helps promote the product more than hurts it. Most people will have the mentality "if I don't know what it is, I won't buy it." Furthermore, most people that pirate are likely those that don't have the money to buy it in the first place, meaning that they would never have been customers anyways. If you look at the damage claimed by Megaupload of $500M revenue wise, that's literally peanuts compared to what the media industry makes. If piracy was bigger, the media industry would have been long gone.

Software: Now, if anything, this is where things may be hit hard. Software is literally a dead industry at the individual consumer level. Most people don't regularly spend the extra money to upgrade a product unless they really have to. But why isn't this entirely dead? It's because you have start-ups, established corporations, and the like all demanding for the latest version of this product (e.g. Microsoft Office, Adobe products, etc...). This alone rakes in a lot of profit and while it isn't profit maximizing, it's still a vast majority of what the company would be making.

Lastly, as the people who grew up in the late 80s, 90s, and 2000s grow older, I'm sure most (80-90%) have been involved in some sort of piracy whether it be music, dvds, or movies or anything of the sort, including government officials, politicians, and those in the media industry. By human nature, people are greedy for money, and they will use any means in this poor economy to extort additional cash, and I'm sure megaupload was the first step as a result. There's no way this is just a mere coincidence since if it was, Megaupload would have been shut down around the time pirate bay and isohunt went "legal."
 
QUOTE (Kit-Tsukasa @ Jan 19 2012, 11:35 PM) I think what's interesting is that all of the accused are foreigners and none of the US employees involved were actually arrested or mentioned for that matter. It makes me question what is the ultimate goal here.

The problem is, will someone now come out and make a free file sharing site? and furthermore not supported by ads?

I think what a lot of people still in the industry do not realize is the damage done is actually quite minimal in terms of piracy:
Music: people blame piracy for the lack of CD sales. I think it's more of an issue that you have iTunes and Amazon music now that really carry the weight here. There is little to no incentive to buy music CDs anymore and have them simply gather dust on a shelf.

Movies and video games: While still not as digital as music, movies and video games damage by piracy is minimal overall. If anything, I'm pretty sure piracy helps promote the product more than hurts it. Most people will have the mentality "if I don't know what it is, I won't buy it." Furthermore, most people that pirate are likely those that don't have the money to buy it in the first place, meaning that they would never have been customers anyways. If you look at the damage claimed by Megaupload of $500M revenue wise, that's literally peanuts compared to what the media industry makes. If piracy was bigger, the media industry would have been long gone.

Software: Now, if anything, this is where things may be hit hard. Software is literally a dead industry at the individual consumer level. Most people don't regularly spend the extra money to upgrade a product unless they really have to. But why isn't this entirely dead? It's because you have start-ups, established corporations, and the like all demanding for the latest version of this product (e.g. Microsoft Office, Adobe products, etc...). This alone rakes in a lot of profit and while it isn't profit maximizing, it's still a vast majority of what the company would be making.

Lastly, as the people who grew up in the late 80s, 90s, and 2000s grow older, I'm sure most (80-90%) have been involved in some sort of piracy whether it be music, dvds, or movies or anything of the sort, including government officials, politicians, and those in the media industry. By human nature, people are greedy for money, and they will use any means in this poor economy to extort additional cash, and I'm sure megaupload was the first step as a result. There's no way this is just a mere coincidence since if it was, Megaupload would have been shut down around the time pirate bay and isohunt went "legal."
+1.

If I like a game, I'll buy more than one copy of it. I now have over 10 copies of the l4d series and around 5 copies of portal 1. Only god knows how many accounts I have with csz+css on them :/. If anything piracy has helped many companies get their products recognized. There are many games that I have never tried and will never try/buy because I could not get a pirated version and couldn't test it out myself.


I, however, still cannot believe that they'd shut down megaupload for this. Quite stupid.
 
Games, if you just take a look at me at my current 360 games, you will notice I have well over 150 games since buying the console in the summer of 2009. All my past consoles, I have bought a lot of games but not as much on the 360.

The only pirated games I have played are the fansubbed visual novels and even then I've only played a few. I did many years ago played a few roms and emulators for N64, GBA but then in real life, I own both of them, the console and handheld. Before, I got into anime, I was a gamer.

Now, I have never played a pirated game on the 360, mainly because don't know how to and I don't want my 360 being banned from Xbox LIVE.

I'm a regular movie-goer, I watch stuff that interests me and I also buy shit loads of DVDs and Blu-Rays but I going to start doing less of that because my so-called collection just keeps on gathering dust and the other fact that I'm a Netflix user now. Netflix got released about 12 days ago in the UK, its okay, the collection is small at the moment. I wasn't impressed by the Canadian Netflix, which is still pretty good but I know how awesome the American Netflix is and I'm hoping it will eventually happen to the UK Netflix but it will probably not happen.

I don't think I have ever actually bought music in a very long time, my ipod is filled with Japanese music and I use Youtube alot.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that the times I have been brought up have allowed me to delve my hands with piracy and stuff. However, I'm still a consumer and I do support the industries somewhat but the Internet is growing and is getting bigger, the Internet helps these industries to earn but to slowly hack away at the growth of the internet will eventually backfire on them.

They should not have closed down Megaupload, it was stupid especially the day after the Blackout Protest.

@Noob - I don't like buying multiple versions of a game but I have a few times like Street Fighter 4 and MvC3....damn Capcom!

Wow looking at this post, I realised I wanted to say something properly but instead I ended up writing this mess about what I have bought.
dry.gif


Not everyone in the world can buy everything or legally watch everything, these downloads allow us poorer human beings to experience gratification in watching, hearing and playing stuff that we can't normally get a hold of. If, downloads didn't exist....how boring would people be?
wink.gif
 
This is just pure bull-

This companies do have income and are becoming greedy by using the internet as a scapegoat.

I have no need for more words as what has been has been said...
Like some people have said I tend to buy multiple copies of games/music if it made a fan out of me.

and its partly the author's fault if he wanted to expand his product but failed to put the "Berne Convention" into use and ended up getting pirated since his/her product wasn't made official in the X country, I know there's some process into this but seriously...

Its just shocking to see this happening

The US gov't has declared war on the net.

Hououin Kyouma was right Dystopia is bloody coming.
Now if SOPA/PIPA were something like this I'd be in disdain on whether to go against or go with it

f04.png
 
SOPA has just been repealed. the Senator from Texas who brought up the Bill has just repealed it after the internet site shut down and massive amount of protests against it.

Rejoice everyone. this is a victory of a battle, but the WAR still goes on. he also said this wasn't going to be the last measurement to come up to "fight piracy"
 
QUOTE (Shinobu's_Lover @ Jan 21 2012, 03:17 AM) SOPA has just been repealed. the Senator from Texas who brought up the Bill has just repealed it after the internet site shut down and massive amount of protests against it.

Rejoice everyone. this is a victory of a battle, but the WAR still goes on. he also said this wasn't going to be the last measurement to come up to "fight piracy"
Liberation of Gracemeria nothing like nice victory theme
wink.gif


However we may have wonethe battle as you have said the WAR goes on but it is inevitable that this will continue, as being in the creative industry (or at least going into it) I can sympathize on some levels on how those people feel about piracy, piracy cannot be eradicated, that's just wishful thinking. So rather than finding useless means, such as this one. Use this issues such as piracy as a clutch on how you can SELL even better.

With that said its said we gained casualties such as Megaupload in the war, and although it was taken down WITHOUT Sopa in play, is something to think about.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/20...oth-shelved.ars
 
What scares me most about all this is if the Money Laundering charge against "The mega conspiracy". (What hyperbole.) I regret reading that 72 page indictment >_>; It's full of bullshit and aside from a few actual copyright related issues, is a 70 page brief basically attempting to get a conviction for MU using standard internet marketing.

If they can make that one stick, it spells the end of internet advertising as we know it. As much as I want to return to a commercial free internet, the very notion of being able to prosecute someone for Money Laundering because of Pay per Click/Pay per Exposure ad revenue on user posted content is beyond horrific in the precedent based, laws be damned, legal system.

The sad fact here is the actual copyright violation charges by the MegaUpload team seem to be real. I don't know how they seized the E-mail records, but the E-mail traffic they got (well in advance of the actual server seizures and before the start of indictment proceedings) is damning as hell. It looks like the prosecution has enough evidence to demonstrate that the MU staff used MU to enjoy pirated content, so we're likely to see at least a partial conviction on that alone.

The Money Laundering charge, tho... I don't see how it can stand, and if it does, the US seriously needs to lose it's extradition treaties. That crosses the line of dealing in bad faith and jeopardizes all legitimate ad traffic. >_>;
 
QUOTE (Norren @ Jan 20 2012, 11:33 AM) What scares me most about all this is if the Money Laundering charge against "The mega conspiracy". (What hyperbole.) I regret reading that 72 page indictment >_>; It's full of bullshit and aside from a few actual copyright related issues, is a 70 page brief basically attempting to get a conviction for MU using standard internet marketing.

If they can make that one stick, it spells the end of internet advertising as we know it. As much as I want to return to a commercial free internet, the very notion of being able to prosecute someone for Money Laundering because of Pay per Click/Pay per Exposure ad revenue on user posted content is beyond horrific in the precedent based, laws be damned, legal system.

The sad fact here is the actual copyright violation charges by the MegaUpload team seem to be real. I don't know how they seized the E-mail records, but the E-mail traffic they got (well in advance of the actual server seizures and before the start of indictment proceedings) is damning as hell. It looks like the prosecution has enough evidence to demonstrate that the MU staff used MU to enjoy pirated content, so we're likely to see at least a partial conviction on that alone.

The Money Laundering charge, tho... I don't see how it can stand, and if it does, the US seriously needs to lose it's extradition treaties. That crosses the line of dealing in bad faith and jeopardizes all legitimate ad traffic. >_>;
The fact that they specifically mentioned Fruits Basket and animefreak.tv bothers me quite a bit.

Also for FBI, seizing email records is very easy, especially if they have warrant for it. Not to mention that they have apparently been monitoring Megaupload for at least 2 years now.
 
ohmy.gif
Everyone... Is it just me but it seems like all the DDL sites such as Fileserve, Filesonic and Hotfile are doing massive file deletions and suspension of accounts.

BL
 
QUOTE (blanmgr @ Jan 21 2012, 06:00 AM)
ohmy.gif
Everyone... Is it just me but it seems like all the DDL sites such as Fileserve, Filesonic and Hotfile are doing massive file deletions and suspension of accounts.

BL
Nope not really. Its common for older links to be deleted over time because I was able to get some stuff yesterday that have been released over the past 2 years. Of course, I'm not talking about anime. You can pretty much get most stuff from anywhere.
rolleyes.gif


Hotfile has been very bad for the past year, I actually haven't used a hotfile link in 2 years, I have opened them and they're always deleted. I use to like it but after the links started getting deleted...I just don't bother with it anymore.

Fileserve, most stuff are uploaded here, unfortunately, at my university I can't download anything from it. However, I can at home, which I'm only there during the holidays.

Filesonic, I use a lot and its one of my favourites, I can get almost anything here, lots of stuff are uploaded here.

I wouldn't mind if Hotfile gets closed down but I doubt it as I know they're more diligent about deleting and taking down copyright infringed files more than Megaupload.
wink.gif
 
QUOTE (JCDRANZER @ Jan 21 2012, 05:12 AM) Nope not really. Its common for older links to be deleted over time because I was able to get some stuff yesterday that have been released over the past 2 years. Of course, I'm not talking about anime. You can pretty much get most stuff from anywhere.
rolleyes.gif


Hotfile has been very bad for the past year, I actually haven't used a hotfile link in 2 years, I have opened them and they're always deleted. I use to like it but after the links started getting deleted...I just don't bother with it anymore.

Fileserve, most stuff are uploaded here, unfortunately, at my university I can't download anything from it. However, I can at home, which I'm only there during the holidays.

Filesonic, I use a lot and its one of my favourites, I can get almost anything here, lots of stuff are uploaded here.

I wouldn't mind if Hotfile gets closed down but I doubt it as I know they're more diligent about deleting and taking down copyright infringed files more than Megaupload.
wink.gif

It's not really about the files if you ask me. The issue is if the FBI can find explicit records of the staff knowing that they have pirated material going online, which was proven in the case of Megaupload.

The other issue is the rewards program which Fileserve and Filesonic completely removed as of yesterday.
 
Playasia - Play-Asia.com: Online Shopping for Digital Codes, Video Games, Toys, Music, Electronics & more
Back
Top