[LINK] Feds shut down file upload site

[Jan Whitaker]

[multi-national men arrested in NEW ZEALAND at 
request of US. Note: one of the servers was in 
Virginia. Looks like the US server industry just 
went down the tubes. No more hosting there. Lots 
of excess capacity should come on the market, though.]


http://www.9news.com/money/243535/344/Feds-shut-down-file-sharing-website

McLEAN, Virginia (AP) – One of the world's 
largest file-sharing sites was shut down 
Thursday, and its founder and several company 
executives were charged with violating piracy laws, federal prosecutors said.

An indictment accuses Megaupload.com of costing 
copyright holders more than $500 million in lost 
revenue from pirated films and other content. The 
indictment was unsealed one day after websites 
including Wikipedia and Craigslist shut down in 
protest of two congressional proposals intended to thwart online piracy.

The Justice Department said in a statement said 
that Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz, 
and three other executives were ***arrested 
Thursday in New Zealand*** at the request of U.S. 
officials. Two other defendants are at large.

Megaupload was unique not only because of its 
massive size and the volume of downloaded 
content, but also because it had high-profile 
support from celebrities, musicians and other 
content producers who are most often the victims 
of copyright infringement and piracy. Before the 
website was taken down, it contained endorsements 
from Kim Kardashian, Alicia Keys and Kanye West, among others.

The Hong Kong-based company listed Swizz Beatz, a 
musician who married Keys in 2010, as its CEO. He 
was not named in the indictment and declined to 
comment through a representative.

Before the site was taken down, it posted a 
statement saying allegations that it facilitated 
massive breaches of copyright laws were "grotesquely overblown."

"The fact is that the vast majority of Mega's 
Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here 
to stay. If the content industry would like to 
take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to 
enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. 
Please get in touch," the statement said.

The site boasted 150 million registered users.

A lawyer who represented the company in a lawsuit 
last year declined comment Thursday.

Megaupload is considered a "cyberlocker," in 
which users can upload and transfer files that 
are too large to send by email. Such sites can 
have perfectly legitimate uses. But the Motion 
Picture Association of America, which has 
campaigned for a crackdown on piracy, estimated 
that the vast majority of content being shared on 
Megaupload was in violation of copyright laws.

The website allowed users to download films, TV 
shows, games, music and other content for free, 
but made money by charging subscriptions to 
people who wanted access to faster download 
speeds or extra content. The website also sold advertising.

The indictment was returned in the Eastern 
District of Virginia, which claimed jurisdiction 
in part because some of the alleged pirated 
materials were hosted on leased servers in Ashburn, Virginia.

Dotcom, a resident of both Hong Kong and New 
Zealand, and a dual citizen of Finland and 
Germany, made more than $42 million from the 
conspiracy in 2010 alone, according to the indictment.

Dotcom is founder, former CEO and current chief 
innovation officer of Megaupload.



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the 
world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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