Megaupload taken down by FBI–Anonymous takes down DOJ, Universal Music, RIAA, MPAA websites

Published on January 19, 2012 By DrJBHL In Personal Computing

The owners of the most popular site for uploading “files” Megaupload has been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury for causing more than $500 million in lost revenue because of pirating TV shows,music and other content.

The company is run out of Hong Kong (surprise) but is hosted in part in Ashburn, VA where the indictment was made.

“Megaupload founder and operator -- Kim Dotcom (formerly Kim Schmitz) -- was arrested along with three others in New Zealand on Thursday at the request of US officials. A total of seven were arrested globally, and their charges include conspiracy to commit racketeering and criminal copyright infringement for running the "the Mega conspiracy websites" according to the DOJ. Dotcom is no stranger to the wrong side of the law, previously being convicted for credit card fraud, hacking, insider trading and embezzlement.” - http://www.neowin.net/news/megaupload-charged-with-piracy-shut-down

Anonymous wasn’t about to take this lying down. So, they did what they do best and generated DNS attacks on The US Department of Justice, Universal Music, RIAA and MPAA websites.

This just in: Anonymous has taken down hadopi.fr which is the French anti-piracy organization.

From their Twitter feed:

Sources:

http://www.neowin.net/news/anonymous-takes-down-doj-website-in-response-to-megaupload-news

http://www.neowin.net/news/megaupload-charged-with-piracy-shut-down

https://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23OpPayBack

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/technology/indictment-charges-megaupload-site-with-piracy.html

Comments (Page 1)

Gandhialf

on Jan 19, 2012

I'm from post-communist country in Eastern Europe. When I was a child I associated the word "freedom" with word "America" (meaning "USA"). Not any more.

Philocthetes

on Jan 19, 2012

Gandhialf, one of the challenges of 'freedom' in a pluralist democracy like the U.S. is that narrow business interests can have a disproportionate role in shaping public policy, especially when matters get technical or complicated. So-called intellectual property is a prime example of this.

The IP establishment has had remarkable success in both extending the length of their rights far beyond what is reasonable and in diverting law enforcement resources to protecting their income streams. This week's check on SOPA/PIPA is somewhat encouraging, but I'm not holding my breath about seeing fair use, much less reasonable copyright terms, restored any time soon.

MottiKhan

on Jan 19, 2012

Well said GWS. +1

DaveRI

on Jan 19, 2012

GW Swicord

reply 2

but I'm not holding my breath about seeing fair use, much less reasonable copyright terms, restored any time soon.

No, holding your breath could prove hazardous to your health. A little off topic but certainly related:

"Court allows re-copyright of public domain works"

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57361290/court-allows-re-copyright-of-public-domain-works/

As for the original topic, I guess I'll just have to let them all punch it out.

Uvah

on Jan 19, 2012

Cyberwar ...... battle it out with an online geekedy geek near you.

The fools ... one misstep, just one and you can kiss this ball of dirt goodbye. Haven't got half the freakin' brains they were born with!

Philocthetes

on Jan 19, 2012

DaveRI, I don't know whether to thank you or slap you for sharing the news about that case. I spotted it in progress and expected this result. Can't blame the Supremes very much, the flaw is with the Berne Convention and our Congress.

From the CBS piece: "But Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for himself and Justice Samuel Alito, said that an important purpose of a copyright is to encourage an author or artist to produce new work. 'The statute before us, however, does not encourage anyone to produce a single new work. By definition, it bestows monetary rewards only on owners of old works,' Breyer said."

At least this is one I can point out to my civics students as an example of why it's not so easy to talk about the 'liberal' and 'conservative' wings on the Supreme Court. The wording in the Constitution that supports modern IP law is fairly clear about the goal being "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

Even if you accept the ludicrous notion that corporations are people, this sort of profiteering behavior clearly violates the earlier spirit of the law.

DrJBHL

on Jan 19, 2012

GW Swicord

reply 6

corporations are people

I'll believe that when Texas executes one of them.

We're very much in accord, GW Swicord.

roflmfaoo

on Jan 19, 2012

Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for
the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person
to own the copyright to a motion picture.

Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures
in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call
Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent.
There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them - like
Fantasia, one of Disneys biggest hits ever.

So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they
circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: "stole") other peoples creative works,
without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they're all successful and most of the
studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations - it's all based on being
able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create.
If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing
other peoples rules.

The reason they are always complainting about "pirates" today is simple. We've done what they did. We circumvented the
rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow
people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take
over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them).
It's all based on the fact that we're competition.
We've proven that their existance in their current form is no longer needed. We're just better than they are.

And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech.
We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws
should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations.

The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe - but we've stayed out of the
USA. We have Swedish roots and a swedish friend said this:
The word SOPA means "trash" in Swedish. The word PIPA means "a pipe" in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence.
They want to make the internet inte a one way pipe, with them at the top, shoving trash through the pipe down to the
rest of us obedient consumers.
The public opinion on this matter is clear. Ask anyone on the street and you'll learn that noone wants to be fed with
trash. Why the US government want the american people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination but we hope that
you will stop them, before we all drown.

SOPA can't do anything to stop TPB. Worst case we'll change top level domain from our current .org to one of the
hundreds of other names that we already also use. In countries where TPB is blocked, China and Saudi Arabia springs to
mind, they block hundreds of our domain names. And did it work? Not really.
To fix the "problem of piracy" one should go to the source of the problem. The entertainment industry say they're
creating "culture" but what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls
become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching
movies and tv shows that make them think that they're fat.

In the great Sid Meiers computer game Civilization you can build Wonders of the world. One of the most powerful ones
is Hollywood. With that you control all culture and media in the world. Rupert Murdoch was happy with MySpace and had
no problems with their own piracy until it failed. Now he's complainting that Google is the biggest source of piracy
in the world - because he's jealous. He wants to retain his mind control over people and clearly you'd get a more
honest view of things on Wikipedia and Google than on Fox News.

Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can't access this information
when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We're sorry for that.

THE PIRATE BAY, (K)2012

Need i say more ?

21stCenturySchizoidDog

on Jan 19, 2012

DDOS attack now underway on FBI 's website as part of #OpMegaupload

Cruxador

on Jan 19, 2012

This is some bullshit. MegaUpload was taken down (along with a lot of people's legitimate data that they were hosting there) with no sort of trial or anything of the sort, simply an accusation. And the fact that this comes while MegaUpload was in the middle of pressing charges against Universal for unrelated reasons seems to imply that piracy concerns had nothing to do with it.

Really can't say I blame Anonymous from taking issue with this.

I don't know what they're gonna do. I don't know what they can do; there's no clear target for their usual tactics. Whatever it's gonna be, I'm sure it won't be legal. But when it's legal to take away many people's data without due process, I don't reckon legality can be taken as a measure of morality.

Philocthetes

on Jan 19, 2012

roflmfaoo

reply 8

Need i say more ?

Speaking as a staunch critic of modern IP regimes, I most heartily say, "Yes."

I love good rhetoric more than the average bear, but screeds like the one you apparently copied from someone claiming to speak for Pirate Bay don't do much for the long-term argument among folks who want work within law to get rid of laws that make no sense.

That screed notes several interesting and important points in both the history of IP law and the practice of making money from ideas. But it does a disservice to those of us who might sympathize with or wholly endorse the underlying political positions because it offers no references to quality sources that support the various fact claims and analytical perspectives.

21stCenturySchizoidDog

on Jan 19, 2012

http://FBI.gov website now down .

Stant123

on Jan 19, 2012

Why does your link take you to http://t.co/XyRi0r0I instead of http://www.fbi.gov/ ?

Island Dog

on Jan 19, 2012

Cruxador

reply 10

MegaUpload was taken down (along with a lot of people's legitimate data that they were hosting there) with no sort of trial or anything of the sort, simply an accusation.

Nope. There was an extensive investigation and an indictment handed down by a federal grand jury. That's lots more than "accusation".

MortalKhrist

on Jan 19, 2012

Just realized that the SOPA bill is racist.

I was on a chat and this kid said, "soup" instead of "sup." So I responded by saying "sopa," meaning soup in spanish. His response was:

"that's all any of you internet fags are talking abot

i'm going to play vidya games now anywaylaters"

They better change that shit or I'll release the horde into America.

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