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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Tech / Breaking News Justice Department Shuts Down Megaupload, Arrests Executives

Posted by on Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 1:02 PM

This is huge:

The United States Justice Department filed charges against MegaUpload today, calling the file-sharing service an "international organized criminal enterprise allegedly responsible for massive worldwide online piracy." Founder Kim Dotcom and three MegaUpload executives were arrested today in Auckland, New Zealand at the request of the US government under provisional arrest warrants, and the DOJ describes three other execs as "at large."

The complaint alleges that MegaUpload, founder Kim Dotcom, and his team are responsible for $175 million in "criminal proceeds" and "more than half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners." Specifically, Kim Dotcom and six of his executives are charged with running "the Mega conspiracy websites" under a business model "expressly designed to promote uploading of the most popular copyrighted works." The DOJ also says MegaUpload also developed its uploader rewards program as a means of laundering money.

More information here. Combined with yesterday's protests, this is sure to keep online piracy issues in the conversation for a good long while.

 

Comments (27) RSS

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NaFun 1
So wait, are they gonna do this to Apple and their MobileMe service next? Or anyone involved in any torrent sites?

Also, last name is really Dotcom? really?
Posted by NaFun http://www.dancesafe.org on January 19, 2012 at 1:12 PM
Kinison 2
In all honesty, Megaupload does host alot of piracy.
Posted by Kinison http://www.holgatehawks.com on January 19, 2012 at 1:12 PM
Sandiai 3
Wait wait wait. Kim "Dotcom"?
Posted by Sandiai on January 19, 2012 at 1:12 PM
Sandiai 4
Jinks on me.
Posted by Sandiai on January 19, 2012 at 1:13 PM
Knat 5
So, Hollywood and the Obama administration are BFFs again now, right?
Posted by Knat on January 19, 2012 at 1:14 PM
Timrrr 6
I wonder if this is part of a White House strategy to show that the current set of copyright & RICO laws are perfectly fine for prosecuting piracy and the urgency to pass SOPA/PIPA is unwarranted.
Posted by Timrrr on January 19, 2012 at 1:15 PM
gloomy gus 7
Check the link - she used to be Schmitz. I hope they keep their mitts off CEO Swizz Beatz, who needs to keep out of custody in order to continue bearding Alicia Keys properly.
Posted by gloomy gus on January 19, 2012 at 1:15 PM
spamky 8
Since when does US have authority to arrest people in New Zealand?
Posted by spamky on January 19, 2012 at 1:25 PM
Matt from Denver 9
@ 8, "... at the request of the US government under provisional arrest warrants..."
Posted by Matt from Denver on January 19, 2012 at 1:31 PM
10
"Provisional arrest warrants." How the bloody hell can an arrest warrant be provisional? Either they have enough evidence to convince a judge to issue a warrant, or they do not. If they do not, they have no warrant. Or is this something specific to NZ law, some kind of unwarranted warrant?
Posted by TechBear on January 19, 2012 at 1:37 PM
spamky 11
Justice department took down megaupload.com, now justice.gov is down.
Posted by spamky on January 19, 2012 at 1:48 PM
12
@10: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/publi…

It seems like it's a warrant issued to arrest someone to extradite them to another country.
Posted by digitalwitch on January 19, 2012 at 1:48 PM
13
There is no denying the fact that MegaUpload is all about the free (pirate) distribution of copyrighted material. There are others doing the same. Is Veoh next? What about YouTube?
Posted by Charlie Mas on January 19, 2012 at 1:50 PM
KittenKoder 14
We will see a future where an 8 year old singing to their favorite tune on Youtube is jailed for it.
Posted by KittenKoder http://digitalnoisegraffiti.com/ on January 19, 2012 at 2:01 PM
Will in Seattle 15
Too bad the pirates already retaliated and took down five government web sites in retaliation ...

An arms race with a bunch of script kiddies with nothing better to do is not a fair fight.
Posted by Will in Seattle http://www.facebook.com/WillSeattle on January 19, 2012 at 2:10 PM
16
@13 - Bullshit. "All about" my ass. There are plenty of people, myself included, who use Megaupload for totally legal purposes. But hey, if you're OK with Hollywood money telling you what you can do and how you can do it, you just keep greasing up like a good little twink.
Posted by 21st Century - New Rules on January 19, 2012 at 2:25 PM
Vince 17
Boo for New Zealand!
Posted by Vince on January 19, 2012 at 2:47 PM
Will in Seattle 18
Six sites down and counting - RIAA, MPAA, FBI, Whitehouse.gov the list just goes on.

Was this a wise move?
Posted by Will in Seattle http://www.facebook.com/WillSeattle on January 19, 2012 at 3:08 PM
Rotten666 19
@15 Yeah, they can think about how they temporarily inconvenienced the man when they are sitting in a jail cell.

Going after pirates the old fashioned way is a hell of a lot better than SOPA.
Posted by Rotten666 on January 19, 2012 at 3:12 PM
20
@Kittenkoder: You say that like it's a bad thing.
Posted by mischiefmanager on January 19, 2012 at 3:30 PM
venomlash 21
Welp, didn't take long for the neckbeards to get mad. How will I get my Pokemon ROMs, I wonder?
Oh right, just use a different upload site.
Posted by venomlash on January 19, 2012 at 3:45 PM
22
Yep, plenty of other upload sites, although my big concern is how good their logs were and whether Hollywood and the spooks will end up using them to chase down users.
Posted by MackTheKnife on January 19, 2012 at 5:46 PM
Shini 23
One of my friends lost all her data from her old computer, she was reloading them onto her new computer, but had to do it pieces at a time to avoid exceeding her campus' DL limits.
Posted by Shini on January 19, 2012 at 6:31 PM
sirkowski 24
Megaupload is owned by crooked corporate 1%ers. Nothing of value was lost.
Posted by sirkowski http://www.missdynamite.com on January 19, 2012 at 7:48 PM
25
no his last name is schmitz. and he's also known for the gumball 3000 races. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWSFtpP4N… and he's also an ex-con http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Schmitz
Posted by shoe on January 19, 2012 at 10:51 PM
26
I will not support any law like SOPA that does not make it a felony to change your last name to "Dotcom"
Posted by beef rallard on January 20, 2012 at 12:48 AM
venomlash 27
@24: Lemme get that picture for you.
Posted by venomlash on January 20, 2012 at 1:14 AM

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