Megaupload has been taken down by the Feds

[~Spectre]

Indictment Charges Megaupload Site With Piracy
By BEN SISARIO
Published: January 19, 2012

The federal authorities on Thursday announced that they had charged seven people connected to the Web site Megaupload, including its founder, with running an international criminal enterprise centered on copyright infringement on the Internet.

According to a grand jury indictment, Megaupload — one of the most popular “locker” services on the Internet, which lets users anonymously transfer large files — generated $175 million in income for its operators through subscription fees and advertising, while causing $500 million in damages to copyright holders.

Four of the seven people, including the site’s founder Kim Dotcom, born Kim Schmitz, have been arrested in New Zealand, the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Thursday; the three others remain at large. The seven — who a grand jury indictment calls part of a “Mega Conspiracy” — have been charged with five counts of copyright infringement and conspiracy, the authorities said.

The charges, which the government agencies said represented “among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States,” come at a charged time, a day after online protests against a pair of antipiracy bills being considered by Congress — the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, in the House, and the Protect I.P. Act, or PIPA, in the Senate.

The indictment was handed down by a grand jury in Virginia two weeks ago, but was unsealed on Thursday, and stems from a federal investigation that began two years ago.

The Megaupload case touches on many of the most controversial aspects of the antipiracy debate.

Megaupload and similar locker sites, like Rapidshare and Mediafire, are often promoted as being convenient ways to legitimately transfer large files — a recent promotional video had major stars like Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas singing Megaupload’s praises. But they have become notorious among media companies, who see them as abetting copyright infringement on a large scale by giving people easy, but unauthorized, access to movies, music and other content.

Megaupload is currently engaged in a lawsuit with Universal over the promotional video and Universal’s efforts to have it removed from YouTube.

As part of the crackdown on Megaupload, 20 search warrants were executed in nine countries, including the United States. About $50 million in assets were also seized, as well as a number of servers and 18 domain names, the authorities said.

Ira P. Rothken, a lawyer for Megaupload, said in a phone interview on Thursday afternoon that he had not yet seen the indictment, but he added: “Clearly we have due process concerns. This was done without a hearing.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/technology/indictment-charges-megaupload-site-with-piracy.html?_r=1

[Ostrinski]

Fuck.. mediafire is all I use. Might have to switch over to torrents.

[GPDP]

Mediafire's better anyway. Still, it does suck. Good thing I mostly use torrents.

[Bronco]

So if they can just do this at will then what do they need SOPA for?

[Zav]

So if they can just do this at will then what do they need SOPA for?
SOPA is a scare tactic, an attempt to stop the petty pirates, an attack on gifting, and an attack on free speech all rolled into one.

[Leonid Brozhnev]

Anonymous have taken down the Department of Justice and Universal Music websites in response...


After a Department of Justice-executed raid today on the file sharing site Megaupload, hackers aligned with the online collective Anonymous have shut down the websites for both the DoJ and Universal Music Group, the largest record company in America.
Both universalmusic.com and justice.gov went down on Thursday afternoon, less than hours after it was revealed that Megaupload had been brought down by federal authorities and four people linked to the site, all outside of America, were arrested and charged with a conspiracy related to copyright infringement.
“It was in retaliation for Megaupload, as was the concurrent attack on Justice.gov,” Anonymous operative Barret Brown tells RT on Thursday afternoon.
Brown adds that “more is coming” and Anonymous-aligned hacktivists are pursuing a joint effort with others to “ damage campaign raising abilities of remaining Democrats who support SOPA.”


http://rt.com/usa/news/anonymous-doj-universal-sopa-235/

[danyboy27]

fucking great, with what am i gonna watch my tv series now.

[Rodrigo]

Yesterday this link was working: http://megavideo.bz/

[Tim Cornelis]

fucking great, with what am i gonna watch my tv series now.

These sites host other links:

http://www.free-tv-video-online.me/

http://tvsearch.co/

[workersadvocate]

Ha! I don't have a TV either...not since the internet!

[Rodrigo]

http://109.236.83.66/

WE DON'T HAVE ANY DOMAIN NAME FOR NOW


ONLY THIS IP ADDRESS (http://109.236.83.66) BEWARE TO THE PISHING SITES!



This is the NEW MEGAUPLOAD SITE! we are working to be back full again


Bookmark the site and share the new address in facebook and twitter!

[Lobotomy]

With all these recent developments involving Megaupload, SOPA, PIPA and the like, part of me can't help but shrug my shoulders and say "meh". Don't get me wrong, it's terrible that they are cracking down, but are we really surprised? it was inevitable that the ruling class would attempt censorship of the internet in one way or another; an internet free of censorship is much too dangerous to them. Even if SOPA and similar laws do not get passed this time around, we can expect lots of similar attempts in the future, as long as the bourgeoisie (or any other ruling class) still exists.

[Sendo]

The thing that kills me is how hard it is becoming to do simple things like watch movies or buy media. I for one, like to have physical media as a backup and for convenience sometimes. I like to be able to pop a DVD into a player and watch on TV as oppsoed to botting the computer.

The prices can also come way down since discs are way way way cheaper than VHS was.

But if I'm presented with a choice between legal stuff in the form of $$$$ Blu-rays (good luck finding DVD) and rental units that are stripped of all extra features (see a lot of stuff on RedBox, though it's not RedBox's fault, it's the studios') and DRM shit and trailers saying DON'T STEAL!!!11!!!1! ................. and on the other hand the illegal stuff with no DRM, no trailers, and a slightly worse quality FOR FREE, guess which one I'll take?

I don't mind paying for the hot off the press news daily. I don't mind paying for a copy of Das Kapital on wood pulp even though it is online as text files in the public domain. I don't mind paying $10 for a DVD here and there.

But they make it so hard to enjoy anything. They'll never stop piracy and just screw over normal people.

It's exactly like visas and passports. Drug smugglers and spies get acorss the border anyway, passports being lost and visa shit just hurts honest people. The deadly X-Ray machines that see through cars at US land borders aren't going to stop drug smugglers. Bribes anyone? How the hell do you think private planes get across the border?

They make up boogeymen (Chinese knockoffs are bankrupting Louis Vuitton! Hollywood is dying! Jobs are lost!!!!!) Then they just perform blanket punishments and just screw over everyone.

So then we get sites like MegaUpload and Pirate Bay (thank god) because if you don't live in the USA there might be no way to view the content. No local broadcasting, no local DVD sales, no acces to Hulu/et al. I'm willing to watch it as I would in the States with some commercials peppered in, but no.

There will be more draconian measures that inconvenience most people. Then a new hydra will spring up

[RedHal]

fuck now filesonic has disabled their sharing, and fileserve are deleting a lot of content! Looks like it's going to be bigger than megaupload going down.

[Q]

Might have to switch over to torrents.


Good thing I mostly use torrents.

Issue solved.

Also, what use is it to relaunch the site with just the ip address? The feds can burst in and seize those servers too, you know.

[Bronco]

Looks like we've lost/going to lose a lot more than Megaupload according to this (http://www.wjunction.com/102-file-host-discussion/124729-filehosts-whos-down.html)


- MegaUpload.com (Down) [TakeDown]
- Easy-Share.com/Crocko.com (Closed affiliate program)
- EnterUpload.com (Down) [Redirect]
- FileServe.com (As good as dead) [Closed affiliate program; Sharing/downloading disabled]
(http://www.wjunction.com/14-news-cur...-new-post.html)
- FileSonic.com (As good as dead) [Closed affiliate program; Sharing/downloading disabled]
- FileJungle.com (As good as dead) [Closed affiliate program; Sharing/downloading disabled]
- FilePost.com (Closed affiliate program; Suspending accounts with infringing material)
- Filevelocity.com (Closed affiliate program)
- GlumboUploads.com (Closed affiliate program)
- GrooveFile.com (Dead)
- MegaShare.com (Closed affiliate program)
- Oron.com (Closed affiliate program**)
- UploadStation.com (As good as dead) [Closed affiliate program; Sharing/downloading disabled]
- Uploaded.to (Blocked U.S. Visitors) (http://www.wjunction.com/102-file-ho...-us-users.html)
- Uploading.com (Closed affiliate program) (http://uploading.com/news/view/120/)
- VideoZer.com (Closed affiliate program)
- VideoBB.com (Closed affiliate program)
- x7.to (Dead)

- 4Shared (February 1. 2012)
- Sockshare/Putlocker (February 1. 2012)
- UploadBox.com (Closing. All files will be deleted on January 30th.)


** Enabled/restored on approval

Putlocker :crying:

[workersadvocate]

Looks like we've lost/going to lose a lot more than Megaupload according to this (http://www.wjunction.com/102-file-host-discussion/124729-filehosts-whos-down.html)



Putlocker :crying:
Looks like it might be time to start putting time, effort and money into building an alternative anonymous encrypted decentralized but easy-to-setup-and-use internet.

Game over....build the next game.

[danyboy27]

haha, they where not able to scare hotfile.com, i guess it have something to do with the fact that they are hosted in panama city.

[Bronco]

Anonymous are doing a good job though, they posted the discography of every Sony artist online for download, as well as their movies

[workersadvocate]

Anonymous are doing a good job though, they posted the discography of every Sony artist online for download, as well as their movies ...

I see a lot of torrents there. I used to do torrents until they took down limewire.
They can shut down torrent sites too.

The for-profit internet sharing method is dead.

[piet11111]

Anonymous are doing a good job though, they posted the discography of every Sony artist online for download, as well as their movies

You shouldn't post such links here as it can get this site in trouble possibly even shut down.

[Bronco]

You shouldn't post such links here as it can get this site in trouble possibly even shut down.

Sorry, I just saw the link on another forum and posted it here without really thinking about it, removed it from my post now.

workersadvocate; could you also remove it from my quoted post please

[workersadvocate]

Sorry, I just saw the link on another forum and posted it here without really thinking about it, removed it from my post now.

workersadvocate; could you also remove it from my quoted post please

Fixed it.

[Q]

Looks like it might be time to start putting time, effort and money into building an alternative anonymous encrypted decentralized but easy-to-setup-and-use internet.

Game over....build the next game.

- I2P (http://www.i2p2.de/)
- Freenet (http://freenetproject.org/)

[Q]

Pirate Parties Organizing Lawsuit Against FBI Over Megaupload Takedown (http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/26/pirate-parties-organizing-lawsuit-against-fbi-over-megaupload-takedown/)

To be continued.

[Sena Virtual Cursos]

Thank you for the information.

[Ele'ill]

07r0Yg-GtEc

[Rafiq]

Fuck... No more 4shared? Guess I'll say goodbye to free android applications.

What about all of the non-copyright content on megaupload? Fuuuuuu

[Bronco]

Some Polish politicians wore Guy Fawkes masks in Parliament the other day to protest against their government signing ACTA, which is similar to SOPA but has been signed by almost all of the EU countries. They're MP's from the Palikot's Movement, I think they're mainly Liberals but pretty cool nonetheless

http://i.imgur.com/SO53v.jpg

[kuros]

That sucks:(

[RedHal]

no it's pathetic, bourgeois politicians wearing that masks

[Psy]

So if they can just do this at will then what do they need SOPA for?
The MPAA, RIAA and SPA don't want to go through the judicial system trying to prove someone is a pirate, instead they rather go with a guilty until provide innocent system where the burden of proof is totally on the defense and the prosecution doesn't have to provide any evidence at all even if goes to trail.

[soviechetnik]

America,the World Policeman stikes again...
It's time for peoples to rise up against this brutal violation of freedom.