14 ms·

MegaUpload users plan to sue the FBI over lost files

135 points by joeyespo 15y ago

redthrowaway 15y ago
This in no way will be helped by the fact that the lawsuit is being facilitated by "pirate parties" all over the world. We know what the pirate parties stand for; a jury would not. Isn't this precisely the kind of case the EFF regularly takes up?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- nknight 15y ago
  [none of this means the cases will go anywhere] 1. Not many US federal court cases end up in front of juries anymore. 2. Many jurisdictions outside the US don't use juries at all, others use them only in criminal cases, not civil. 3. The plaintiffs in these cases would be the users harmed, not the "Pirate" parties, and even if a jury were used, it is unlikely a judge would allow the defense to make anything out of the fact that a "pirate party" were involved, as it's entirely irrelevant and potentially prejudicial. 4. The EFF generally takes up cases it thinks might be winnable.
  - im_dario 15y ago
    Catalan pirate here. EFF joined to the initiative today. We are going to publish it soon and all USA citizen will be redirected to EFF.
benologist 15y ago
These sites are meticulously designed to force you into paying for premium access to download files. They have it down to such a fine art people actually make videos on youtube demonstrating how to download files for free from sites like MegaUpload. After following a download link: 1) enter captcha in top right 2) on the next screen you'll enjoy a forced delay of a minute unless you click one of the many routes to a premium, paid account 3) after the timer finishes a save button will appear, click on that and you'll trigger the download dialogue from your browser unless... free users may only download one file at a time so if you are already downloading a file you'll get a message about now telling you to start again after your other file finishes. If it's a big file you're downloading you'll especially appreciate the capped download speed because you had the audacity to maneuver around their premium account funnel instead of paying to receive a file someone is sharing You'd have to be delusional, or in torrentfreak's case pandering for ad impressions, to pretend anyone would bother putting their friends, family and colleagues through all those hoops when they have email, skype, msn, dropbox, yahoo, free hosting, $1 hosting, $2 hosting, $3 hosting, $4 hosting and so many other, easier options available for non-pirated content. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO1JabWsVTQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO1JabWsVTQ
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  >You'd have to be delusional, or in torrentfreak's case pandering for ad impressions, to pretend anyone would bother putting their friends, family and colleagues through all those hoops when they have email, skype, msn, dropbox, yahoo, free hosting, $1 hosting, $2 hosting, $3 hosting, $4 hosting and so many other, easier options available for non-pirated content. I suppose you'd have to be similarly delusional to use Windows Media Player or QuickTime when VLC is out there? People use poor but popular products all the time. It doesn't make them liars or crooks.
  - benologist 15y ago
    Windows Media Player and Quicktime might be lame but they don't actively work against the user unless you pony up some cash to use the "can open a file in just 2 clicks" version. Sending your friends/family/colleagues a link on MegaUpload (or similar) was essentially putting a paywall between them and the file you actually wanted to give them. For pirated content it makes sense, you have no concern for who comes along to download it and of course they gave you a cut of the money too: http://www.groovypost.com/howto/review/paid-to-upload-uploading-com-vs-megaupload-vs-refile/ http://www.groovypost.com/howto/review/paid-to-upload-upload... For <legitimate work> it's just nonsense when there's so many high profile, easier ways to get that file from a to b.
    - dman 15y ago
      How do you explain people using the trial version of winzip then?
    - prodigal_erik 15y ago
      I have in fact received large client-owned files over megaupload and rapidshare (they emailed me the URL). I don't really know why they didn't stage them on their own server (that's how we do it) but when trying to work smoothly with non-nerd biz dev people I'm certainly not going to push back over doing something else for one minute every couple of weeks.
    - soyelmango 15y ago
elliottcarlson 15y ago
Ignoring the way Megaupload was taken down and focusing on fault - am I wrong in believing that there is no case against the FBI with regards to end users files? Wouldn't the actual target be Megaupload themselves (regardless of current situations) since they are the ones responsible for hosting, and thus "losing" their customers files?
- jQueryIsAwesome 15y ago
  FBI: "We just closed a bank." Clients: "And our money???" FBI: "Sorry, they were laundering money so all your/their money is ours now"
  - elliottcarlson 15y ago
    I am not a lawyer, but as far as I understand, that civil recovery depends on if anything was recovered to return. If, for example, the servers were confiscated, and no one has given passwords to access the servers to retrieve content, then Civil Recovery is not possible. This would still leave Megaupload as the entity who would get sued. If civil recovery is however possible, then there would be due process and retrieving X amount of files for X amount of people as well as supplying burden of proof that they are indeed the legitimate owners of said content, then this would be a lengthy process that could be surrounded in bureaucratic red tape for a while - and still such a lawsuit, especially at this point in time would not do anything. I am not arguing if the whole thing is right or wrong, nor am I arguing that the law is right or wrong - but from my understanding this is correct. If anyone can clarify my possible misconceptions then that would be greatly appreciated.
    - Karunamon 15y ago
      So the feds swoop in, run off with multiple terabytes of data on the pretense that some percentage of it might be pirated, and there isn't fuck all a mere mortal can do about it. And people wonder why US law enforcement is so reviled?
- roel_v 15y ago
ceol 15y ago
Neither the Torrent Freak article nor the Pirates of Catalonia[0] page say anything about suing the FBI— only submitting a complaint against the agency. [0]: http://megaupload.pirata.cat/ http://megaupload.pirata.cat/ edit: I've realized the first step to suing is filing a complaint. However, no where on the Pirata site does it say they're suing, so I'm skeptical.
- elliottcarlson 15y ago
  The title of the TorrentFreak article does say it, however the Pirates of Catalonia page indeed does not.
  - im_dario 15y ago
    PIRATA.CAT lawyers (and other pirate parties legal teams) are working on this. This hasn't been done before.
hncommenter13 15y ago
This is more of a PR stunt than a winning legal strategy. 1. The US government has sovereign immunity (except where specifically waived by law) for virtually all its official acts, unless those acts violate the law or constitutional rights. 2. The supreme court has affirmed in a somewhat similar case, Kosak v. US, 465 U.S. 848 (1984), in which a set of paintings were detained (and possibly slightly damaged) by Customs officials. More recently, the core holding in Kosak was affirmed in Dolan v. US, a case regarding a specific waiver of immunity for the US Postal Service (though the lower court was reversed). 3. In a recent series of cases on criminal law (Medellin v. Texas, among others), a majority of the Court made it clear that they do not view decisions of the International Criminal Court as self-executing, meaning that they are to be followed without the ability for the Supreme Court to review them. In other words, this is a real longshot. At some point, if no criminal case can be proved, the accused may get the servers back (and the users their files). But if convicted (or if the assets are subject to foreiture as the fruit of illegal activity), there's a good chance those servers are gone for good. Besides, how would the FBI establish that the files were non-infringing and should be returned? In theory, the DMCA helps guard against this--had MegaUpload actually followed the takedown procedures, the government could have more faith that returning the servers to a surviving entity wouldn't put the same infringing content back online. Imagine a scenario where your financial advisor has control of some of your money and also happens to be a drug dealer or insider trader. The police bust him and seize his assets, but because money is fungible they can't tell exactly where all the cash came from. Your money is frozen pending the outcome of the case and a determination which assets should be released. You can sue the accountant (he had a duty to you), but suing the government isn't going to get you very far. Not exactly the same, but analogous, to my mind.
- mc32 15y ago
  >You can sue the accountant (he had a duty to you) That's how I see it. They're probably under better legal standing suing MU over gross fiduciary misconduct, etc.
  - kingkilr 15y ago
    The MU terms of service specifically said there were no guarantees about upload lifetime (or something to that effect).
michaelfeathers 15y ago
Is it just me, or is there an incredible disconnect over "intellectual property"? Copyright interests like the RIAA and MPAA pressure governments to perform these raids which typically involve a court order to seize physical property (servers, etc) without any cognizance of the "property" they contain. They seem to want it both ways.
- jonhendry 15y ago
  So do the pirates, though, it seems to me. They usually aren't big proponents on being able to control your data. Information wants to be free? Well, part of freeing something is that you can lose it forever.
  - chii 15y ago
    "Information wants to be free? Well, part of freeing something is that you can lose it forever." hang on, thats not right! Being free here means, free to obtain, reuse and distribute. Right now, the information is most decidely NOT free, because the feds are in control of it. They could've made a copy of the data as evidence - there isn't any need at all to remove the servers. This is digital data, the hardware has absolutely no bearing on the correctness of the evidence. I bet they were somehow 'persuaded' by the MAFIAA to sieze the hardware. I feel its unfair that lobby groups has enough power to use public money to achieve their goals.

135 points by joeyespo 15y ago

This in no way will be helped by the fact that the lawsuit is being facilitated by "pirate parties" all over the world. We know what the pirate parties stand for; a jury would not. Isn't this precisely the kind of case the EFF regularly takes up?

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
nknight 15y ago
[none of this means the cases will go anywhere] 1. Not many US federal court cases end up in front of juries anymore. 2. Many jurisdictions outside the US don't use juries at all, others use them only in criminal cases, not civil. 3. The plaintiffs in these cases would be the users harmed, not the "Pirate" parties, and even if a jury were used, it is unlikely a judge would allow the defense to make anything out of the fact that a "pirate party" were involved, as it's entirely irrelevant and potentially prejudicial. 4. The EFF generally takes up cases it thinks might be winnable.
- im_dario 15y ago
  Catalan pirate here. EFF joined to the initiative today. We are going to publish it soon and all USA citizen will be redirected to EFF.

benologist 15y ago

These sites are meticulously designed to force you into paying for premium access to download files. They have it down to such a fine art people actually make videos on youtube demonstrating how to download files for free from sites like MegaUpload. After following a download link: 1) enter captcha in top right 2) on the next screen you'll enjoy a forced delay of a minute unless you click one of the many routes to a premium, paid account 3) after the timer finishes a save button will appear, click on that and you'll trigger the download dialogue from your browser unless... free users may only download one file at a time so if you are already downloading a file you'll get a message about now telling you to start again after your other file finishes. If it's a big file you're downloading you'll especially appreciate the capped download speed because you had the audacity to maneuver around their premium account funnel instead of paying to receive a file someone is sharing You'd have to be delusional, or in torrentfreak's case pandering for ad impressions, to pretend anyone would bother putting their friends, family and colleagues through all those hoops when they have email, skype, msn, dropbox, yahoo, free hosting, $1 hosting, $2 hosting, $3 hosting, $4 hosting and so many other, easier options available for non-pirated content. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO1JabWsVTQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO1JabWsVTQ

redthrowaway 15y ago
>You'd have to be delusional, or in torrentfreak's case pandering for ad impressions, to pretend anyone would bother putting their friends, family and colleagues through all those hoops when they have email, skype, msn, dropbox, yahoo, free hosting, $1 hosting, $2 hosting, $3 hosting, $4 hosting and so many other, easier options available for non-pirated content. I suppose you'd have to be similarly delusional to use Windows Media Player or QuickTime when VLC is out there? People use poor but popular products all the time. It doesn't make them liars or crooks.
- benologist 15y ago
  Windows Media Player and Quicktime might be lame but they don't actively work against the user unless you pony up some cash to use the "can open a file in just 2 clicks" version. Sending your friends/family/colleagues a link on MegaUpload (or similar) was essentially putting a paywall between them and the file you actually wanted to give them. For pirated content it makes sense, you have no concern for who comes along to download it and of course they gave you a cut of the money too: http://www.groovypost.com/howto/review/paid-to-upload-uploading-com-vs-megaupload-vs-refile/ http://www.groovypost.com/howto/review/paid-to-upload-upload... For <legitimate work> it's just nonsense when there's so many high profile, easier ways to get that file from a to b.
  - dman 15y ago
    How do you explain people using the trial version of winzip then?
  - prodigal_erik 15y ago
    I have in fact received large client-owned files over megaupload and rapidshare (they emailed me the URL). I don't really know why they didn't stage them on their own server (that's how we do it) but when trying to work smoothly with non-nerd biz dev people I'm certainly not going to push back over doing something else for one minute every couple of weeks.
  - soyelmango 15y ago

elliottcarlson 15y ago

Ignoring the way Megaupload was taken down and focusing on fault - am I wrong in believing that there is no case against the FBI with regards to end users files? Wouldn't the actual target be Megaupload themselves (regardless of current situations) since they are the ones responsible for hosting, and thus "losing" their customers files?

jQueryIsAwesome 15y ago
FBI: "We just closed a bank." Clients: "And our money???" FBI: "Sorry, they were laundering money so all your/their money is ours now"
- elliottcarlson 15y ago
  I am not a lawyer, but as far as I understand, that civil recovery depends on if anything was recovered to return. If, for example, the servers were confiscated, and no one has given passwords to access the servers to retrieve content, then Civil Recovery is not possible. This would still leave Megaupload as the entity who would get sued. If civil recovery is however possible, then there would be due process and retrieving X amount of files for X amount of people as well as supplying burden of proof that they are indeed the legitimate owners of said content, then this would be a lengthy process that could be surrounded in bureaucratic red tape for a while - and still such a lawsuit, especially at this point in time would not do anything. I am not arguing if the whole thing is right or wrong, nor am I arguing that the law is right or wrong - but from my understanding this is correct. If anyone can clarify my possible misconceptions then that would be greatly appreciated.
  - Karunamon 15y ago
    So the feds swoop in, run off with multiple terabytes of data on the pretense that some percentage of it might be pirated, and there isn't fuck all a mere mortal can do about it. And people wonder why US law enforcement is so reviled?
roel_v 15y ago

ceol 15y ago

Neither the Torrent Freak article nor the Pirates of Catalonia[0] page say anything about suing the FBI— only submitting a complaint against the agency. [0]: http://megaupload.pirata.cat/ http://megaupload.pirata.cat/ edit: I've realized the first step to suing is filing a complaint. However, no where on the Pirata site does it say they're suing, so I'm skeptical.

elliottcarlson 15y ago
The title of the TorrentFreak article does say it, however the Pirates of Catalonia page indeed does not.
- im_dario 15y ago
  PIRATA.CAT lawyers (and other pirate parties legal teams) are working on this. This hasn't been done before.

hncommenter13 15y ago

This is more of a PR stunt than a winning legal strategy. 1. The US government has sovereign immunity (except where specifically waived by law) for virtually all its official acts, unless those acts violate the law or constitutional rights. 2. The supreme court has affirmed in a somewhat similar case, Kosak v. US, 465 U.S. 848 (1984), in which a set of paintings were detained (and possibly slightly damaged) by Customs officials. More recently, the core holding in Kosak was affirmed in Dolan v. US, a case regarding a specific waiver of immunity for the US Postal Service (though the lower court was reversed). 3. In a recent series of cases on criminal law (Medellin v. Texas, among others), a majority of the Court made it clear that they do not view decisions of the International Criminal Court as self-executing, meaning that they are to be followed without the ability for the Supreme Court to review them. In other words, this is a real longshot. At some point, if no criminal case can be proved, the accused may get the servers back (and the users their files). But if convicted (or if the assets are subject to foreiture as the fruit of illegal activity), there's a good chance those servers are gone for good. Besides, how would the FBI establish that the files were non-infringing and should be returned? In theory, the DMCA helps guard against this--had MegaUpload actually followed the takedown procedures, the government could have more faith that returning the servers to a surviving entity wouldn't put the same infringing content back online. Imagine a scenario where your financial advisor has control of some of your money and also happens to be a drug dealer or insider trader. The police bust him and seize his assets, but because money is fungible they can't tell exactly where all the cash came from. Your money is frozen pending the outcome of the case and a determination which assets should be released. You can sue the accountant (he had a duty to you), but suing the government isn't going to get you very far. Not exactly the same, but analogous, to my mind.

mc32 15y ago
>You can sue the accountant (he had a duty to you) That's how I see it. They're probably under better legal standing suing MU over gross fiduciary misconduct, etc.
- kingkilr 15y ago
  The MU terms of service specifically said there were no guarantees about upload lifetime (or something to that effect).

michaelfeathers 15y ago

Is it just me, or is there an incredible disconnect over "intellectual property"? Copyright interests like the RIAA and MPAA pressure governments to perform these raids which typically involve a court order to seize physical property (servers, etc) without any cognizance of the "property" they contain. They seem to want it both ways.

jonhendry 15y ago
So do the pirates, though, it seems to me. They usually aren't big proponents on being able to control your data. Information wants to be free? Well, part of freeing something is that you can lose it forever.
- chii 15y ago
  "Information wants to be free? Well, part of freeing something is that you can lose it forever." hang on, thats not right! Being free here means, free to obtain, reuse and distribute. Right now, the information is most decidely NOT free, because the feds are in control of it. They could've made a copy of the data as evidence - there isn't any need at all to remove the servers. This is digital data, the hardware has absolutely no bearing on the correctness of the evidence. I bet they were somehow 'persuaded' by the MAFIAA to sieze the hardware. I feel its unfair that lobby groups has enough power to use public money to achieve their goals.