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megaupload. He was stupid, but a friend lost a load of legitimate, original work; he'd been using it as an external hard drive and sharing mechanism for his la

megaupload. He was stupid, but a friend lost a load of legitimate, original work; he'd been using it as an external hard drive and sharing mechanism for his large project files.

tptacek 14y ago
The Mega prosecution was not spurious. The DoJ's discovery turned up a number of emails from Kim Schmitz and his team in which they openly admitted to compensating affiliates for uploading copyrighted material. Megaupload wasn't killed because of lax regulation over DMCA takedown regulations; it was killed because it was not, unlike Reddit or even Youtube, a bona fide clean-hands user-generated content exchange, but rather a piracy product wearing user-generated content clothing.
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  I would venture to say that the vast majority of piracy on megaupload was done without the knowledge of the people running the site. And it's obvious that some of the affiliate payments are going to go to people breaking the law on any site, unless you run background checks on your affiliates. Megaupload may have been tuned toward being a 'piracy product' but that does not mean it was anything other than user-generated piracy.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Again: the Mega indictment is full of transcripts of emails in which Kim and his team arrange to pay people to put pirated material on the site, and in which they repeatedly acknowledge the existence of copyrighted material on the site. One guy complains to support about the quality of the video on a Dexter episode, and Kim writes concerned mail to his team about video quality!
    - CamperBob2 14y ago
      One guy complains to support about the quality of the video on a Dexter episode, and Kim writes concerned mail to his team about video quality! This is called "Doing it right." If Showtime would sell me a license to view their content, I wouldn't even be tempted to download it for free. Since they refuse to, it's going to be tough to work up any righteous dudgeon towards Schmitz and crew, especially when they go out of their way to adopt a customer-oriented approach. Copyright is a government entitlement that we spun from whole cloth. Capitalism, on the other hand, comes naturally. You can't fight Mother Nature.
      - philwelch 14y ago
        You realize capitalism and IP are both based on the government enforcing a form of property rights, right? There's nothing "natural" about either.
        CamperBob2 14y ago
        Really? I can't own a means of production without government backing? That's... novel.
        philwelch 14y ago
        Property rights, in the sense that's necessary for capitalism, requires authoritative enforcement to actually work, which in requires government. Both theoretically and empirically. It's not a novel idea at all.
        CamperBob2 14y ago
        My point is that some property rights can arguably be seen as natural rights, while others definitely cannot be interpreted that way. Copyright is unquestionably not a natural right. It's entirely an artifact of our legal system, and a very recent one at that. As humans we've always had the concept of "property" to some extent, independent of government. That's not true of copyright law. That was something we invented in response to a specific need, but we invented it at a time when few/no other legal or intellectual tools were available. Copyright should never be treated as the sacred cow that property rights in general are, IMO.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - Dylan16807 14y ago
      Sorry, I somehow missed the emails about them actually arranging for pirated material. The worst I had known about was copying videos off youtube. But the Dexter email is valid. If illegal files find a bug you still need to fix the bug unrelated to removing the files. A few minutes later: Okay I just skimmed through the indictment again and I can't find what you're talking about. There's points 54 and 55 about how they didn't cancel the affiliate accounts of people that had uploaded infringing files, but I can't find anything about them actually arranging pirated material, or specifically encouraging its upload. Also point 69d says out that copyright-violating uploads were disqualified for rewards, though Megaupload rarely terminated the accounts.
      - tptacek 14y ago
        Start with page 32.
        Dylan16807 14y ago
        Ah, thanks. Well I see a lot of bad behavior, from them looking at user uploads, finding pirated files, and not removing them. But it's still unsolicited uploads. Page 33 mentions disqualification of 'very obvious' copyrighted files, but being 'rather flexible'. This is bad, but it's not going out and encouraging illegal-in-particular uploads. It's just poor policing on the affiliate program.
        tptacek 14y ago
        Page 32 is content from a discovered email in which a Megaupload employee calculates the affiliate bonus due to a user based on the value of the copyrighted files that user uploaded. This isn't reading-between-the-lines stuff. It's there in black and white.
        Dylan16807 14y ago
        Right, it's black and white that they ignored copyright violations on a bunch of files. But that is not the same as encouraging infringing files over non-infringing files, or asking people to upload infringing files. If you uploaded a popular infringing file, you might get $100, or you might get disqualified. If you uploaded a popular non-infringing file, you would definitely get $100. Megaupload knew about some of the piracy. That does not mean they arranged it. They treated it like any other file.
tehwalrus 14y ago
Maybe so, but the FBI still haven't given my friend his work back.
- tptacek 14y ago
  Your friend should be pretty pissed at Kim Schmitz for deceiving him into thinking that MegaUpload was a general-purpose file hosting site and not the criminal piracy conspiracy that it clearly, deliberately, lucratively was. You know, in addition to being pissed at the FBI.
  - ekimekim 14y ago
    I'm not denying that MegaUpload engaged in piracy, but that doesn't stop it from ALSO being a general-purpose file host. This is very tangential to copyright law, but there was no good reason morally (and, as far as I'm aware, legally) not to return customers data.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      This is the human shield theory of defending a criminal enterprise, isn't it? Profit from piracy, but cover it up with innocent people's documents.
      - bediger4000 14y ago
        No, it's the Betamax defense, isn't it? Substantial non-infringing uses make the technology allowable.
        res0nat0r 14y ago
        Correct, and this is why Amazon S3 probably the biggest filesharing system in existence is not being sued and being taken offline. Megaupload, not so much.
  - tehwalrus 14y ago
    (in reply to the much more nested comment) but this is the age of electronic data - it is easy to delete the content that was the subject of the DCMA and leave the rest of the site up read-only for a month while people archive (or something).

megaupload. He was stupid, but a friend lost a load of legitimate, original work; he'd been using it as an external hard drive and sharing mechanism for his large project files.

tptacek 14y ago

The Mega prosecution was not spurious. The DoJ's discovery turned up a number of emails from Kim Schmitz and his team in which they openly admitted to compensating affiliates for uploading copyrighted material. Megaupload wasn't killed because of lax regulation over DMCA takedown regulations; it was killed because it was not, unlike Reddit or even Youtube, a bona fide clean-hands user-generated content exchange, but rather a piracy product wearing user-generated content clothing.

Dylan16807 14y ago
I would venture to say that the vast majority of piracy on megaupload was done without the knowledge of the people running the site. And it's obvious that some of the affiliate payments are going to go to people breaking the law on any site, unless you run background checks on your affiliates. Megaupload may have been tuned toward being a 'piracy product' but that does not mean it was anything other than user-generated piracy.
- tptacek 14y ago
  Again: the Mega indictment is full of transcripts of emails in which Kim and his team arrange to pay people to put pirated material on the site, and in which they repeatedly acknowledge the existence of copyrighted material on the site. One guy complains to support about the quality of the video on a Dexter episode, and Kim writes concerned mail to his team about video quality!
  - CamperBob2 14y ago
    One guy complains to support about the quality of the video on a Dexter episode, and Kim writes concerned mail to his team about video quality! This is called "Doing it right." If Showtime would sell me a license to view their content, I wouldn't even be tempted to download it for free. Since they refuse to, it's going to be tough to work up any righteous dudgeon towards Schmitz and crew, especially when they go out of their way to adopt a customer-oriented approach. Copyright is a government entitlement that we spun from whole cloth. Capitalism, on the other hand, comes naturally. You can't fight Mother Nature.
    - philwelch 14y ago
      You realize capitalism and IP are both based on the government enforcing a form of property rights, right? There's nothing "natural" about either.
      - CamperBob2 14y ago
        Really? I can't own a means of production without government backing? That's... novel.
        philwelch 14y ago
        Property rights, in the sense that's necessary for capitalism, requires authoritative enforcement to actually work, which in requires government. Both theoretically and empirically. It's not a novel idea at all.
        CamperBob2 14y ago
        My point is that some property rights can arguably be seen as natural rights, while others definitely cannot be interpreted that way. Copyright is unquestionably not a natural right. It's entirely an artifact of our legal system, and a very recent one at that. As humans we've always had the concept of "property" to some extent, independent of government. That's not true of copyright law. That was something we invented in response to a specific need, but we invented it at a time when few/no other legal or intellectual tools were available. Copyright should never be treated as the sacred cow that property rights in general are, IMO.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - Dylan16807 14y ago
    Sorry, I somehow missed the emails about them actually arranging for pirated material. The worst I had known about was copying videos off youtube. But the Dexter email is valid. If illegal files find a bug you still need to fix the bug unrelated to removing the files. A few minutes later: Okay I just skimmed through the indictment again and I can't find what you're talking about. There's points 54 and 55 about how they didn't cancel the affiliate accounts of people that had uploaded infringing files, but I can't find anything about them actually arranging pirated material, or specifically encouraging its upload. Also point 69d says out that copyright-violating uploads were disqualified for rewards, though Megaupload rarely terminated the accounts.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      Start with page 32.
      - Dylan16807 14y ago
        Ah, thanks. Well I see a lot of bad behavior, from them looking at user uploads, finding pirated files, and not removing them. But it's still unsolicited uploads. Page 33 mentions disqualification of 'very obvious' copyrighted files, but being 'rather flexible'. This is bad, but it's not going out and encouraging illegal-in-particular uploads. It's just poor policing on the affiliate program.
        tptacek 14y ago
        Page 32 is content from a discovered email in which a Megaupload employee calculates the affiliate bonus due to a user based on the value of the copyrighted files that user uploaded. This isn't reading-between-the-lines stuff. It's there in black and white.
        Dylan16807 14y ago
        Right, it's black and white that they ignored copyright violations on a bunch of files. But that is not the same as encouraging infringing files over non-infringing files, or asking people to upload infringing files. If you uploaded a popular infringing file, you might get $100, or you might get disqualified. If you uploaded a popular non-infringing file, you would definitely get $100. Megaupload knew about some of the piracy. That does not mean they arranged it. They treated it like any other file.

tehwalrus 14y ago

Maybe so, but the FBI still haven't given my friend his work back.

tptacek 14y ago
Your friend should be pretty pissed at Kim Schmitz for deceiving him into thinking that MegaUpload was a general-purpose file hosting site and not the criminal piracy conspiracy that it clearly, deliberately, lucratively was. You know, in addition to being pissed at the FBI.
- ekimekim 14y ago
  I'm not denying that MegaUpload engaged in piracy, but that doesn't stop it from ALSO being a general-purpose file host. This is very tangential to copyright law, but there was no good reason morally (and, as far as I'm aware, legally) not to return customers data.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    This is the human shield theory of defending a criminal enterprise, isn't it? Profit from piracy, but cover it up with innocent people's documents.
    - bediger4000 14y ago
      No, it's the Betamax defense, isn't it? Substantial non-infringing uses make the technology allowable.
      - res0nat0r 14y ago
        Correct, and this is why Amazon S3 probably the biggest filesharing system in existence is not being sued and being taken offline. Megaupload, not so much.
- tehwalrus 14y ago
  (in reply to the much more nested comment) but this is the age of electronic data - it is easy to delete the content that was the subject of the DCMA and leave the rest of the site up read-only for a month while people archive (or something).