Megaupload seized / shut down

[Vanguard]

I did not. Given the information I posted earlier, this is hardly surprising.

[dyeager]

People have sent me some really interesting links on the whole debate, I thought I'd share a couple with you guys.

Here is one from a small time horror publisher whose work got pirated. He typically makes 35k a year as a small time publisher: http://www.briankeene.com/?p=10258

Here is also a very short article with lots of good links having to do with Jonathan Coulton's stance on the issue - you can firmly put him on the side of the Neil Gaiman camp: http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/reverb/2012/01/just_because_jonathan_coultons.php

What I've heard here really speaks to the fact that I think the biggest thing needed is independent research on the true effects of piracy on these industries. All we seem to be able to debate are various anecdotes, and that's no way to have a rational discussion.

I also wanted to say this whole thread really made me appreciate how rational the RPGFan community CAN be. This is a hot button issue that usually leads to a lot of name calling, but I think for the most part people handled it with a real interest in sharing ideas and opinions. So thanks. :-)

[Akanbe-]

I'm pretty sure the studies are out there.  I've seen studies show up on Ars from time to time, but I don't who published them.

And there goes stuff like unlicensed Japanese shows.  I can't watch the show nor can I support it because the only releases are DVDs that are in Japanese with no subtitles.  Sucks.

[Mickeymac92]

As much as it sucks, it's still illegal and you can't really justify it.

Anyways, to completely contradict myself, I must say, I'm more beefed about the fact that they took Megavideo down, too. I used to use that for all my anime needs, since it had the best video quality and a great interface, and I absolutely refuse to use other mirrors, so now I gotta download...but they took down Megaupload, so now I'll have to use *shudders* torrents...

Jesus Christ, this was far more effective at at least getting me to go the legal route than SOPA ever would've been.=P

[Eusis]

That point was countered with the fact they've been under investigation for MONTHS.

[Hidoshi]

Months? Two YEARS dude.

[Ashton]

I'm still not completely convinced this is coincidental, they were under investigation before, and suddenly they're raided when they want to coe out with Megabox? They drop the lawsuit against Universal while they're being held? Very fishy.

I wouldn't be surprise if the raid was instigated and sped up by corporations at this point.

[Mickeymac92]

Just a note, but it seems that other sites have stepped up their game now that Megaupload was taken down. I've been to 10 different sites, and all of them have begun heavily removing their illegal content, and at least 4 of them have disabled filesharing. This seems to have had a bigger impact than I originally thought.

[Vanguard]

I'm still not completely convinced this is coincidental, they were under investigation before, and suddenly they're raided when they want to coe out with Megabox? They drop the lawsuit against Universal while they're being held? Very fishy.

I wouldn't be surprise if the raid was instigated and sped up by corporations at this point.

You'd have to be naive to think otherwise. There are too many factors in this situation to write it off as a coincidence. With SOPA failing to gain support, they were a little butt hurt. When they saw plans for MegaBox, it made sense to tie them up in the courts.

[Hidoshi]

Sorry, I can't support the U.S. government overreaching in any capacity, especially if the reasoning for this is shit fueled by corporate interests rather than common good. He should be tried in the UK, where he's from, and even then copyright infringement is really more of a civil problem than a criminal one. If he was a known terrorist or criminal responsible for crimes against the U.S.? Fine. But no, he's a kid who hosted a website. Being a dick is not against the law; we have rappers that sing "fuck the police" nowadays. It's dumb, but they're not criminals.

There's never a 'this side is right, this side is wrong' deal when it comes to stuff like this, but I normally fall into the party that disapproves of the way governments handle this because they're honestly being a bunch of dicks about it. The punishment should fit the crime, but what they are doing now is the equivalent of taking a thief to the public square and chopping off his hands, screaming "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO THIEVES," as a warning to others.

It depends on which party has suffered damages due to O'Dwyer's actions. If it were a case of property relating to the servers, trying him in the UK wouldn't be an issue. But that's not the grievance here. The grievance is damage through infringement, and chances are most of the damages are against American properties. It's well within reason to request extradition.

Copyright infringement of this kind (re: Enabling Theft) is not, and never has been a civil procedure in any court of the Commonwealth or the United States. Were it merely that he was practicing plagiarism, he might be tried in civil proceedings because plagiarism does not always equate actual theft of goods, only of concepts. But what O'Dwyer was doing was enabling theft, compounded by copyright infringement. Therefore it's a criminal trial. Otherwise you'd have to equally grant all cases of assisted theft a civil procedure instead of a criminal one, and the law does not work that way.

They really aren't being dickish about this at all. There's also no talk of punishment yet. O'Dwyer can even appeal extradition right now. Keep in mind, the UK's hand was not force in this matter. There does exist an extradition pact between the US and UK, but an independent ruling still has to be made, and by a judge of the country from whom an individual is being extradited.

Why isn't O'Dwyer being tried in the UK? Because they don't have any laws regarding what he did. The UK is massively behind in terms of internet legislation and has no precedent to try O'Dwyer on. But the United States, Canada, or Australia do, and since damages were most severe to US properties, that's where he goes.

This isn't an abuse of authority dude, it's pretty much due process.

[Chronix112]

What i really did not like about sites like megaupload is that massive blogging sites' accounts , actually get paid based on the amounts of hits their download gets. Getting paid for hosting/stealing someone eles's work is just not right. I am not exactly happy about the way it was done, but I pleased with the result.

[Annubis]

Interesting interviews on what went on when the police assaulted Kim's mansion. Both sides of the story.

http://www.3news.co.nz/Campbell-Live-enters-Kim-Dotcoms-Coatesville-mansion/tabid/367/articleID/242116/Default.aspx
http://www.3news.co.nz/Police-defend-actions-during-Dotcom-raid/tabid/367/articleID/242115/Default.aspx

Going overboard much?

[dyeager]

Funny timing this - was sent a really excellent NY Times op ed piece that also contains a link to a University of Texas study on piracy effects. This isn't the be all, end all of such research but the evidence is certainly not pretty for the pro-piracy side.

The NYT piece: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/perpetual-war-digital-pirates-and-creators.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

The research paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1932518&download=yes

The author of the paper is a professor of economics at the University of Texas and has done a number of research papers on this topic over the years. Again, not the be all end all, but the case is pretty compelling.

[Vanguard]

The NYT article is pretty dishonest, actually. The drop in sales in the last ten years may look precipitous, but it's ignoring the fact that record companies have witnessed ever-decreasing sales for the last forty years.

I'm not denying that seeing a 50% loss of sales in ten years isn't huge, but look at the early years. We see biggest leaps percentage-wise during the years that the record industry refused to acknowledge that digital distribution was the way of the future. That was a lost opportunity. We see some slight declines around 2003-2004, but this when the RIAA was suing people.

This is the problem I have with arguments that set the metrics to begin with the advent of Napster. The trends we're seeing today began prior to digital distribution. The internet merely accelerated the slow bleeding-out the record companies had been suffering post the heydays of the 1960s. Instead of using this as an opportunity to restructure themselves (well, they have, they've consolidated and gotten bigger, further exacerbating the structural problems), they bandy this data around and talk about how it's hurting artists when, in 95% of cases, it is not affecting them in the slightest.

The best thing that could happen is the complete collapse of the big four record companies. It would open the door for a lot of musicians to cut the middleman out and get their music directly into the hands of digital distributors, like iTunes (who, by the way, pay more money to record companies than to either artists or themselves combined). 

[dyeager]

I think "dishonest" is the wrong word. Precisely because there are so many mitigating factors, regression analysis seems to me to be the only legit way to isolate the variables here.

Regardless I think it becomes more and more difficult to hold the viewpoint that "piracy doesn't affect sales". I doubt very strongly it is the ONLY reason sales are down, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to believe it plays NO factor.