Megaupload closed
Federal agents from the state of Virginia forced to close the site, which is no longer available on the WEB. Seven people and two companies were charged with being part of an "international criminal organization allegedly responsible for massive piracy around the world."
The news, of course, spread throughout the WEB so fast that it even seems like old news ... but no, it all happened a few hours ago. The reactions have been as diverse as types of users exist in this virtual world, the scope of this act has not yet been calculated since the closure of this site not only affects those sites that host the links of illegal downloads, but even the containing material that does not violate any law. What is a fact is that sites like peliculasyonkis.com, seriesyonkis.com, surfthechannel.com, taringa.net, thepiratecity.org and mulinks.com. fall in a few hours because of the domino effect.
For now the million dollar question is what will happen to the rights of third parties? What will happen to the money of all those users who in good faith paid for a "Premier" service to host their own work? Will they be considered safeguarded or will they have to go to court? For now it is not known.
The truth is that due to this act, legal or not, abusive or not, protector of vested interests or not ... the first acts of revenge have already been created on the websites of the United States Department of Justice (www.justice.gov) and the website of Universal (www.universalmusic.com) by the collective Anonymous.
For those who want to read it, here is the complete document of the claim: Megaupload Indictment
Mexico is already on the same filthy path as SOPA ...
http://www.sopitas.com/site/142740-nuestros-expertos-explican-la-ley-doring/#.Txh-g4jKDI4.facebook
Look to see what happened to you: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/341/capturanx.jpg/
I self-censored xD I put my gallery in storage between now and 24th of this month, since dA is hosted in the US and that like megaupload, there is a lot of traffic of illegal content (called "fanart" or "fanfiction") because ... legally, that type of creative performance is illegal since one as an artist never asked the first one if a derivative work could be created or not ...
That's why I worry a lot, for me "fanwork" or "fandom" are ideal ways to stimulate creativity, and SOPA and PIPA are barriers to that end.
I take this opportunity and speak of the other side of the coin ... actions that have taken place in these few hours by Anonymous:
The following sites have been taken off the internet (offline):
- United States Department of Justice (www.justice.gov)
- Universal (www.universalmusic.com)
- Motion Picture Association of America (http://MPAA.ORG)
- Recording Industry Association of America (RIIA.ORG)
- US Copyright Office.
But it doesn't stop there ... in the last hour or two, more sites have gone down:
- Warner Music (wmg.com)
- The FBI page (fbi.gov) also falls for approximately 7 minutes ... and apparently, it has already been more than once ...
This will not end here ... surely not.
Anonymous's signature is VERY clear:
This is definitely getting better and better 😀
Here in Chile, after the closure of Megaupload was known, a Hashtag appeared on Twitter that read like this: #JuntenPorno, jjajajajajajajaja still makes me laugh.
Some of them are already online again, others like Universal they are still down. Before writing the topic I doubted if only to present the note -how i finally did- or editorialize about it ... the matter is very complex.
If we see it dispassionately I must admit the administration of Megaupload if it allowed the hosting of hundreds of thousands of material that violated the law because for them it represented a big business, however many of the users Megaupload They shared that material in a disinterested way and, even, the vast majority of them not only did not obtain profits but even financed this activity out of their pockets.
Perhaps the obligatory reflection after this event is really the closing of Megaupload Is it an attack against freedom of expression, or is it really the closure of a site whose owners allowed the law to be broken because it was profitable for them?
Finally, what does each of us understand as freedom of expression on the Internet? Is it doing what we want to do just because we can do it or doing the right thing? Should the WEB be a self-regulated site? If so, how to self-regulate it?
I believe that the matter goes beyond a haughty FBI closing a site and a community -Anonymous- fighting, I do not doubt that in good faith, for a freedom that I still do not understand.
If we know that things are not so simple, I agree that some regulation is needed because people have the right to protect their creations, although SOPA, Sinde. Lleras etc are not the right way, but it is also true that Megaupload not only contained files that infringed copyright but also many user files that were their backups, and even information that was kept there.
To give you an example, I belong to a community of virtual pilots (we fly combat flight simulators) and one of the most used means to share birefings and missions was precisely MU and now we do not know what will happen with that information, nor will we know what will happen with those people who had paid for a premium account. My point is that these kinds of actions cannot be taken so arbitrarily, there must be instances.
It is true, this action has violated the rights of third parties but if more than 6,000 users coordinated to hack the website of the FBI Can't you do the same to defend your rights in court?
Or is this a sign that people have already stopped believing in institutions?
Wow….! I still feel that all this is beyond my ability to understand because the problem is extremely complex.
The issue is very serious ... I had many things in Backup uploaded to MU. Now I lost all those files ...> _
On the other hand (I know that there are several anime lovers like me around here), hundreds of series, especially the "old ladies", all had their links only for MU ... because it was "The most reliable".
uu
… And to be honest… I feel the same as when I found out that the twin towers had fallen.
Different situations, but similar feelings ._.
Yes, there is hardly any anime on other sites
I lost 60 gigabytes of anime uploaded and 10 gigabytes of work from the institution, and I no longer know where to download series like one piece or detective conan in Catalan or Italian and old series I doubt that they will be uploaded again T_T. This is an outrage against international data protection laws. The rest, if there are any Spaniards around here, inform that we are creating a platform to report this action.
We have YouTube left, but seeing it there sucks. At least you know Italian and Catalan, so if you search in Google you will get more options.
And Spanish, I am Spanish but I don't quite understand what you have said.
I say that all Spaniards, we should unite to make a complaint to a court, this is simple, even if only for damages, for all the money lost or simply for not being able to access personal data.
Not that it's bad but ...
They will not even fucking pay attention to us, they will always pay attention to the one who has money and to us who do not give.
It seems to me that the best thing is to ally us, look for those responsible and put them in hell
What I do not understand very well is this, under the laws of which country are they going to be sentenced? (copyright and anti-piracy laws vary by country, I understand) under the US? because the defendants were not US citizens, according to what I read or at least not all.
The detail is that I think, the MU servers were on American soil ... so they can technically do whatever they want with them 🙁
Ahh another thing that bothers me a lot is that it is said that companies do not make money with piracy. Far fewer people would have bought play stations 2, mp3 players, 320 Gig hard drives, and fewer would have high-speed internet connections if not for piracy. I know it is illegal and should not be done but the notion that companies like Sony or Telefónica do not benefit in part from piracy is ridiculous.
Anonymous was already taking revenge
http://noticiastn.com.ar/anonymous-lanza-ataque-mundial-guerra-digital/
Who has not downloaded something (legal or not) from Mega Upload? I've done it, although occasionally, never assiduously.
I think this should be the law that fights against Internet piracy: attack specific sites and capture those responsible: a few. It shouldn't go against those who share links or download files: capturing and processing them all would be a huge cost for governments.
On the other hand, I do not agree with SOPA. With this law, they would shut down any site arbitrarily. They could close a page or blog that had nothing to do with piracy, but that did express views contrary to those who want to control the world and manipulate information.
I'm sorry for the closure of Mega Upload, but I commend Anonymous's counter-attack. I really liked yesterday's protest, although I regret that Facebook and Twitter did nothing. If Facebook had done something, it would have reached a much larger audience and more people would be informed about SOPA and PIPA. Either way.
A couple of days ago I registered with megaupload to upload a couple of files (free software) and now I find this. I don't know where we will end up.
I am not a Megaupload user. Yes, sometime I have downloaded something from there, but generally they were very small files that had nothing to do with movies, music and others. The point is that the closure of a legitimate page, no matter how badly used it by some users, is a small first step towards 1984, towards a world like the one described by George Orwell, with his Big Brother controlling everything.
Because by that rule of three, they could also close Dropbox, email accounts, any blog that has posted images or videos from third parties and a long etcetera. It seems like a trivial matter, a simple blow against piracy, but it goes much further.
Just because a user downloads a movie does not mean they stop buying it. Maybe later, if you liked it, invest your money in it. Or maybe, in any case, I never will - whether I have downloaded it or not. To use as an excuse to close a website that companies have lost 500 million dollars is, at the very least, legally permissive. How can you lose something you don't have? If Megaupload did not exist, would such amounts of money have been collected?
I think that governments and companies, always ready to squeeze the consumer, have come to the conclusion that the Internet is a very important battlefield. I understand that illicit practices should not be allowed, but what is legal and what is illegal? If it is precisely the companies and governments that make the law in their image and likeness, always manipulating and harming the ordinary citizen, could not the law be understood as a set of measures designed to protect the rich from the poor?
Broad and complicated topic. Excuse me for the billet.
A greeting.
¿1984?
Because before an action of this type we already begin to take things out of mother.
Today I am able to access more and higher quality information than my great-great-great-grandparents, accessing information without even violating intellectual property rights. I have more social and cultural possibilities than they do for it. This allows me to think more freely.
The amount of books in the public domain would allow me to read the rest of my life without depending on anything (also reading quality literature and not the shit that publishers sell us lately), and I can access it for free and it is not forbidden to disseminate. Between now and death the amount is increasing.
The worst thing is that people do not even use those rights, as they prefer to see an X series on a website that is making a cut directly based on premium accounts and advertising and without giving that money back to the authors, they forget what culture is and rights. Well, yes, in theory they don't know what their users use their services for, do they?
Closing a profit-making website is synonymous with something? What can not see the latest fashion series without contributing a penny means something ?. First there are thousands of channels that do not depend on a company (torrents?). Second there is going to be a trial.
The only real problem I see is people who had accounts and used it for personal files. But, as far as I know, they are precautionary measures. I mean, it doesn't mean anything, if there is a trial, they will be compensated or whatever or we can scream like an angry mass. Whether it is illegal or not, a judge will rule it.
Let the analogy of closing megaupload with 1984 is a bit exaggerated.
Completely agree with you. I would like to share with you something I wrote almost four years ago (28 Feb 2008) and it is a complaint very similar to yours; somehow MegauploadPerhaps unintentionally, it ended up perverting the way users interact:
Today I look around the forums and with sadness I see that things have changed, and I am not talking about such simple or silly topics as "Which Beatle had the longest grudge?" or "Do you consider Ringo's nose sexy"? No. I'm not talking about that.
Today thanks to RapidShare, MegaUpLoad, YouSendIt… And so many more the forums have become a kind of large warehouse where leechers can download the hosted material at will. And that wouldn't be a bad thing if it hadn't also generated a brood of lazy "forum members" who believe that by contributing tons of material to download, they collaborate to enlarge a forum. That would not be a bad thing either if it weren't for the fact that most of these "contributions" are copied from other forums or blogs and simply pasted. They do not even bother to investigate or contribute something about it to enrich our knowledge.
Today I try to read something interesting in a forum and I don't find anything interesting; copied and pasted news in the public domain, old themes resurrected with a terse "Very interesting, didn't know" and "dialogues" and "debates" that rarely exceed twenty words. And with a terrible Spanish, badly written. As if typing twenty words were carrying the cross up to Golgotha.
I wonder if we have lost the ability to spin coherent ideas, and worst of all, have we lost the ability to generate the ideas themselves? Where was the thirst to investigate to learn?
And for the record, ignorance is not a justification ... my Spanish was terrible when I was studying nowhereland and thanks to this it has improved remarkably. Many words I did not understand and today I no longer have that problem thanks to those forums.
These are the forums of the present, and the most dramatic of all will be the forums of the near future.
There is much to think about, and much to do. Of that I have no doubt.
My comment was a bit clumsy from the rush.
I agree with that comment. I like the ideas you put forward and I am going to give my vision a bit, and perhaps I go around the bush and drift on issues that have nothing to do with the news:
The problem is that we have (or, we have) exchanged quality for quantity. In part it is due to a greater democratization of the internet (which is not bad), which translates into more people accessing and participating, but more difficulty in finding, amid all the noise, interesting information or original analyzes that are not a rehash of something previous.
Also influencing the increase in internet speed and the capacity of hard drives, all information is little and our obsession is to fill our hard drive, exchange a lot of information, fastfeeds, etc. It is no longer worth knowing the songs of a group, its producer, musicians, etc. What matters is having 40000 songs on your hard drive, half of dubious quality; having downloaded a thousand books, than not reading them; or have seen the latest American series.
The fact of wanting to consume culture so quickly means that we waste much less time selecting and analyzing it. We get carried away by the dough and consume it so quickly that we hardly have time to juice it. In other words, if we select and consume quickly, the residue left by culture is little because we have skipped the previous, subsequent analysis and during the process, in addition to the fact that the quality of what we consume becomes variable. As that information has had little influence on us, perhaps it is just fun, we will not be able to make more complex analyzes, learn, gain experience, etc. We deprive ourselves of complex information, that which has to be thought about, but which is enriching.
I have also entered this game, for example, before I unraveled the discs down to the last notes. Now I consume a lot more music and analyze it less.
In addition to everything, the information is already chewed and well crushed from the currents of opinion, so the people above live in their bubble of "I don't know what guru" - who says guru, says something else as publisher or record company - said this It is good or bad and I do not go from good or bad. And on top of that if you argue with me "you have no idea what you're talking about." So we no longer crush anything because there is nothing to crush. We want easy information, not too complex, that if we waste time thinking about it or deciphering it we can not continue downloading or touching the touch screen of my 3g device.
Greetings and sorry for the walk through the branches
@Tina and @algoban: How much truth and good sense! The truth is nice, I could not have expressed it better than you with the couple of comments made. 😀
Greetings.
I only say one thing, I am uploading in private trackers and leecher and old fansubero and me that they take away megaupload, when the shit of the anime industry of my country only brings us commercial pig anime, it touches my morals a lot. The day they dedicate themselves to subtitling even all the series legally, then they complain, until that day we have to pull piracy because the content is not even licensed.
It is not to take things out of context. In my opinion, and I declare myself a staunch critic of the system, "1984" is not a future threat, but a present and functioning reality. Adulterated information, media subjugated in favor of governments and companies… Of course there is more information in circulation, but… of what quality? Objective or manipulated? What is the Liberty? Exists?
I do not deny that there are people who are capable of finding their own way among the masses, but is it not true that both the media and governments seek a citizenry totally rooted in stupidity? You just have to see the television programming, the news in the newspapers or the care that the States put in the education of their future generations. My grandparents certainly didn't have access to half the culture that I did, but living in a bigger cage doesn't make it a bigger freedom.
When referring to the closure of Megaupload with those words -perhaps exaggerated-, what I do is include it in that so-called fence on freedom of expression that some organizations seem to persecute. Naturally, it seems legitimate to me that authors defend their creations, and that a download page is closed is not the end of the world, although it can set a dangerous precedent. You have to find a balance and look for those alternatives.
What I want to focus on is precisely the forms and the substance of the issue. The law says that a person is innocent until proven otherwise, but here they have closed -that no matter how precautionary it is, it is still a presumption of guilt-, and then we will see ... Legal users, there are, they will see your files out of reach, and all your data in the hands of the FBI. Why?
And then there are the groups of people / companies that have promoted this. Closing a web page, an FBI operation through, to fulfill the wishes of the producers or, since we are, approve the SOPA / PIPA / ACTA and its substitutes, is to establish a new generation plutocracy, shameless. It is going beyond justice, that great chimera in which I believe less and less, and putting it at the service of the powerful -even more.
And having said all this, I want to add that I partially share your point of view, both yours and Tina Toledo's, but the enormous amount of abuses perpetrated is filling the glass. In my case, Megaupload has only been one more drop, which has finally produced its overflow, and it saddens me to see that the way to fix something in this world is the snip.
A greeting.
The comparison still seems exaggerated.
The information is of the quality you want. There is both good and bad. You can even transmit it yourself.
I don't know what governments are looking for. I know what I am and what I am looking for, and I know that I have the tools to think, reason for myself without anyone telling me what to think and, above all, censor my way of thinking and forbid me to express it freely (obviously I am influenced by many things, but it's another debate). If other people don't, given the chance, it's your problem.
Greater access to information makes me think more freely, information grows over the years, cage?
Internet control is dangerous, but in this case it cannot be said that it is censorship, nor surveillance, nor thought control, and that is why I do not understand the analogy. Nor have they deprived you of a right, and on top of that there are still alternatives that have always been better (torrents). In any case, they have closed a website of a type that made a profit from the work of others.
The fact that you are innocent until proven otherwise does not imply that precautionary measures are not taken. In cases of murder, the alleged murderer is locked up even if only allegedly.
The issue of the blockade leaves many unknowns that will be resolved. It is clear that the way the situation is being handled has not been the ideal one. As well as the different laws that have been tried to carry out. But that does not imply that people cannot bring governments down today.
Society has more power than you think and is willing to use. If a government allows a law, the society is in disagreement can change the government. If tomorrow all the people stopped consuming what, for example, Universal produces, their empire would go to shit. If people don't, they either don't disagree, or they aren't making proper use of their freedom. But you are free to do so.
Algoban, I applaud your attitude, because it is without a doubt what is needed today: a critical spirit.
It is true that there is more information, of all kinds, but it is not always within the reach of the population - either due to ignorance, lack of access or concealment. Take, for example, the huge, floating islands of garbage in the ocean that I never saw in my life be named in a news or newspaper.
I also draw my conclusions, I believe my "truth" and I approach my life in my own way, investigating and contrasting, but I see that there is inexorably manipulation of information and it bothers me, especially since many people believe what they read without reasoning the least. In these issues, it is necessary to attend to multiple factors, even sociological, and the truth is that it would give for real debates, of the long ones.
As for the "cage" thing, it's a way of talking. I like philosophy, and here perhaps the most accurate thing would have been to refer to the myth of Plato's Cave. But hey, it's just my opinion, it doesn't mean it has to be true.
Obviously, there are better alternatives - I like torrents better - and here they have not violated any right of expression. What I understand is that this attack has secondary intentions, perhaps related to SOPA. Note that, at this time, and undoubtedly the result of what has happened with Megaupload and social pressure, I think that proposal has been withdrawn.
Society has power, a lot of power. What if you don't know you have it? You just have to see the resigned and sullen air of the citizens these days, the unwelcome acceptance of government policies, etc. Instead of doing something, they just sit at home - most of them. And for me, individually, that affects me, because a single person cannot change the system, no matter how much they wanted to.
Today we have freedom, but if we don't use it, will we have it tomorrow?
they are all siomes
Regarding what corresponds to Copyright in the United States, the closure was imminent, and that is that many ignore, do not understand, look the other way or what I know, when obviously Megaupload profited in an uncontrolled and shameless way with the traffic derived from the material and the commercialization of their products at the cost of housing mostly protected works without any hint of change and control. It is no longer enough to review the earnings figures of their directives that circulate on the network (More than 175 million dollars), to check the magnitude of their activities, they became tycoons!
That with this measure innocent individuals are being affected, surely they are, and surely those who have been affected will be able to file a claim against the authorities, too; However, I personally do not place all the responsibility on the FBI, since among its competences is the persecution, together with Interpol, of presumably criminal conduct, including those that violate Intellectual Property, but rather Megaupload itself, that at no time sought to shield its service from these possible measures, they did not do so, a gross error for the most influential company in the download of files on the network, and where the little importance is demonstrated, in terms of service reliability , which they had towards their "legal" users.
For this reason, the enormous business that was set up behind is unacceptable, something that in no way corresponds to what many call "sharing", it is shared more via torrent than by direct download! There, what was done was to store protected material that was then distributed on the network for each download, a flow of which they knew their directives perfectly, and from which they obtained millions of dollars in profits, or else, someone tell me that, for example, Megavideo, Was it used to upload videos of weddings and masses or for something else?
I am convinced that the extremely restrictive and purely sanctioning regulations that have been proposed lately are not the most adequate or reasonable, but I am also convinced that the internet cannot continue like a brave bull left to its own devices in a glassworks, measures are needed, undoubtedly. Especially if the personal rights of users and the personal rights of authors converge in such a distorted way.
I don't even talk about freedom of expression, since many confuse it with "doing whatever I want" "everything is free" "knowledge has no owner", etc., stirring pears with stones in the same basket. Trying to change that concept is a losing battle.
Greetings, and sorry for the blow but it was inevitable, come on, for something I study Law ... xD
Great but worthwhile.
It is clear that they did not shield and benefited directly. But it is very difficult to ponder it without entering into injustices. I can think of a classic example and two variants:
1. You make knives and sell them. You offer a service that does not have to have a criminal purpose
2. You make knives and sell them for criminal purposes.
In case 1 it would not be illegal. In case 2, you would have to prove it, or see if the knife maker is an accomplice. Many will see megaupload on 1 and another on 2.
But being the only ones, we can ask ourselves why megaupload and not other similar services? Why not YouTube?
And another question (since you study law). Isn't it enough with the current system where a judge decides the legality of a page? What is wrong with this system?
Errata
2. You make knives and sell them knowing that have criminal purposes.
Regarding the two possibilities that you write down, everything boils down to a matter of evidence, since complicity is not the mere knowledge of the execution of criminal acts, but the collaboration carried to the concealment of the prohibited practice. For me, those of Mega were in the second place of your hypothesis, inasmuch as they had already been requested previously about the material housed there, and even so they washed their hands, leaving the responsibility to the users, while they continued to cover themselves. Why hasn't the same been done with everyone? Namely, it may be due to the impossibility of bringing them to trial or political strategies.
Your question about judicial control in these cases is interesting, I particularly think that an administrative procedure can be carried out prior to the intervention of the judge, so that he only acts with respect to the legality of the administrative decision, I do not see the need to be imperative that he must participate from the beginning. But beware, I'm talking about a well-developed administrative process, not an inquisitive one, but one that is respectful of procedural guarantees, due process, right of defense, etc. (This is precisely what is critical of SOPA, and its clones: their methods are very arbitrary). In short, judicial control could well be later, not always the judiciary should intervene first, this of course, provided that there is a prior administrative process well conducted and respectful of the guarantees of users.
In the case of Mega, it did not have to do only with a mere infringement of copyright, but since the accused were charged with more crimes, including money laundering, it was ordered as a precautionary measure the retention of all that material that could serve as evidence for the accusation, such as cars, money, blocking of bank accounts, and of course, the servers where all the information was hosted. The complex thing about the matter is that if it gives it full probative value, it can happen that users with legal material see their information disappear, since claiming and exercising legal action in the United States is extremely expensive, which would make it very difficult for the vast majority of they be heard in court, or even heard in a formal petition.
A greeting.
As a website, I don't have to be reviewing the content that users pay for it. Those who have to check that there are no infringements, are the authors who can dedicate themselves to denouncing the links and megaupload always complies by removing them, Those who do not know and talk a lot because they do not know, is that most games, blu rays, etc., are uploaded to fileserve and not MU, because fileserve until recently paid, and the same happened with rapidshare, so most of mu uploaders did it for the love of art. I have the conviction that a court will again say that the MU's are not liable, as happened last time. Finally, the founder of MU was a great fool to live in a country that is practically the fiefdom of the United States, New Zealand, it is like living in Australia or Japan.
In case you haven't seen it, the indictment is available. It's surreal to say the least.
From page 30 you see private emails between the accused. They even pass files between them or explain the intention to copy files from YouTube. They even say things like that they are not pirates but that they provide a service to pirates.
http://es.scribd.com/doc/78786408/Mega-Indictment
Seen the car, everything indicates that they were in the second case.
It doesn't seem like a bad idea to me, as long as this procedure is carried out by transparent state bodies. But would that administrative procedure that you propose have precautionary measures such as the temporary closure of the website?
SOPA, like sinde and others, part of an erroneous base since it wants to have control over the internet through unfair, not very transparent and partisan mechanisms.
All the best
@ pandev92
Check the car where it is clear that the MU knew what they were doing. On the other hand, MU did pay users, which can be problematic if they received money for protected material (it has already been commented on other websites), since they could receive a complaint.
In mu they knew what they did clear, but they did not do it and that is enough 🙂
If you look at it another way, you may already be starting to close 70% of internet traffic, make no mistake, the internet has grown a lot due to piracy.
@ pandev92: The fact that MU did not upload the protected material himself is not enough to exonerate him, since a punishable conduct, a crime, can be committed in various ways: by direct, improper, omission, etc., or by complicity or determining the act, and if you see objectively, the service it provided together with MU's overall behavior, was a reluctant attitude towards the control over the use that its users made of the service in which it was not involved because they knew that its business was it would go under. This is the direct relationship between MU's business model and copyright infringements, moreover, the main reason for its accusation. Like algoban told you, read the providence, seriously.
Regarding what you say that then more than half the internet would have to be closed for thinking how I think, it is not relevant, because there are cases more burdensome than others, you yourself have said how some even pay, those, those who profit shamelessly without any modesty must be criminally prosecuted. In addition, let me tell you something, the penalty has a general preventive function, which implies the call of attention to all of us for the non-commission of crimes given the negative consequences that they entail, or is it that perhaps when you see that they do not catch everyone robbers means that none should be caught? Well that, what has happened to MU is also an important wake-up call for all its clones about the service they provide and the possible consequences derived from their behavior.
A greeting.
Part of all this problem is that, to be honest, almost all internet users have downloaded, at least once, an illegal file, not just from Megaupload but from anywhere else.
What am I trying to say by this? That this type of conduct is totally "normal" on the WEB and that, for me, the Internet is a site that is governed by customs and customs and not by the legality of law. However, being governed by uses and customs is not always the best since it depends largely on the moral quality of the community that performs this practice.
This is the context in which, and by which, the protests are generated alleging that the closure of Megaupload it is an attack on freedom of expression. Or the beginning of restricting that freedom.
Is this really true? Is this action carried out by the FBI means the beginning of the end for freedom of expression on the internet? Does it mean that the cultural legacy of humanity will not be available to everyone?
I do not think so. The truth is that I'm not happy about the closing of Megaupload because, like many, I have lost money -I had a premium account- and the hours invested in uploading more than 15Gb. of information -basically graphic design files- but I can't help feeling some anger when I learned that those responsible for the site had already received several notifications about the alleged illegal activities that were carried out in, and through, Megaupload. Did they warn their customers? No. They simply took cover to avoid the closure of the site and continue with their business without warning their clients and users of the legal situation and the potential risk that all the material hosted in Megaupload, whether this is legal or not.
Is this the internet freedom we want? I don't know what other people think, but I don't. But also what do we understand by a free internet? One in which we can express our ideas or one that allows us to do whatever we want? As far as I know, this is the closure of a company that did dirty business, not a newspaper site. The sites of Granma -http://www.granma.cu/- and of The miami herald -http://www.miamiherald.com/-to name two newspapers with totally opposite ideologies are still available. The site was closed for legal reasons, not political.
The closure of Megaupload does it threaten the freedom we have to exchange culture through the WEB? I do not think so. Culture is one thing and fun is quite another, because not all music is culture and neither are all films. Can I really believe that there is a struggle to maintain a free cultural exchange, when the immersive majority of the messages I read on the Internet are badly written and with such great spelling mistakes that even me, my native language is English and it took just For about eight or nine years speaking and writing in Spanish, do I realize it? Let's go! We better read a good book that we most need….
I'm not glad that Megaupload It has been closed, but I do not believe that it is an attack against freedoms.
Is this the internet freedom we want? I don't know what other people think, but I don't. But also what do we understand by a free internet? One in which we can express our ideas or one that allows us to do whatever we want?
Well, we are the same, because now the comments that I read everywhere are focused on that, on "what we want" and what you comment on is totally true, it is an attitude problem, and a very serious one. that Ozcar mentions is what I believe is the underlying problem that we confuse freedom of expression and dissemination of knowledge with:
"Do whatever I want" "everything is free" "knowledge has no owner", and so on.
And if we don't fix it, things will only get worse because it can't go on like this.
Great comment, Tina! Just to reaffirm one of your points, the one referring to MU's responsibility towards its users. In the conditions of use of the service, Megaupload reiterated in several of its clauses that it was released from all responsibility in case of failure, for any reason, including a legal one, that affected the continuity of the service, as well as warning in the The same document that the service had an inherent risk known and accepted by its clients that did not entitle the user to any legal action against the company. That is why they did not make warnings, nor did they have an attitude conducive to providing reliability and security in the provision of the service to their users, but on the contrary, to continue filling their pockets.
If anyone is interested in reading the MU service conditions, here is the link for everyone to check:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xH7pURxXXSYJ:megaupload.com/?c=terms&setlang=es+megaupload.com/?c=terms&setlang=es&cd=1&hl=es&ct=clnk&gl=es&client=firefox-a
A greeting.
Thanks a thousand Rayonant y Ozzar!
OzzarNotice that this section of that adhesion contract catches my attention:
"Rescission
12.1
Without prejudice to other legal remedies, Megaupload may immediately issue a notice, or suspend (that is, block access and operation of Services for the Client), either temporarily or indefinitely, or terminate the Client's account and refuse to provide Services to a Client if: (a) Megaupload believes that the Client has violated or acted inconsistently with this Agreement, or any of its policies; or (b) the Client has not paid the fees or other payments due to Megaupload; or (c) Megaupload cannot verify or authenticate any information provided by the Client; or (d) Megaupload believes that the Client's actions may cause legal liability for the Client, other Megaupload clients, or Megaupload. »
Legally, how do you interpret it?
Thanks in advance.
That clause in particular what it means is the waiver of rights of the users due to the possibility of unilateral termination of the contract in favor of MU in those events. For the case, in its section (d), MU had express powers to intervene preventively and avoid damages due to litigation that could arise due to the behavior of its users, something that as we see, it was not interested in applying, since obviously it would have been against your business. MU could have acted to protect its payment users to avoid what is happening, as tools to its credit had, but everything remained a dead letter within the contract.
Greetings.
I also understood the same, now ... under that logic, can't the clients of Megaupload sue them for negligence, since they did not act to safeguard their rights as stated under the assumptions of this clause?
All this with the understanding that the closing of Megaupload It was not due to causes not attributable to the service itself and to its logistical nature.
Is this possible?
The problem is… claim where and to whom? . Will they complain to MU, to the FBI, to whom?
In other words, if MU is claimed for damages (which is the most elementary and logical), what would the bureaucracy behind that look like? Well, I don't think it's legally possible under these conditions, that they reimburse them, pay them or something like that.
In other countries I don't know, but in USA a prosecutor can bring those responsible for Megaupload to the court ... the question is not if it can be, is that the affected North American citizens want to agree to do so.
Of course, it is not a very practical situation since the litigation can take a long time, but that you can… you can. In my country the issue of lawsuits is an entire industry ...: S
The claim would be against MU, but there are several drawbacks, and they are referred to in the same contract. In it, MU is released from all liability arising from the service to which they are bound, and also subscribes that there is no legal action against them, in the sections of "compensation", "no guarantee", "limitation of liability" and numeral 12.2; It is expressly affirmed and reiterated the exoneration of the responsibility of MU, as service provider, of the problems that survive it, whatever their cause, which the client accepts and subscribes. In addition, in the "several" section, the jurisdiction and competence of who can hear a conflict is limited (To a US court in California), and also the option of the user to institute any action up to 12 months following the causation of the facts that originate it.
I think that given the contractual content that leaves the user unarmed and makes it inapplicable for him, it is appropriate to act claiming the nullity of the contract due to the inclusion of abusive clauses and also request reparation for the direct incidence of damage causally related to the behavior of MU in the execution of the contract, clearly omission. The problem is that carrying out a lawsuit of such characteristics is extremely complex and expensive for the ordinary user, even if they reside in the USA. Then, it is best to wait and see if the precautionary measure is lifted or that if after the control of the legality of the collected material, a discrimination is made between the information that provides probative merit and the one that does not, in both cases the decision would fall to the court leading the incident. If neither of the two hypotheses materialize, I suppose that some procedure could be initiated against the FBI, but the truth is I do not know the American procedural norms that allow breaking the chain of custody of the evidentiary material that is brought to trial.
Greetings.