About 70 police, some armed, raided 10 properties...

New Zealand police seized millions of dollars worth of assets, which included luxury cars such as a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe, from the group, dubbed the "Mega Conspiracy"....

Good thing they weren't screwing around with mortgages on Wall Street -
probably would've got the good 'ol double-tap...

These guys obviously did not pay off the right politicians. They should have asked Wall Street for advice on which politicians to buy.

Surprised this isn't a big font story to be honest. The bill has not even passed yet and they are still doing it.

Hope and Change my ass.

Surprised this isn't a big font story to be honest. The bill has not even passed yet and they are still doing it.

Hope and Change my ass.

#3 | Posted by kanrei at 2012-01-20 09:19 AM | Reply | Flag:

This is New Zealand, which I think does not have to respond to American laws.

Vern,

Did you not read the very first sentence? The U.S. government shut down the Megaupload.com content sharing website. The site may be in New Zealand, but this is the US government acting pre-SOPA as if the law passed.

More for Vern:

"The FBI contacted New Zealand Police in early 2011 with a request to assist with their investigation into the Mega Conspiracy," said Detective Inspector Grant Wormald from the Organised & Financial Crime Agency New Zealand.

"All the accused have been indicted in the United States. We will continue to work with the U.S. authorities to assist with the extradition proceedings," Wormald said in a statement.

Kanrei, Vermin writes his own reality.

Anyway, I'm not sure the contention that "this is the US government acting pre-SOPA as if the law passed."

Glad to see obummer and holder going after the real criminals.

Anyway, I'm not sure the contention that "this is the US government acting pre-SOPA as if the law passed."

If not, and you are probably right as I read the story after posting that comment, then this story shows there is zero need for SOPA as the FBI clearly can act without it.

Either way, this should be a large font story IMHO.

Kanrei,

Agreed, but they actually have to go to the legal system now. It would be so much easier if they could just shut them down anytime a campaign contributor complained.

"Freedom is indivisible. As soon as one starts to restrict it, one enters upon a decline on which it is difficult to stop."

LvM

SOPA gives power to the entertainment agencies themselves without due process, without there need to be FBI or other FED involvement..

that's why it is so terrible.

Is all copyright infringement a federal crime now, or only when it concerns the big money donors of Hollywood?

If only our FBI was as zealous with Wall Street thieves. Oopps there go those big donors again, only this time buying immunity from enforcement charges.

Where are the victims, you know the artists
whose property has been stolen, and their
class action suit? Where are their private
attorneys making petition in international
court?

Oh, that's right. They have the Fed to do
their work for them.

Yes, copyright issues should be a civil matter. But the article says they're also being charged with money laundering and racketeering, so the government has every right to be prosecuting them.

And the whole "shut down without due process or trial" outrage is misplaced- injunctions are a normal part of any case.

The Mega Conspiracy group was accused of engaging in a scheme that took more than $500 million away from copyright holders and generated over $175 million in proceeds from subscriptions and advertising, according to the indictment unsealed on Thursday.

Looks to me like they were fair game. But, as Bellatrix and others point out why haven't they been sued? Why are the Feds and the police being used as a private army for the elite? Are Australia's copyright laws that weak?

I am glad to see they are not going after individual users who are not profiting monetarily from downloading this material.

Countries need to coordinate their copyright laws so that artists in other countries have the right to sue these types of sites. I am pretty sure they would soon learn to behave.

However, until that day, I would rather see them do this then to see them fuck with the fragile workings of the web.

"The Mega Conspiracy group was accused of engaging in a scheme that took more than $500 million away from copyright holders"

It's always been curious to me how they come to a determination like this. They can't be so brazen as to say that every case of infringement was a sale that would otherwise have happened, could they?

These guys obviously did not pay off the right politicians. They should have asked Wall Street for advice on which politicians to buy.

#2 | POSTED BY 726 AT 2012-01-20 08:54 AM | REPLY | FLAG:

Goldman Sachs would have told them Obama!

Countries need to coordinate their copyright laws so that artists in other countries have the right to sue these types of sites. I am pretty sure they would soon learn to behave.

#15 | Posted by donnerboy at 2012-01-20 01:11 PM

They did that in 1886 in the Berne Convention, but the US didn't join the Berne Convention until 1989, and didn't start participating until the Uruguay Treaty of 1994. At that time, Congress passed the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, which under Section 514, extended Copyright protection to foreign works that were not registered in the US prior to that date.

Orchestras, Libraries and educational institutes were in an uproar, because they could no longer use foreign works for free and had to pay for each use or performance. Everyone lawyered up, and two cases made it to SCOTUS, both arguing that Section 514 violated the Copyright Clause of the Constituion: Eldred v. Ashcroft in 2003 and a case decided on Wednesday, Golan v. Holder. Both cases held that

Continued from previous post-

514 [of the Uruguay treaty] falls comfortably within Congress' authority under the Copyright Clause. Congress rationally could have concluded that adherence to Berne 'promotes the diffusion of knowledge.' A well-functioning international copyright system would likely encourage the dissemination of existing and future works.

...this story shows there is zero need for SOPA as the FBI clearly can act without it.

#9 | Posted by kanrei at 2012-01-20 09:36 AM | Reply | Flag:

Worth repeating.

Seems SOPA & PIPA aren't necessary after-all. They were nothing but a way to stifle any competition. Had nothing to do with the need for copyright enforcement as there are numerous laws that already allow for it.

Who wants to bet this whole take down was designed to be the primer for SOPA ... see look at these evil guys we could have stopped them much sooner with SOPA yada yada yada ... too bad the internet killed the censorship star and so they just had to procede with the take down and hope most americans are not as astute as Kanrei to point out that there is no need for SOPA.

They have been doing this sort of stuff for a VERY long time now. They do not need SOPA or PIPA to shut down your site, arrest and charge you. However, it SHOULD depend where the site is hosted for the jurisdiction I would think. If it was say hosted in Mexico, shouldn't be any room for US to go after them. I am betting they had at least one server farm here. However as already proven they can technically go after them for allowing US networks access to the site if it is illegal here. (Think gambling site take downs...)

According to the FBI, it's a "criminal copyright case," (economictimes.indiatimes.com) one which it is safe to assume is covered by existing law.

No it is not. If you have a copyright issue, you file a case in court, you do not contact the FBI and have them raid the company without any trial or jury ruling. These people are acting outside of law.

This site was charging and hosting the files, so yeah, that is piracy. Not the same as most file sharing sites where no money changes hands and they don't host the files, just torrent files and magnet links. Sounds to me like there was even more going on. If you are going to pay for a file, you might as well pay for it legitimately. Megaupload and others like it make no sense to me, except that people are essentially dumb and think if they are paying someone, it must be the same as itunes or something. Case in point, this lady I used to work with thought if she paid for limewire, it was the same as paying for itunes files. I almost swallowed my tongue when she told me that she paid for it, lol, since she is so worried about breaking the law, she thought she could go to jail for an unpaid parking ticket.

It only took the US 136 years to get with the program, but there is now a unified copyright system worldwide.

#19 | Posted by Rightocenter

If these laws are strong enough then the recording industry should take them to court as they would do to you or me if they had evidence we downloaded and distributed vast quantities of copyrighted material. Especially considering there were millions of dollars of profit involved.

They don't normally send the FBI to individual houses to arrest violators for copyright infringement do they?

I would think that a few multimillion dollar lawsuits against websites like these ought to cool their heels a bit and set an example for others.

Like Napster.

From the comments here, very few are bothering to read the article. The FBI is involved because the site is being charged with racketeering and money laundering on top of copyright infringement. If it was just a piracy issue, then of course it's a civil matter.

If it was just a piracy issue, then of course it's a civil matter.

#28 | Posted by adammm at 2012-01-20 07:06 PM | Reply | Flag:

I think Piracy is more than just a civil matter. In fact, it's criminal.

OMFG it can be hard to write coherent text with my wife around... tis is a bit old/halfbrained, but fuckit here:----...

Seems copyrights have become a means to extract wealth while keeping people poor and entertained - rather than the ability to produce based upon an idea.

Patents are similar. Like rather than a patent being worth a fortune, concepts are worth dirt unless you can find a sponsor to buy it off of you for a few measly bucks based upon what they already own in production.

Then of course it gets hidden from the world in obscurity. Like write a gr8 song? You'll be lucky to get a couple $K before someone famous and musically able to copy does it for hollywood while killing or paying you off. Worse, if you invent something that helps people survive - forget about seeing it realized.

In a way I'm especially glad my prior sponsors declined my "passive desalination pump" concept. Rather than having it hidden and profit-stopped via their "ownership", I still get to decide to blog or produce it myself. But sadly, IDK how it would make any difference even where people are thirsty while living right next to the ocean since the military would keep them from the ocean too.

Like sure if they bought into it I could have received $1K for it - and another $1K 5 years later if I still worked there, while it wouldn't have EVER seen the light of day.

OMFG it can be hard to write coherent text with my wife around...

Can't cope with the stress of your blow-up doll inflated?

#31 - I think he means that he's masturbating at the thought of telling everyone how big his head is. His wife's name is Palmela Handerson.

Can't cope with the stress of your blow-up doll inflated?

What stress?

"She never talk back like a lady might do
And she looks like she loves it every time I get through"

Zappa
Ms Pinky

#33 | Posted by goatman

Kudos goatman kudos.

I fill my blow-up doll with helium. she'l only do me if she's high. lol

My Variable Area Propeller (a reitze patent) was similar. Funny how after they invested...

Just like the lighter perforated condom I invented...

~Reitze

Is anonymous anti-american? These guys are stealing from artists as well as corporations. How is anonymous compensating the artists?

#22 | POSTED BY WEBWRANGLER AT 2012-01-20 02:54 PM | REPLY | FLAG

They're not, because it's not about the artists. It's never been about the artists. It's always been about "I want free shit from those big evil corporations. But i'll steal from the indies as well."

It's liek the software piracy thing. I just don't understand this mentality. "I wasn't going to buy the game anyway, so you didn't lose a sale."

That's toddler logic. If you're not going to buy it, you don't get to play it. If they don't get your money, you don't get their product. It's theft. If you want to niggle and claim it's not theft because no physical object changed hands, fine. At the end of the day you are making use of something you are not entitled to. The work of other persons.. other REAL PEOPLE with families to feed.. is being enjoyed by you and you're refusing to compensate them for their hard work.

It doesn't matter that you don't like the DRM. If you don't like the DRM, then don't buy the product. It's not a "boycott" if you just take something you want anyway and don't pay for it. A boycott implies personal sacrifice to make a point. Piracy makes it all onesided, it makes the content creators sacrifice to you. You're taking a stand and saying "We're gonna do this anyway and if you try to stop us we'll do it more and fuck you. Wait, games aren't coming out on easy to pirate systems as much anymore? Those evil developers!"

Megaupload were charging people to engage in piracy. That's beyond the pale. They were hosting it themselves, and charging people to use the stolen content they hosted. Such brazen piracy and profiteering is absolutely reprehensible, and there is no moral justification for opposing their shutdown.

#38 | POSTED BY SOHEIFOX AT 2012-01-21 12:13 PM | REPLY | FLAG:
If megauplaods was "free" I could understand. But since they charge and advertise in other countries, well, it look like straight up theft.
I bet many anonymous people and supporters are against this, Unless
the profits from megaupload went to anonymous? Or maybe its a preemptive strike to keep the subscribers "safe"?

Such brazen piracy and profiteering is absolutely reprehensible, and there is no moral justification for opposing their shutdown.

Sure there is...it's called believing in the rule of law.

#38 | Posted by soheifox at 2012-01-21 12:13 PM | Reply | Flag:

I didn't have the impression they were hosting illegal copies - just linking to other sites that did. Also, you raise some philosophical points that gets glossed over so fast by the legalists yet is real to real people. Stuff like these:

1. a COPY of INFORMATION isn't a tangible physical object. So considering anything about it to be "theft" is possible but not quite like counting the gold coins and being one short cause someone stole one. If someone used their own gold to copy a coin it wouldn't be a theft since you'd still have all of your own coins - and similarly copying software/music/info - its a stretch to call it a theft when there's no physical thing being stolen (lost).

2. Ideas copy/pass along w/o theft - so again conflating theft/piracy with copying is a philosophical stretch.

3. INFORMATION is power - and copywrites are often USED by powerful to keep the masses controlled, make information less available, etc. Like its not even easy to get a copywrite free COPY of the bible. And of course people feel they have a write to read a book like that without paying some construed-owner. Reproduction costs fine, but try hosting a copy on-line and someone would claim its theirs.

4. Artists, engineers, others need sponsorship to get things published and so-on. The companies doing that are well skilled at giving artists minimal cuts of the revenue produced. IMHO that sort of corruption leads to a fuck it attitude. Like if hollywood doesn't do proper accounting and pay the actors/artists appropriately then there's already theft happening and stealing from a thief isn't quite like steeling. EG: I have over a dozen patents, but only received 1-time-award-payments for them ($1K per patent when filed and again when issued). No I don't think that was fair but w/o making the deal those concepts would never have made it out of that laboratory.

Now, I'm not saying copyright and DRM and stuff like that are all bad, but the big-publisher-push to ratchet down control 100% smacks of totalitarianism (ie: in a corporate-run-govt mode like in Rollarball - we're pretty well there, or in the middle of the "corporate wars"). BTW, I heard yesterday that Monsanto bought Blackwater/Xe.

Sure there is...it's called believing in the rule of law.

#40 | POSTED BY IRAQIBUKKAKE AT 2012-01-21 01:58 PM | REPLY | FLAG:

And where was that violated, genius? If a business is being prosecuted for racketeering, they don't get to keep doing business. That's the standard rule of law being applied.

#41 | POSTED BY REITZE AT 2012-01-21 03:00 PM | REPLY | FLAG:
The fact that the megaupload people made huge profits and lived a lavish lifestyle put them in the same boat as the big corporations they stole from. The megaupload people are greedy, not nice. The fact that anon wants to protect them casts a pale upon them. As I stated earlier they may have ulterior motives.
I was thinking on your propeller invention if you embedded blades that extended you could have a safe cutting tool. Make it smaller increase rpm's. you could use centrifugal force to unsheathe. lol

I was thinking on your propeller invention if you embedded blades that extended you could have a safe cutting tool. Make it smaller increase rpm's. you could use centrifugal force to unsheathe. lol

Seems to me the slightest deviance of one self=adjusting blade's surface area or circumference form the others would create an out of balance situation probably destroying most if not all the connecting machinery. Sometimes simpler is better, no need to over think fans or cutting blades guys.

IOWs KISS.

IOWs KISS.

I'm a huge proponent of K.I.S.S.

#45 | POSTED BY TEDLY AT 2012-01-21 04:19 PM | REPLY | FLAG:
Yes keep it simple. Blades and broken pieces of metal
make for a mess or even a lawsuit. lol