U.S. Government’s Takedown of Megaupload ‘Sets a Terrifying Precedent’
January 20th, 2012Of course, the sycophantic New Zealand government went along with Uncle’s whims.
Via: AP:
One of the world’s most popular file-sharing sites was shut down Thursday, and its founder and several company officials were accused of facilitating millions of illegal downloads of films, music and other content.
A federal indictment accused Megaupload.com of costing copyright holders at least $500 million in lost revenue. The indictment was unsealed one day after websites including Wikipedia and Craigslist shut down in protest of two congressional proposals intended to make it easier for authorities to go after sites with pirated material, especially those with overseas headquarters and servers.
The news of the shutdown seemed to bring retaliation from hackers who claimed credit for attacking the Justice Department’s website. Federal officials confirmed it was down Thursday evening and that the disruption was being “treated as a malicious act.”
A loose affiliation of hackers known as “Anonymous” claimed credit for the attack. Also hacked was the site for the Motion Picture Association of America and perhaps others.
Megaupload is based in Hong Kong, but some of the alleged pirated content was hosted on leased servers in Ashburn, Va., which gave federal authorities jurisdiction, the indictment said.
The Justice Department said in a statement said that Kim Dotcom, 37, and three other employees were arrested Thursday in New Zealand at the request of U.S. officials. Three other defendants are at large.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends free speech and digital rights online, said in a statement that, “This kind of application of international criminal procedures to Internet policy issues sets a terrifying precedent. If the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim, what is next?”
For the interested, here you have the *core* of the SOPA/PIPA argument clearly and succinctly defined by the clever Clay Shirky at TED:
http://www.ted.com/talks/defend_our_freedom_to_share_or_why_sopa_is_a_bad_idea.html
…and the technical breakdown:
http://vimeo.com/31100268
Piling on the links, as my own ongoing studies (with a big nod to Bob Lefsetz) uncover material worthy of sharing — a natural process which SOPA/PIPA is *attempting* to eliminate…
Neil Gaiman on the benefits of “piracy”:
http://t.co/3Dffdxyf
Stop the Wall – Artists allied against SOPA/PIPA:
http://www.stopthewall.us/artists/
Straying just slightly from the topic, should you decide to man the lines of “popular protest” against any and all aspects corporate-industrial domination in the not-too-distant, here’s yet another happy tool — developed by the MIC — to be deployed by “law enforcement” as they “protect and serve” the slavemasters…
The Acoustic Riot Shield
http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/2011/12/acoustic-riot-shield.html
Pirate Bay released this text file, http://static.thepiratebay.org/legal/sopa.txt, which includes in it’s contents an interesting perspective on Hollywood’s beginnings that I found interesting…