NOPE.

Really, what you said does not apply.

Here's what is going on, " the site facilitated millions of illegal downloads of movies, music and other content." That's the accusation. That has ALWAYS been illegal. Its a case, they will be proven innocent or guilty in court.

Sharing files isn't illegal. Being paid money to knowingly help someone download an obviously illegal file is. This is not hard to understand.

If you were talking about something else, I'd find more common ground. Like the attempt of Entertainment CEO's of big companies trying to get SOPA and PIPA passed.

Good grief...is there nobody with any common sense out there?

Yes, but it grows tiresome to repeat a message that is rejected before it is spoken. thinking cannot be compelled.

Ray is right. This sets a dangerous precedence that will destroy the cloud industry. If companies have to worry about their data being deleted because of something someone else did, it would be foolish to use any cloud service.

@Derek-381097,

No, your reply is incorrect, not the OP's original post. He said, "a government can, if it wishes, destroy any Internet based business without having to prove any case whatsoever."

Yes, you are correct that a trial will prove or disprove the innocence of the people involved, BUT if the data are all deleted this Thursday the business in essentially destroyed - and the trial will not be finished by Thursday.

Who wants to use cloud computing if the government can come along and destroy what you have stored in the cloud without making a case in court to do so?

Lesson of the day kids:

Keep your servers outside of the USA. This is a dangerous precedent to set. I don't care if Megaupload is guilty or not, this precedent will touch all of us in the very near future....

If companies have to worry about their data being deleted because of something someone else did, it would be foolish to use any cloud service.

Why anyone would trust online storage of anything important is beyond me. If you lose something important, or it is hacked because you decided to use online storage, you got what you deserved.

Derek SOPA and PIPA weren't passed but ACTA was passed in the U.S. on Thurday of last week. ACTA is worse than the other two. You can have any content on any device searched if someone believes it may contain pirated media. This includes cell phones, IPODs, DVD players, computers, ...... It can be confiscated and searched without probable cause. You may never see it again.

A court should issue an injuction preventing the deletion of any data until there is a ruling against the owner of the data, not Megaupload. Stop acting as the stooge of the recording industry. They need to establish their own internet investigave arm and identify that a specific crime involving IP has been committed on prosecute the individuals involved. The technology is not the problem. Bad actors are, some of whom are those going after the thieves. The justice department should be required to present evidence at trial before harm is done. That means users of the Megaupload service should be held harmless until such a ruling and their rights protected. Period.

Wulfsturm, Did you actually read the article, it said that Megaupload's accounts where frozen and they could not pay outside companies for storing this data and the outside companies where going to ersase it because they are no longer being paid to store it. That is a decision by the companies not the goverment.

Welcome to the New USSR.

The government wants to desperately pass the tiered internet, which will give bandwidth equal to dollars spent. This will allow only rich corporations to have websites the public can access. Thankfully, several versions of this bill have been killed because enough of the public know this is another corporate scam to control and ruin the internet for the small company or individuals.

This phony concern over file sharing (which, incidentally hasNOT reduced profits for music and movies, etc, their profits have gone UP) is just a straw dog issue to crush the opposition to the corporate controlled internet. File sharing/storage, along with the equally bogus hysteria about terrorism, hate speech, pornography, etc. are all excuses to give the government and their corporate bedfellows ABSOLUTE CONTROL over the internet.

Since half (or more) of the public loves to buy into hysteria, other nonsense and defend corporate criminals, it's only a matter of time before you'll be saying to your grandchildren "I remember when everyone had access to make internet websites."

@Jeffromac23,

Yes, I read the article. The data should, at the very least, be placed in escrow which can be done very cheaply and the original owners given a chance to retrieve whatever they need. It does not need to be deleted because the server owners want their online storage back.

I see the situation as being akin to having a car repossessed. The lien-holder has a right to retrieve the car, but any personal objects in the car must be returned to the owner.

It is just the government protecting ALL their friends in HOLLYWOOD at the cost of honest Americans info. Why is the government going to destroy evidence?

Ray, you are absolutely correct. If the data is destroyed it will be precedent setting, what prevents the govt. from destroying everyone's videos from Youtube because a few put pirated content there (now youtube has been policing its servers but still it is very difficult to do so when you have billions of videos posted every year), same goes for facebook.

The Movie and Music industry have created a mass hysteria about something which has not prevented from them making huge profits. It's like when VCRs came out and they were hollering that it will destroys theatres and the industry instead it turned out to be a bonanza for them, online streaming is going the same way, but if they are trying to get business from pirates, by trying to stop them, I say good luck.

Whether or not Megaupload is innocent or guilty, what really bothers me is that the government is in such a hurry to destroy the information on the servers. Isn't it the courts responsibility to preserve evidence? Why would our government want to destroy evidence before it brings it to trial? This sounds very fishy to me. It sounds like the government doesn't want some of that information to be used as evidence, or that some of that evidence could be harmful to the government, or its case. Maybe some people in the government have been using Megaupload to illegally share files themselves, and they don't want anyone to find out. Either way, if the evidence is destroyed, I can't see how they can prosecute anyone from Megaupload without it. Maybe our government will just label the people terrorists, and send them all to Guantanamo Bay. If they do destroy the evidence before trial, it would set up a very bad precedence, and if you aren't afraid of our government now, you should start!!!

@Ed Peters

Apparently, you are an idiot. It has a plethora of legitimate uses. It's been used to store Device ROM's (legal), it's been used to distribute noncopyright material,e.g music and songs (legal), it's been used to distribute family photos that are too large for email (legal). Files that are too large for email have to find an alternative means of distribution. MegaUpload was the most popular of those means.

I'm sorry if you never realized that millions of people used MegaUpload for legitimate legal purpose. Your ignorance doesn't make everyone else an idiot.

Would everyone stop stating that the government wants to destroy data on the servers. The companies that are no longer being paid to lease their servers are the people planning to destroy the data. I believe they want the data destroyed so nothing else is found on their servers. We are working toward digital accountability and just like a warehouse storing physical stolen property to be fenced later, servers are the warehouses of digital files and if they are protected materials and being sold there is absolute no difference. Board up the warehouse until the trial is done.

If there is an attorney that can answer this question, isn't any data on any server that passed through Mega considered evidence? 50 million users, that's a lot of files to go through.

Though not wholly accurate, you have a great point, Ray. I know there is a stack of other blatherers above, but the end point is, any cloud company could accidentally store something that the government feels is suspect, and down goes the company. Personally, I avoid the Cloud at all costs, and will never use it for my data for any willing reason. I'll happily carry my data around with me on thumb drived, or send it encrypted via anonymous methods when necessary. It's the only safe, sane way to do it.

I'm reading these replies and I don't see any counterarguements. Not legitimate ones. People don't understand their rights when it comes to intellectual property, and therefore they don't understand someone else's right to protect it as a consequence. Therefore, they are merging the action against Megaupload and then things that clearly violate their own rights on the internet.

Education is key, here. If you knowingly (see that word, knowingly? Its imporant) assist in the trafficking of something illegal, guess what? You can get charged. The US government wouldn't have brought charges, in all likelyhood, if they didn't have proof of that. And, sure, they could have screwed up, and blown it, and we shall see. But that is something for the courts to figure out.

Its, like, see, if you didn't make cocaine, but you knew you had it on you, and you cross the border, and then take money for carrying it, even if you never used it, or sold it to another, that would be illegal. Is trafficking cocaine a much more serious crime? Yeah. But then again, is trafficking thousands of illegal data knowingly a serious crime? Yeah, it is. Welcome to the world of people's rights for creating stuff being protected. If you don't like it, you should move to China. There, they copy stuff illegally all the time and the government approves. Its just, well, I can't remember the last time I ever saw an actually good movie coming from China.

Derek, your analogies have no relevancy to this case.

@mdsj

Lesson of the day kids: Keep your servers outside of the USA.

Uh, actually that is not very good advice as servers outside of the US do not have to comply with US law. They can be shut down even easier than those in the US and without any warning.

@Jeffromac23

Yes, I read the article. The data should, at the very least, be placed in escrow which can be done very cheaply and the original owners given a chance to retrieve whatever they need.

1. Placing the data in "escrow" means copying it to other 3rd party servers, which takes time and money (and with 50 million uses) "very cheaply" is wildly inaccurate.

2. If MegaUpload doesn't have the storage capacity for this data and they have no money to spend, then how do you suggest they pay for this and where do you expect them to put the data?

It does not need to be deleted because the server owners want their online storage back.

Really, why not? If you rent a storage unit from me and you don't pay me for the rental, I have the right to put your stuff on the curb and use the space for some paying customer. In the case of data, physically "putting" it somewhere means have the storage space to do that and the manpower and resources to make it happen. Why should the storage companies have to bear that burden?

I see the situation as being akin to having a car repossessed. The lien-holder has a right to retrieve the car, but any personal objects in the car must be returned to the owner.

Only that the way you see it is not applicable to this situation.

@floyd-1128183

Whether or not Megaupload is innocent or guilty, what really bothers me is that the government is in such a hurry to destroy the information on the servers.

The government is not going to delete any data, nor did the article say it was going to, nor did the article say that the government has imposed the Thursday deadline.

The article says that the storage companies, who had been getting paid to store the data may begin deleting it as of Thursday because they have not gotten paid to store it.

@krazymop. So says you.

Derek, your analogy is all wrong. That's why it has no relevancy here. It's more like this: The storage company is the one who sells cocaine (Megaupload). You just store large items in a lot because it's large enough and your apartment is too small (legitimate user). You know this company is a little shady, but you also know your stuff is well protected and it's also the only place near you. Why should the government keep all your stuff?

From the Megaupload side, you own a huge low rent apartment building with 50 million people. You know you have some pimps and dealers in the building. You can only police it so much. If you kick them out, they will always come back. Even with 5% crime rate, you still have 250,000 criminals in your building. How could you stop them all?

Or in your example, Megaupload is the guy who drives a truck that happens to be carrying one guy across the border that happens to be carrying the cocaine. So the other 10-15 people on the truck should also be detained because of the one guy?

How come these storage companies aren't being held culpable just like MegaUpload is? Or maybe they are and this is their only way out of the lawsuit is to drop shared files from Mega.

Gabbo, I think you are presuming something. Its not that there are actual, physical people on the 'truck', it is that there are 'innocent files' on the 'truck.' But here's the deal, look at the files of ANY seized company. When the company does something considered illegal, yes, everything gets seized. And then its up to the court to determine what is 'contraband' and what is not. If it happen with people's money at financial institutions, don't you think it is what happens everywhere? And the only reason it doesn't SOMETIMES happen at certain financial institutions, is because there are specific laws in place to protect people's money from being seized just because the financial instituion acted illegally.

There's no law that says your internet file, hosted on someone else's website, is yours. Yeah, you paid money to upload a file to a company that did something possibly illegal. Everything gets shut down and seized until the court sorts it out. That's the way it has ever been with everything.

@Morgs74

How come these storage companies aren't being held culpable just like MegaUpload is? Or maybe they are and this is their only way out of the lawsuit is to drop shared files from Mega.

The storage companies aren't "on the hook" because they are being contracted by MegaUpload to store essentially MegaUpload's data. The storage companies have no contact with the end-users and, more than likely, the storeage companies have a contract with MegaUpload that stipulates that MegaUpload won't use the storage companies servers to store illegal or copyrighted works (this is standard language in all storage contracts).

In other words, the storage companies had no role in facilitating the uploading of illegal content.

"Its just, well, I can't remember the last time I ever saw an actually good movie coming from China."

They have a ton of good movies. A lot of them released in the USA as well. You just have to read subtitles and it is a huge turn off for a lot of Americans, since they cannot read that fast...

The entire Dragon Dynasty series was sweet. Half of them staring Jet Li which made it even better... :-)

BTW: your ignorance would be understandable 20 years ago, but these days google something up before making an incorrect statement.

Megaupload is as much a facilitator to copyright infringement as Cadillac is to driveby shooting. A company isn't responsible for how a user utilizes the company's products or services, if those uses are not the intended use of those products or services. We may as well file a class action lawsuit against BIC because its pens could be used to stab someone.

Your exactly right, this is collective punishment. And if I was MegaUpload attorney, I would say to the "private" companies the Federal prosecutors gave the information to that if you delete these files you will be sued by if not individually but collectivelly by a class action suit. If the prosecutor says it's up to the private companies holding it, then give them back. You can't destroy that many peoples data because it was on a "illegal" file sharing network, that hasn't been established for one. Two, it would be like freezing the accounts of everybody at a bank because a few bank account owners are laundering money. If they have a case against individuals then go after them not Megaupload (who followed the law in regard to copyright) and not everyone else who used the service as it was advertised and applied.

Megaupload will win, but what I fear is that they copied all that data to try to find individuals who have copyright evidence. The problem even with that is if they are found inoccent, the US prosecutor can't use that evidence to hunt for people. Also the reason why the US doesn't want to go after individuals is one, as file sharing sites and cyberlockers have shown again and again, you don't know who is storing what and if you do they may be out of your jurisdiction. And two, individual cases internationally is to damn expensive especially if you trying to nail some 19 year old in Turkey who is sharing videos of Buffy the Vampire slayer on Megaupload.

I see it like this, the storage companies have a clear policy, "Do not pay the bill and we delete your data." So technically it is not the governments doing.

Reality - The government HAS the data it wants so buy freezing MegaUploads assets it does two things - Prevents MegaUpload from paying bills so the data goes away - thus keeping MegUpload from accessing its own evidence and making the customer base upset at MegaUpload or the storage companies. The real villains in this case are the government thugs. They are pushing a case that is without question being slanted. They are not being fair or just. Just thugs. If they would freeze the data and protect the innocent I'd retract my statement but this is about the motion picture and recording industries greed, with government thugs wanting control over the internet.

I would love to know how much cash passed under the table from Hollywood to our government. This is just a show so people can see that the government can do anything they like with the internet. There was a big hulabaloo about the internet being shut down by the government well it was and is always possible for that to happen and if you don't believe it can be done I've got a bridge to sell you.

Buck Johnson:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is going to become a collector's item! That show is very close to the start of renewed interest in the genre of "blood suckers"...vampires, not lawyers.

I agree. Why are the storage companies not being arrested? If they arrested the head of MegaUpload because he should have known that the users were putting copyright protected material on the site, then the storage sites should have known that MegaUpload was putting copyright protected materials on their servers. How is it possible that one company (MegaUpload) is being held responsible for what its customers put on its site, but another company (storage vendors) is not being held responsible for what its customers put on its site?

When are they going to close down Youtube and arrest the CEO? It contains copyright protected materials also.

Scott, you seriously need a towel friend, you're soaked. Every person who has used megaupload also "signed" an agreement not to upload copyrighted material. It is in the eula that one must agree to when using their service. The storage companies are no less cuplible than Megaupload is. The government will succeed at doing nothing but shutting this down, they won't jail anyone as they have no proof that the owners of the company openly encouraged the illegal use of their service and there is already presidence that they cannot be held to enforce such things. For one thing it's just not possible without spending billions, just ask Google or YouTube. This whole thing was a giant reach on the part of the government because the got their backside paddled over SOPA and they had to toss Hollyweed a bone.

If people are sick of this kind of government terrorism then fight it. Make yourself a resolution to not walk into a theater next year at all. Do not buy a DVD or rent one. Find other entertainment. When Hollyweed gets the message that you will not stand for their one size fits all enforcement methods and finally figure out that they need to apply some creativity to the problem they will stop this kind of nonsense.

Once someone's legitimate files get deleted the government will be sued for overstepping their bounds and not protecting honest people, as they should be. Then we can all watch on the political blogs while they howel about the AG again.

With all the information that's being traded/sold/aquired illegally, anybody should have seen this coming.

It never made sense to store valuable docs anywhere but AT HOME to begin with.

If only "our" government would put this much effort into protecting homeowners from fraudulent foreclosures by the banks. Haven't seen any bankers going to jail or having their assets seized.

Seems pretty obvious who they really represent.

Derek-381097

Your not making any sense. By your own standards you can arrest Honda because some one stuff cocaine in there civic and drove it across the border. would ford be shutdown and arrested if some one driving a ford drove it into a crowd? Can you arrest CEO of smith and Wesson if there gun is used in a murder? The only servers that should have been shutdown where the ones in the US. As an IT security specialist and some one who has been using the internet before it was popular. This is insane. The RIAA and MPAA have single handily put us back 10 years. And the software piracy they complain about is not as bad as they make it out to be. i suggest your read this article http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/12/05/swiss-government-study-finds-internet-downloads-increase-sales/

Derek - you still don't grasp the concept. The data is not the property of Megaupload. Its MY property or your property. Megaupload is just the storage facility for MY legal files that I placed there and paid for. The government is allowed to use my stuff as evidence but must return it at some point after the trial is done or in the case of electronic documents that are considered non material to the case, they must release them or enter a justification to the court why I should not have them back. If through the governments actions that material is lost I may sue the government for actual loss. The price that is put on a picture of my 2 year old daughter will be up to the judge to say, but the government will end up having to settle.

with all the analogies going around I fear to add another, but.... It is like Megaupload is a storage facility. I rent a storage unit and put my property in it. Even if the storage facility knowingly rents a storage unit to be used as a meth lab and they get busted, I am still entitled to my property, and if theough the actions of the government I am not permitted to get my property that I have legally stored and paid for, I can bring a suit against the gevernment, along with the other 50 million users and if even half those join the class action suit the government will end up paying BIG.

I put a price on evry picture of my 2 year old daughter, that I can never get back, at approx $10 a photo. Taking into account the cost of ink, paper, the value of the lost memory and the sentimental attachment I have to my child. I have almost 2000 photos stored. So my daughter pictures alone, for me, is $20,000 If The judge thinks it is closer to even $3.00 a photo thats still $6000. Just for me. now multiply that by 25-30 million and the government pays big. they better have an injunction placed on the data or allow megaupload to pay for their server space or the justice department better pay for it because if they dont pay now.... They will later.

After three identity thefts, and having to fight banks, credit card companies and being threaten daily by false emails and the like, it is obvious that putting any personal or delicate information on an unknown system you do not directly control is ridiculous. With all the home and business backups available why would anyone decide to put any information in the hands of anyone except the people who need it, use it and want it?
The same goes for social network sites, completely ridiculous. Personal information is just that. I have at least two computer systems. One for personal information and one for garbage like this. My name, address, bank accounts, credit card information and business information all are on different computers with their own in house back ups and security systems. All emails that are not directed to me are automatically deleted. All banking etc information that comes to the wrong computer are reported and deleted. Funny but on the secure computers that are not used for garbage, I never get junk mail or fraudulent emails. Costs a bit more each month to run 3-4 different independent systems with no crossovers but it does give piece of mind.

Derek, you're sort of wrong on that point. I think that would depend on the warrant, so I wouldn't necessarily say yes or no.

As for the law about whose rights the file is, that should be covered by ToC of the site. However for pictures and resource work, I'm sure some of that is copyrighted, so the government has clearly infringed on those people's copyrights and licenses. I'm also sure the government has not only seized everything, but they also copied it too. I certainly did not give them authorization to copy it if I was on megaupload. How do you think RIAA started all this? There, I am making the same argument that the RIAA is. Someone (in this case, the government) is stealing my stuff.

Guns don't kill people - people kill people...but websites, not people, steal movies and songs.

You guys are missing the point. MegaUpload's finances

This whole case stinks to me. Clearly Megaupload was providing a service that allowed users to share files (both legal and illegal). If they were not, this latest news story would not be a news story at all. This simply proves that Megaupload's service is not precisely meant to facilitate nefarious activities. With millions of users, it's impossible to police them all. If the government wants to bring cases against the individuals who are pirating, then fine. Shutting down services just because someone CAN behave badly does not at all seem reasonable in a "free" society. This would be like charging GM in any bank robberies where their cars were used as the getaway.

This is one of those stupid as @!$%# actions the government is taking.

This is the type of BS only politicians can come up with during election time. Their trying their best to get re-elected.

Mega-upload had a policy that if an illegal file was reported it would be deleted from the server. Yet its closed due to illegal files being on the server. They did not constantly monitor the files to delete the illegal files. So all the other files are now in jeapordy of being deleted because some idiot decided that SOPA/PIPA was right and jumped the gun. I honestly think that all the 50 million users need contact the people that shut down the site and demand their files back or sue. Even if they win $1. That will take the wind out of the sails for this BS.

@Scott_M-536256,

My statement that offline storage is cheap is not wildly inaccurate. It's pretty much dead on. And moving data for 50 million users? So what? It's a big job but not impossible. I have run a data center for one of the largest companies in the US, and although I would not want to do it every day we have participated in massive data migrations.

Your analogy about the storage unit isn't appropriate either. It's not the renter refusing to pay the storage owner, it's the government stopping the payment. When I rent a storage unit, you and I enter a contract. The data owners do not have such a contract with the server owners.

And did YOU read the article? Why haven't the server owners already deleted the data? Because they were told they couldn't until the Justice Department finishes its data mining, which they expect to have finished by Thursday. That is why the Thursday deadline.

Hey, you can disagree, but you know what? If megaupload wanted to remain safe, they should have hired better friends.

There are tons more websites out there like pirate Bay

The Congress shall have Power … To promote the Progress of Science

and useful Arts, by securing for limited Tımes to Authors and Inventors

the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8

Current copyright law is a prime example of corporate influence that perverts the original intent of the law. Depending on the type of work the default length of copyright is the life of the author plus either 50 or 70 years. In the case of corporations, which owns most of the copyright material the time limitations are nearly endless.

This endless copyright time limit effectively shields individuals and corporations from any competitive pressures and is stagnating new creations. The current copyright law is anti-competitive, anti-American and perversely anti-social. Ask your gangester Congress to end the copyright madness or expect even less and less content from the music and movie industry!

That is why wont upload content. And expect it to

1. Stay Safe

2. Be there

It is far easier and cheaper to use Backup hardrives. Here is a link for those who do not know what a Mirrored Raid Array is. Every company big and small should have their own backup server. Or even just a small array for a small business.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2249572,00.asp

Guess Maxtor stocks are going to get a boost. LOL

Government censoring, it's the start folks.

If the government can do this, what make you think they won't do it in the future?

You can think of anything related to governments, like some embarrassing documents, or photos or whatnot. Like picture of congressmen caught in the act getting money from corporation and such.

The future is that GOVERNMENT CAN MAKE UP SOME BOGUS EXCUSES AND DELETE EVERYTHING THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO SEE. This is a closer step to total control.

Government's Agent: Hey look, 2 mins of copyright song is playing in the back ground of that video we just upload, let's move in and delete everything. We also get BIG BONUS to drive this company out of business, Congressman X told us we will get reward from his friend in Y company.

Is not holding Megaupload criminally liable for "facilitating" the transfer of copyrighted materials akin to holding a phone service company liable for users negotiating an illegal drug deal?

Hummmmmmmmmmmmm ... This sorta reminds of book burnings in the past ! The government is getting someone else to burn the books while it cries .. "I Didn't Do It ... It's not my fault!"

Copyright laws are absurd & promote greed and avarice .. its not the artist ..it everyone around them .. limit them to three years with one right of renewal for two .... for music and film ...

In this case the government to accomplish their unproven case by just limiting this company (or any companies funds,) making them unable to pay ... and other peoples data ...just disappears! Data Storage they have already paid for ...

They can do this to anyone ... it sure as hell scares me! ...

Didn't the raid on the site in Virginia take place during the summer or so of 2011 and not just a few weeks ago if I am not mistaken?

Could the whole big bruha ha now with the arrests in NZ taking place during the attempt to push sopa etc into law was a move to cloudy or muddy the water and push these laws down the throats of this country. Perhaps this was an attempt to show that there actually were piracy problems why there was a need for these laws?

The other part of freezing all mega's assets and locking these guys up without possibility of bail is just strange. It is almost as if they have been found guilty and now will not be allowed to pay an attorney to defend themselves.

People have been accused of committed murder yet they are allowed bail. The only thing that is done is that the bail is set really high and must be paid in cash and the accused party or parties must hand over their passports. This is not being done in this case and the question is why?

It almost seem like in cases of treason or of that guy locked up for the wikileaks leaks.... or the other wiki guy whose asset was also frozen.

Something is not right in this mess ...it reeks. It makes one wonder if there is not some other reason why these guys were being held without bail imo.

The other storage companies should also be charged with receiving and storage of stolen/pirated property....shouldn't they. After all they are the storage company as mega was the upload site and apparently per the law 'ignorance is not bliss'. LOL You can be charged for receipt of/ receiving or storing stolen property.

It makes one think that either this case was not properly thought out before it was put forward, thus the mess that has been created on both sides of the world, or maybe it was thought that Americans would just accept what ever explaination is given as per usual, or because it was thought they would not be tech savvy enough to understand what is/was happening and just accept that these mega guys simply did something wrong period.

You know like it has oft been stated that the American masses will not understand this or that, or their attention span is sooooo short blah blah blah. You hear this often from the various talking heads and polititians especially regarding the financial industry fiasco and the various toxic products they were pushing on investors.LOL

It would seem the masses in the USA do understand a heck of a lot more than they are given credit for..... form the push back on this megaupload and the piracy issue. LOL

There was a statement made last year when facebook was introducing the face recognition app. It was noted that Americans were not very tech savy regarding certain applications, the internet and their rights to privacy like folks in other countries abroad, that was why facebook rolled out the face recognition app in the USA or some thing to that effect. LOL

One other thing... why didn't the companies and artists who believed they were being harmed come together and file a class action suite against Megaupload like many other folks who believe that they were harmed by a company have done in the past, instead of going to the govt to have them do this shutting down of the website including shutting off customers access to stored data? Makes one wonder if mega was where the wikileaks data were downloaded and stored.... Hmmm Too late though, wasn't that put on hard copy already.... could this then be punitive as in payback? Talk about boggling the mind etc etc etc...LOL

Oh well ..... here's to transparency and to the clouds and beyond.....Oops But it is so cloudy up there... LOL

Peace....

With freedom comes responsibility. It is irresponsible and naive to house data on an upload service like Megaupload and not be concerned about illegal involvement. If your property is involved/associated in/with something illegal you could loose it, plain and simple. I've been to Mega several times and found it nearly advertises the concept of illegal file sharing.

But if you are given no choice, then you are facing an irresponsible government. The move to 'cloud' services is increasing and I don't see many signs of the trend reversing. What will we do when our only data storage choice is subject to the whims of knee-jerk legislation? What if all we have is cloud and the cloud server we're on is also being used for illegal purposes without any good faith user knowing so? Who do we trust?

Well, at that point the trust will only be in the power-brokers: Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft. A handful of companies holding most everyone's data. THAT sounds like a monopoly and a very dangerous path for everyone.

I see the government's point but by the same token it's a little naive to believe there isn't an agenda being fulfilled here. DO companies loose THAT much money over file sharing OR is it that they're loosing profits they would never have realized from people who would have never (or could never) buy their products to begin with?

I understand protecting media capital but this just reeks of greed. If America was so worried about protecting REAL intellectual capital it wouldn't allow Asian reverse engineering to steal all of our research and sell it back to us using subsidized labor.

But let's all think a bigger government is better and let's all think political solutions make sense. Voting is a joke.

Derek-381097

NOPE....

Really, what you said does not apply.

Actually what you say doesn't apply. The site did not help anyone download illegal content. In fact, Megaupload was a well known tech company providing digital storage (Just like Amazon, MIcrosoft, Google) and it had also been about to launch a service to help music artist sale their products online without the need to be pimped by a record company. Please do stop being a lacky and accepting whatever the government or their BS media tell you and use your brain for its intended purpose. This is the US government being used, once again as a tool of corporate interest.

Please do read: http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/24/was-megaupload-targeted-because-of-its-upcoming-megabox-digital-jukebox-service/

so ACTA starts its work , even though it wasn t ratified yet . Censorship here it comes . and in Europe protests against ACTA . Politicians and big corporations are looking for money ...

I'm personally familiar w/ MU. Lookup .rar, pirate, free (type in the name of the software you're looking for) and MU would ALWAYS pop up in your search. They didn't have the resources to police the file sharing problem but they didn't really make an effort to either. They turned a blind eye and knew what that meant.

did people use it for legitimate storage? Absolutely, and those people will be the ones hurt by this. But really, Mega bears responsibility. I'd wondered how long they might go before being shut down years before this recent legal issue.

As for musicians being 'pimped', there is reverb nation, CD baby and many other independent distributors who have no relation to the bigger labels that charge reasonable fees (cataloging related) and don't pimp you.

Next argument?

Mega Upload has been pimping for these people engaged in copyright violations and they knew they were doing it.. Software is available that detects this kind of material so why the heck were they not using it to block this data?? The answer is simple , they were making millions by allowing these data transfers.. Cry about the CLOUD all you want maybe in the MATRIX it is OK but here in the real world if it is illegal it is illegal.. As far as the data stored through them it all should be gone through to find the bootleggers and they should be punished.. And I bet there is no data security guarantee implied or expressed by these pimps..

you all dont get what cloud computing is . skynet. perty much you pay them to stor your date mean while if it is copywright you will not be aloude ot keep it on there servers f the clude ill keep my hard drives thank you

All the "DATA" will be destroyed........right after they pick thru it

>I HAVE ALWAYS THOT that online data storage was a bad , bad , bad idea. You cannot trust anyone to behave themselves (FatBoy in the article's accompanying photo, for example) so that your stuff does not become in danger of being thrown away due to the consequences of their criminal behavior.

Maybe HollyWeird should shut down China... all China does is pirate everybody else's creations... name it, they steal it and pretend they are engaging in Commerce...

A perfect example: Suppose Wiki-leaks used another name and bought server time on Amazon or Google unbeknowst to the company. The government because suddenly stepped in and shut off ALL servers containing any and all cloud information for those companies. Effectively shutting them down and closing the doors. The customer's (now large corporations) data would then be trapped, potentially forever. The even scarier part is that suppose the site handled medical records, now all of those online records are subject to being wiped away without any opportunity for due process. The carrying out of this case sets precidence to allow such an action to take place.

The other issue is that in the past executives are often arrested and tried, a lawsuit brough by the federal gov against the corporation, records seized, and cease and desist orders brought for certain activities, but to completely shut down a corporation that hasn't been involved in something like drugs, prostitution, terrorism, etc. is setting a new standard. Even Enron wasn't closed down completely and that company was involved in much more illegal activity than mega-upload.

If the data is destroyed, how can the government prosecute?

That tight Thursday deadline sounds to me like the Gub'ment wants for all the MegaUpLoad users with illicit material to scramble like heads with their chiggens cut off in order for the cyber-investigator's traffic software to catch the titles of movies/ music albums/ books/ other material protected by copyright. Investigators are not interested in all the homemade rednek teenage cousin sex videos on MegaUpLoad.

SuMkA-1360775

Ray, you are absolutely correct. If the data is destroyed it will be precedent setting, what prevents the govt. from destroying everyone's videos from Youtube because a few put pirated content there (now youtube has been policing its servers but still it is very difficult to do so when you have billions of videos posted every year), same goes for facebook.

What prevents Gov't from destroying the data? It's called the 5th Amendement. "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation

note the part about property. If there is a property right involved, as opposed to an illegally acquired file, which must be proven by due process. the gov't may not simply take it away without due process. But the gov't knows this and that is why the gov't is NOT taking any property here. It is the storage companies that may delete it, not the gov't. Now if the gov't ordered the storage companies to delete the files, that's a horse of a different color.

The government has due process in this case because warrants were signed by a judge and an indictment was approved by a grand jury. New Zealand authorities even read the evidence and decided on their own accord whether or not to arrest Kim and the other MU folks. That is like 3 levels of approval there. How much more due process can you possibly get?

Saw this all coming a long time ago,

After President Obama signed his Patriot Acts (Plural) that also extended President Bush's Patriot Act (singular), and included those provisions of the defeated as Unconstitutional Senate S.1959 and House of Representatives H.R.1955 aka the George Orwell, 1984, Thought Crimes Laws.

President Obama's January 21, 2009 Patriot Acts legalized the Monitoring and Censorship of All US Communications as previously Illegal under President Bush's Patriot Act.

Under threat of prosecution, most International Internet Websites in February 2009 Created Censored US Only Internet Websites, and youtube.com stopped their post anything and required Registration. Those International Internet Websites that did not create Censored US Only Internet Websites are blocked from the US as http://404, http://403, "Blocked in your Region", "Content not viewable", etc.. This is why even BBC One, Two, etc. are not the same content as BBC America, same with Arabic Al Jazeera versus English, many other examples.

The President Obama Patriot Acts also included the "Indefinite Detentions", "Material Support to Terrorist Organizations" (humanitarian aid to Countries with Terrorists, and Legal assistance to declared Terrorist (loss of "Due Process")as currently being fought in the Courts, the verbal or written thought is the crime also as "Anyone stating a radical change to (US) Government is a Homegrown Domestic Terrorist", the required cooperation of Internet Service Providers in providing without Warrant the Physical Location(s) of their Customers, etc..

joeyfromcali,

You were told numerous times TAKE CARE OF YOUR BANKRUPT ILLEGAL ALIEN HARBOR STATE OF CALIFORNIA FIRST, so that ALL US Citizens do not have to Bailout your Bankrupt Illegal Alien Harbor State as ILLEGAL COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT for your ignoring US Laws.

Pertaining to your lack of knowledge of Computer Technology, in most cases these "Clouds" have greater protections than can be afforded by the average person, I want to see YOU buy the same computer grade as "Blade Servers", high end Real Cisco Routers, and it clearly evident that you only have a basic knowledge of Raid Arrays. You go pay for a Corporate Edition of a Anti Virus, Anti Spyware, Anti Malware, etc., then tell me how right your are NOT.

shouldofwouldofcouldof - What prevents Gov't from destroying the data?

US Constitution means NOTHING, as it takes a Constitutional Lawyer like President Obama to figure out how to circumvent the US Constitution.

This will just cause more Businesses to leave the US.

As far as payola this can be seen by their being Tax Exempt, and the Hollywood Political Endorsements.

Tell President Obama you disapprove and that he works for you:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Tell US Congress (both Houses) that you disapprove and they work for you (Or soon will not):

http://www.contactingthecongress.org/

Those of you that agree with what the US Government is doing contact Dictator Assad at:

http://www.presidentassad.net/

I see lots of analogies, but I have one of my own. A person storing data on Megaupload's site is like a person storing their items in a rented safety deposit box in a bank. The bank owner and some staff are accused of letting people use some of those boxes for trafficking of illegal goods. The government came in and shut the bank down, blocking all everyone, even the legitimate users from accessing their boxes. Worse still, the government froze the banks accounts so they can't pay their lease and all the customers things will be sold or destroyed by the owner of the property the bank is on.

This is completely unacceptable. The site should have been closed down only long enough to serve the warrant to copy evidence of illegal acts, and access restored within 24 hours. Your items, even digital ones, are your property. In fact, that idea is the very basis of the governments case against Megaupload. If I store a picture I took or a story I wrote on a cloud server, that is my intellectual property.

Cloud storage is becoming even more common, it is also a great way to access your data from any location or device. It should be MORE secure than storing data at home, not less, much like a safety deposit box. Yes, there are mirrored hard drives and such you can do at home, but fire, flood, burglary can all negate that level of protection. All major companies use off-site storage for backups for those reasons, and for consumers, cloud storage is a good option.

The government needs to unfreeze enough of the companies assets to pay for their storage until the case is concluded. Otherwise the company is punished even if they are declared innocent.

So, why didn't they go after the storage facility in VA that was used for storage ?

U.S. prosecutors blocked access to Megaupload and charged seven men, saying the site facilitated millions of illegal downloads of movies, music and other content.

Are the feds going to go after all the people that downloaded and participated in this illegal activity. If not, then they should let the people running it go. Without the people doing all the illegal downloading, the site would not have been such a success in the first place.

AKRandy

It is just the government protecting ALL their friends in HOLLYWOOD at the cost of honest Americans info. Why is the government going to destroy evidence?

The situation is worse than that. The obama admin is not just protecting holywood or even Nashville but it is protecting the Foreign interests that own the song catalogs and most of the movie rights (ie sony etc.).

We must protect those foriegners aganst the nasty exploitive americans.

What a buncha cry babies. You put your data in the hands of people who you knew allow stolen merchandise to be stored on their rented premises. Now you want to cry about it. You consort with riff-raff folks, it don't matter how clean you think you are, without getting smudged yourself. Stealing is stealing, no matter how many people do it.

What a simple, binary world you live in. Everyone else lives in reality. Get a GED, please.

I've used Megaupload a number of times, as it was where some Mods for my favorite games were stored, and never once paid a penny to anyone. All Mods I downloaded were supported by, or at least approved by, the game manufacturers (especially the Total War franchise). Nothing nefarious at all.

I'd like to see what evidence the Gov't has that 1) these people charged knew of any copyrighted files being exchanged; and 2) what money was changing hands and who knew about it. Seems to me this is yet again another over-reach by the Gov't to try and control what it can't truly control because their Corporate Overlords told them to do so. Remember, a good Prosecutor can get a Grand Jury to indict a paper bag. What needs to be seen is if they can prove the accusations, which I doubt.

@SOR/DAR

Reality - The government HAS the data it wants so buy freezing MegaUploads assets it does two things - Prevents MegaUpload from paying bills so the data goes away - thus keeping MegUpload from accessing its own evidence and making the customer base upset at MegaUpload or the storage companies. The real villains in this case are the government thugs.

The problem with your analysis is that you don't look past the superficial. Had MegaUpload wanted to to business properly and reputably, then they would have had a disaster recovery plan, as all reputable companies that deal with digital information do.

The government is not causing this to happen no more than a fire destroying the servers is to blame. If this company had a proper business model, the data would be secure.

@Amused In The Midwest

Scott, you seriously need a towel friend, you're soaked. Every person who has used megaupload also "signed" an agreement not to upload copyrighted material. It is in the eula that one must agree to when using their service. The storage companies are no less cuplible than Megaupload is.

Well, you live up to your moniker, that is amusing. Yes, end users sign an EULA with MegaUpload and MegaUpload signs a contract with the storage companies. This means that the end user has been informed by MegaUpload what is allowed and what is not allowed AND MegaUpload has been informed by the storage companies what is allowed and what is not allowed. Both the end users and MegaUpload have agreed to thier respective agreements/contracts. The storage companies have not agreed what they will store and what they won't as they are not the ones placing content on any server anywhere.

This is the important point to make and bears repeating, the storage companies are not putting content on servers and they are not providing or facilitating the means to reproduce the illegal content. People engaging in piracy go to the MegaUpload site (which becomes a conduit for the reproduction of the pirated information).

@Wulfsturm

My statement that offline storage is cheap is not wildly inaccurate. It's pretty much dead on.

How do you figure? If we take 50 million (the amount of accounts MegaUpload had) times just a single gigabyte (which is absurdly low, but will suffice for proving the point) of storage, we have 50 million Gigabytes of storage. How much do you believe it would cost to store this much data?

And moving data for 50 million users? So what? It's a big job but not impossible. I have run a data center for one of the largest companies in the US, and although I would not want to do it every day we have participated in massive data migrations.

Did I say it was impossible? No. What I said was that the cost to do it would not be small (as you indicated it would be). And, as you have inidcated, because of the task, there would be significant labor and materials needed to do this, which really just reinforces what I said.

Your analogy about the storage unit isn't appropriate either. It's not the renter refusing to pay the storage owner, it's the government stopping the payment. When I rent a storage unit, you and I enter a contract. The data owners do not have such a contract with the server owners.

Actually, it's a perfect analogy, but your "spin" on it is what I take issue with. My entire point is that had MegaUpload done business properly, this action by the government would not be putting the data in peril. That's the whole deal right there. Everyone wants to jump on the governement because poor MegaUpload, who didin't set up their cloud storage computing company in the appropriate way in the first place and instead chose a reckless business model is now the poor victim in all of this. It's so easy to blame the government here, but it could be anything that puts the data in peril with this buisness model. What if the storage center was destroyed by an earthquake? Is the earthquake's fault that the data is not available? As someone who supposedly managed one of the largest companies in the US, you should know the fundamental rules of data warehousing:

• Have security in place to make sure you don't lose control of the data.
• Have a backup in a different location.
• Have a plan for disaster recovery.

MegaUpload failed at step #1 and you should know that being in IT.

And did YOU read the article? Why haven't the server owners already deleted the data? Because they were told they couldn't until the Justice Department finishes its data mining, which they expect to have finished by Thursday. That is why the Thursday deadline.

Yes, I did read the article although I am puzzled as to what point you are trying to make with this last paragraph. The storage companies haven't been paid and they may begin deleting data as soon as the government warrants expire. Your point?

add to post#1.69.

How many of you actually know what all this is about. Please stop getting wrapped around the axle with baloney, look at the BIG Picture.

This is why I kept saying eliminate the Rich Elitist Electoral College (and do not even attempt that lame excuse of representing the smaller States).

THIS IS ALL ABOUT PRESIDENT OBAMA'S RELECTION. You honestly think that it is a coincidence that this is happening now.

Who does the US Department of Justice Work For. As it is the President's Job to Enforce the US Laws.

This is all about President Obama getting the Rich Elitist Electoral College Votes of California (55) via Hollywood, all he needs after that is a State like New York (29) or Florida (29) and you may as well as say he is US President again. You can piss up a rope or into the wind with your one vote for all he cares.

http://www.270towin.com/

Your one Vote means NOTHING. As it is the Rich Elitist Electoral College that determines the President and Vice President of the United States of America.

Cause + Effects = Results. Use this and you can figure things out yourselves. Or after the fact, backwards as, Results = Effects + Cause if you want to find out who, what, where, when, why (motives), how many, how much, etc.. Just do not blame me if you find out things that you did not want to know. And by all means do use discretion and do not blurt things out as some people will hate you for that and might take extreme measures against you.

Lesson of the day kids:

Keep your servers outside of the USA.

Good advice.

@Bob

Ok Bob, you do that and see what happens.

Servers outside the US are even more vulnerable since there is literally no enforceable laws that they are governed by. The owners of those servers are much more likely to keep your data LESS safe and mine it for profit.

@Grandfather-2041741

MegaUpload hasn't been proven to be a criminal enterprise either. Don't be braindead. Use your brain and think. If they can destroy your business before it even goes to trial, it doesn't matter if your business is legal or not... it's gone.

@milidad

It is completely inaccurate to take the position that the government is destroying this business.

MegaUpload's business model was to outsource data storage. That's a fact and not in dispute.

The situation they find themselves in now (guilty or innocent) is not a commentary on the governement for two reasons:

1. The government isn't going to delete any data whatsoever, it is the 3rd party storage companies that are making that decision based on non-payment for services rendered and it is perfectly within their rights (as well as perfectly reasonable) for them to do so.

2. This data deleting situation is not a product of the government shutting megaupload down. It's come to this because MegaUpload's affore mentioned business model is flawed for a cloud company.

A solid cloud storage model simply must keep the data available and accessible to the appropriate user-base. Building a cloud computing company whereby you can't actually controll the data is (and has been shown) a recipe for failure.

This is cloud-computing "101".

If Google found themselves being shut down by the governement, this data deleting issue would not be an issue because Google owns and physically manages all their servers. The data sinply wouldn't be in jeopardy because of non-payment.

@Scott....If it were not because the Fed shut down MegaUpload they would still be paying their bills to the 3rd party for storage. So yes, the Feds are basically deleting user data by hindering Mega's obligation to pay its creditors.

With that being said, MegaUpload still had a pretty @!$%#ty business model if there was no protection of its data being stored on a 3rd party host. Contracts should be enough to protect this data but Mega f'd up on that part.

As far as the inaccuracies of the government destroying this business....what would you call it? Shut down any online company for a couple weeks and tell me what that does to a business.

@Morgs74

With all respect, you are mistaken in your assertion that this is somehow the government's fault.

MegaUpload, as a cloud storage company, should never have outsourced their data storage, period. Customers who did business with them have a responsibility to know who they are giving their data to and how that data will be handled.

The most culpable people to blame here (for the data being potentially irretrievable) are the customers who willingly handed over their data to a company that they knew nothing about.

As far as the inaccuracies of the government destroying this business....what would you call it? Shut down any online company for a couple weeks and tell me what that does to a business.

I would call it unfortunate for sure, but if the company is vindicated, and had a business model that included disaster recovery, then this would simply be a period of zero revenue. They would be able to come back online and resume business.

Additionally, you imply that the treatment MegaUpload got is the same treatment all companies would get, which is false. There was sufficient evidence that MegaUpload did more that unwittingly facilitated piracy and because of the previous criminal past of the CEO and the multi-national nature of the jurisdiction, there was sufficient cause to freeze assets before they could be funneled out of the system.

Scott M -

Have you ever seen a server farm? I have. Rows and rows of towers, with servers in slots, as far as the eye can see. Now, many businesses prefer to have their own farms, preferably on a site they already own (or lease). However, I can tell you that if the government comes and freezes their accounts, they won't be able to keep that farm going regardless.

Why, you ask? Utilities. Without being able to pay a power bill, they cannot power the servers, much less the copious amounts of air conditioning required to keep the servers cool. Also, they cannot pay their internet bill, whatever connection they have. So, even if by some magical interference their employees agreed to keep working (maintenance for the building systems, maintenance for the servers, security, etc.), they still could not get access without paying for the service from an outside company.

So, in essence, yes, if you own servers and the government freezes your accounts, you can kiss those servers goodbye. Do not pass go, do not get innocent/guilty judgement in time to prevent data loss.

@Janstince

Yes, I have seen server farms as I am in IT and work with cloud computing and many other hardware, software and netowrking scenarios every day.

But, you are incorrect as to your assumption that owning the servers makes no difference as your argument is based on refuting a point that I did not say or make.

I never said owning the servers would allow the users to access their data, I said that owning the servers will prevent the data from being erased, as is the case here.

The power may be off, but the data reamins on the hard drives and those drives can sit in the dark for quite some time before the data will deteriorate. Because those machines are off, by the way, they won't be generating heat, and because they won't be generating heat, they won't need A/C.

Anyone seeking the services of a cloud-computing company should verify how and where their data is stored as well as the backup and disaster recovery plan of the perspective company. 3rd party storage is an immediate "no thank you".

And unless they actually have purchased the buildings and have paid property taxes for some time into the future, they will be evicted from their location and with no money to pay to move and store the servers, then what?

Keep your important docs AT HOME...where they belong.

@Jim in Auburn

Evictions and property seizures take months, if not years to happen Jim.

The point is still valid. Owning the servers puts the data in much less peril than outsourcing the storage.

If the scenario you pain comes to pass, it will be because the company is found to have been guilty of the crimes it is being accused of, if not the accounts will be unfrozen and those bills will be paid and users will be able to get thier data back.

You might as well forget getting back any information. As lawsuits take years and this looks that way, nobody is going to see anything for a long long time.

So if the gov erases data and only keeps what it needs to prosecute.. This does not sound fair to me. Hopefully customers will not be made to suffer again for corporate greed.

@Morgs74 - Sorry, but reputable firms have sufficient money in escrow with storage providers to account for safety of data. This can either be pre-payment or a data safety clause. Since it appears that neither is in place (Suprise!), users are getting exactly what they deserve for dealing with MegaUpload.

@Morgs74 - Sorry, but reputable firms have sufficient money in escrow with storage providers to account for safety of data. This can either be pre-payment or a data safety clause. Since it appears that neither is in place (Suprise!), users are getting exactly what they deserve for dealing with MegaUpload.

@Morgs74 - Sorry, but reputable firms have sufficient money in escrow with storage providers to account for safety of data. This can either be pre-payment or a data safety clause. Since it appears that neither is in place (Suprise!), users are getting exactly what they deserve for dealing with MegaUpload.

The answer is yes, any copyrighted material posted on Google will be subject to removal and criminal charges could be made to both, Google and the poster.

Currently the music and movie industry have unlimited copyrights, ever wonder why your paying for a sixty old movie or song? The public is being ripped and overcharged for material that long ago should have entered the public domain.

The fact that Megaupload did not even have a contingency plan for the data people are paying them to store is good evidence of what kind of company Megaupload was. This company would have never been able to be competitive if it wasn't for piracy. Kim knew that and structured the entire service for facilitating piracy. No business practicing any form of due dilligence would have ever trusted this company to store their files.

If you guys are mad at losing your data, you should be mad at Kim who, despite owning New Zealand's most expensive house and having enough time to be Number 1 in Call of Duty 3, didn't even create the data safeguards that even the most two bit businesses have. My company doesn't earn nearly as much as MU does and we farm out our data storage yet we STILL have disaster recovery options in place. What the hell was Kim's excuse?

Government censoring, it's the start folks.

If the government can do this, what make you think they won't do it in the future?

You can think of anything related to governments, like some embarrassing documents, or photos or whatnot. Like picture of congressmen caught in the act getting money from corporation and such.

The future is that GOVERNMENT CAN MAKE UP SOME BOGUS EXCUSES AND DELETE EVERYTHING THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO SEE. This is a closer step to total control.

Government's Agent: Hey look, 2 mins of copyright song is playing in the back ground of that video we just upload, let's move in and delete everything. We also get BIG BONUS to drive this company out of business, Congressman X told us we will get reward from his friend in Y company.

@Burning Brightly

So if the gov erases data and only keeps what it needs to prosecute.. This does not sound fair to me. Hopefully customers will not be made to suffer again for corporate greed.

Well, it wouldn't be fair if what you said was true. But, once again, the government isn't deleting anyone's data, the 3rd part storage companies who haven't gotten paid to store this data on their servers are going to delete it.

PEOPLE LISTEN UP:

THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT DELETING ANYTHING. READ THE ARTICLE!

Scott M - Don't even bother. These kids don't know any of the facts of this case nor are they really activists for Internet Freedom. They are just mad that their favorite pirating website got taken down. That's the bottom line.

Kids? Tell me how many company do you think can function without theirs asset?

Are you telling me that a company can maintain its own server farm without paying electricity, employees and other kind of fees?

The government doesn't delete them, but they are essentially making it possible to do so.

You know money wiring for drugs lord and terrorist, I don't see government frozen asset for those banks. How about security locker? There are more illegals goods in there, again, I don't see anyone going to jail as well.

Cuong - Companies have survived assets being frozen before. Megaupload could have survived this by storing the data themselves (remember hard drives don't go bad simply because they aren't plugged in) or prepaying their storage. Megaupload had a ridiculously large profit margin precisely because they skirted all the consumer protections and laws that legitimate businesses have to follow.

"You know money wiring for drugs lord and terrorist, I don't see government frozen asset for those banks."

You know nothing about the world. Banks from foreign countries are ROUTINELY blocked for knowingly aiding terrorists and drug lords. Ones here in the states that do so are shut down.

@CuongDNguyen

Kids? Tell me how many company do you think can function without theirs asset?

Well, the anser to that question is the point I've been making. MegaUploads didn't own the servers, so they are not going to be able to deliver their services because they haven't paid the companies that they contracted with.

Are you telling me that a company can maintain its own server farm without paying electricity, employees and other kind of fees?

There is a difference between "maintain" and "data being deleted". I never said, nor did anyone else, that if MegaUploads owned their own server farm, they would still be able to "maintain" their servers. I said that if they did own the servers, the data would not be in danger of being deleted two days from now. You do not need to pay employees or electicity to keep data on a hard drive, even when the power is off.

If it ever came to the point where MegaUploads could not afford to power things back up, they could sell their rights to "manage" that data to a different company in exchange for the servers.

The point is very simple and no matter how many posts people make to the contrary, a company that manages data must, first and foremost, be able to maintain control of that data. MegaUploads did not follow lesson 101.

If this story is not proof positive of that, I can't help you!

The government has a job to protect the people and sadly they have droped the ball and have sold out its people to companys . The democracy that many have died for to protect hes been turned into nothing more than a capitalist dictatorship where only the rich have freedom much like france was before the revolution

Don20xx

Scott M - Don't even bother. These kids don't know any of the facts of this case nor are they really activists for Internet Freedom. They are just mad that their favorite pirating website got taken down. That's the bottom line.

and the more frightening part is that no matter how many times you restate the facts, over and over again, it just doesn't get through. now just imagine the same people voting.

I wouldn't worry. I mean we are talking about folks that by in large spend a majority of their time downloading stuff off the interwebs. I don't think they actually get out of the house and vote.

The government IS destroying the data by not allowing the company pay their bills. If someone owned a farm, and had their assets frozen, they could no longer buy food to feed their animals. The animals would eventually die. Starvation might be the cause of death, but the frozen assets would be the cause of the starvation.

Worse, the government is essentially destroying the company without a trial. If the company is shut down for months, and loses all their customers data, the outcome of the trial is moot, as the company will be gone.

There are a lot of peripheral hobby groups and other innocent people who use sites like MU to store and share legal material that is going away.

True, it would have been more proper to safeguard their own shared files, but that would mean they had to have their own server setup. They used MU type sites for the bandwidth that is made available. I have lost several connections that were perfectly legal and provided a very enjoyable experience. New connections will be found and the groups will reconstitute themselves, but many informal acquaintances will not be resumed. Too bad. Too bad that sites like MU skirt or overstep legal bounds. Too bad that people like me will have to spend a long time restoring the connections to sources of material and information. Many of these groups asked for and received donations from members to keep their sites open and were naive enough to think their clouds were safe as long as they paid. Too bad.

Too bad the net is going to be more restricted for users and more expensive for providers.

absolutely crazy. this should not be legal (I don't think it is in the eyes of the supreme court). I hope the government gets sued and loses. this is censorship and invasion of personal property at its worst!

Wonder who these S.O.P.A commies will go after next?

@Dave9876

The government has a job to protect the people and sadly they have droped the ball and have sold out its people to companys.

So you feel that the government should now take over the responsibility for all the poor decisions you make? Because, that is exactly what the case is here.

Geeze! On one hand, we've got the folks who want to blame the government for everything and on the other, we've got the folks that want the government to do everything for them!

Where is the individual responsibility for the people that put the only copy of their data on servers that they knew nothing about and entrusted a company run by a previously convicted computer pirate?

I agree. This is like burning down an entire storage facility because a few of the renters used their units to store stolen goods.

Very correct! It's supposed to be inoccent until proven guilty! To use your analogy We think a few of your containers had stolen material so lets burn down your building then you can prove you where innocent. The damage is done by then!!

Perhaps the government should have considered this before doing what they did. When the money stream went down, so did the payments to the storage companies. They shouldn't be expected to retain unpaid for data for any reason. The storage companies need the space for paid data, and should promptly delete the data. The blame for anything lost should land squarely on the FBI for bungling this.

You are all seeing this very incorrectly. MegaUpload made a business decision to outsource the storage of their paying customers. This minute this decision was made, it meant that MegaUpload was cedeing a level of control of that data to the storage companies.

It was a bad business decsion to make and no reputable cloud-computing company would do it.

Unfortunately, the "buyer beware" cliche is applicable here. If you have precious data that you want stored or backed up in the cloud, the questions to ask a perspective company would be:

1. Do you store the data yourselves or do you outsource it?

2. Do you back up the data and how often do you do that?

3. Are the backups stored in a physically different location than the original?

4. What is your disaster recovery process?

5. Are all data scaned for viruses?

5a. What software is used for virus scans and how often is it updated?

This isn't a case of the storage companies owing somthing to the end-users as they have no contract or commitment to the end users.

And, this is not a case of the goverment deleting anyone's data as the storage companies are the ones doing that without government involvment.

This IS a case of a bad business model by MegaUpload.

Sounds to me like MegaUpload used 3rd party storage on purpose, to defend any pirated data. This way both MU and the storage companies can say "not it."

It certainly does have to do with the company and its dimwitted officers. They contracted for storage with third party storage companies. These companies are paid useage fees by Megaupload. When these third parties don't get paid they dump the storage. Simple, legal, and very capitalistic.

They are bluffing to get paid like they should. They cannot stand the lawsuits they will get if they destroy the data and some may sue anyway if the data they stored is pertinent to thrir business.

@breadex

They are bluffing to get paid like they should. They cannot stand the lawsuits they will get if they destroy the data and some may sue anyway if the data they stored is pertinent to thrir business.

There is no legal or realistic reasoning to support your point.

The storage companies can't get blood from a stone. If MegaUpload's financial accounts are frozen, then they aren't getting paid, no matter how loud they scream.

Also, the storage companies are not liable for the deletion of data due to lack of payment by MegaUpload. The end users don't have any sort of legal agreement with the storage companies and so the storage companies are not required to save anyone's data.

Jesus people never learn. The housing market collapses and mortgage industry fraud and now people believe in some internet scam.

People get what they deserve. In the housing industry, huge prices paid for shacks and properties whose prices were unsustainable.
In the mortgage fiasco, people never looked down the road to see what their mortgage payments would be after the teaser rate.
Now another internet disaster. Did any of you look at the rap sheet of the owner of megacloud?
I rather install a second harddrive and put my information on that and back up everything.

Scott: Enough of the drumbeat! You misunderstand Mega's business model, so you assume it was foolish. Mega does not sell storage. They offer a front-end to a storage solution. Their profit margin is much higher that way, and it suits the storage vendors as well.

The real concern here was the US government's action to freeze assets of a global company. This action is used when it can be demonstrated that the money is being used in the commission of active crimes. This is used to freeze assets of suspected druglords and terrorists.

Mega itself wasn't committing a crime with its funds. It had the same safety nets in place that Facebook and YouTube use (an EULA, an abuse system, etc).

The saddest of all is that the only people inconvenienced here are the legitimate users of Mega. The pirates just switched to RS and others.

I suspect a court order halting the deletion is forthcoming, due to the possible 'evidence' argument the defense will raise.

I'm looking forward to the trial, at any rate. Going to be interesting.

k

This is why good companies will not buy into the cloud no matter what the storage company says. When the government can destroy your data without proving it is pirated the service is less than worthless. Store your own data and trust none on these hucksters. They are all thieves.

MegaUpload had a due diligence to prevent its services from being used for illegal activities. If it failed to do so and had its assets frozen, then it is liable. Many people forget or were never aware of the fact that intellectual piracy is theft, and a crime often used to fund terrorist activities. On top of it all, if the only copy of valuable data is stored with one company, then the data owner made an unwise decision. It is too easy and inexpensive to back up data in multiple locations.

Correct me if I am wrong, but if you frozen assets to any company, aren't you essentially destroy it from the start?

How many company can function without their asset? You can't do anything, you can't pay employees, you can't make payment or anything. This is essentially saying that the company can't function as long as they are in court. This could take years and when it is all over, business already destroyed.

Now, tell me which company can handle the frozen asset for prolong period of time?

I can smell big business manipulation here, buy a congressman, or paid 3rd company, upload something illegal and have that company in court with frozen assets. It's the start folks.

Why should these 3rd party data storage companies cover the cost of storing this data long term and not get paid out of it? Why should our tax dollars go to storing this data either?

The truth is that Kim Schmitz or the other Megaupload vermin don't give a hoot about your data. If they cared they would have hosted the data themselves or prepaid their storage fees.

He knew darn well and good that a vast majority of his service was driven by piracy. He also knew that if the company's assets were frozen, then preserving John Smith's honeymoon pictures or litte Susie's college programming project was the very LEAST of his worries.

@Don

You know why Facebook built theirs new server farm in Iceland instead of Alaska? You guess its right, because not in US. Same can be said for lots of companies.

Are you saying Megaupload is the only with illegal files uploaded by users? What about Youtube, Google, Facebook or many others.

Wait, let's not just stop there, I know many train station or banks or private lockers with illegal items, we shouldn't just stop there. Let's SHUT THEM ALL DOWN.

Bank should be the first to go, they help drugs and terrorist organization wire money abroad. They are more harmful to US than anything else.

@Another David in Florida

Uh, I'm sorry Dave, but I'm not misunderstanding the business model at all and there is no "drumbeat" here, other than the facts.

When you operate a file sharing company or cloud storage company, you don't outsource the actual data storage as part of your standard operation.

I'm consistent in my posts because I know a thing or two about this from my 20+ years in IT.

CuongDNguyen - There are logistical reasons for why Iceland is chosen over Alaska. It's closer to Europe and has geothermal energy it can rely on. Besides, Iceland is a much more desirable place for IT professionals to live in than Alaska.

Megaupload's case is way different from Youtube and other sites. There is VERY STRONG evidence that Kim and his staff participated in piracy, knowingly made payments for traffic from piraters, deceived people who made requests to remove infringing material, and structured their entire business model on facilitating piracy.

The fact that his business didn't even have safeguards on the data is very good evidence that he really didn't give a crap about the personal data he stored on here. HE KNEW that little suzie's college programming project or Johnny's honeymoon photos would be the least of his worries if he got pinched.

STRONG EVIDENT? Have you checked out Youtube and others site lately? They all made big money from that and encourage people to do so for more user views.

You forgot another reason why Iceland over Alaska, that is because it is NOT SUBJECTED TO US LAW or at least that what they think.

Again, you haven't told me, how do you safeguard something if the government frozen the assets of a company? Are you telling me that if a company has its own server farm, they don't have to pay for electricity or utilities and employees. Tell me again how many company can survive if all their assets are frozen in prolong period of time?

CuongDNguyen - You might want to read the indictment against Megaupload that is publicly available. It is very enlightening and clears up a lot of the misconceptions regarding this case. It explains exactly why MU is different from other sites and why the FBI chose to take it down. Youtube has already been to court and defended their case. Megaupload hasn't and we'll see where the chips fall.

"Are you telling me that if a company has its own server farm, they don't have to pay for electricity or utilities and employees."

Why would a room full of RAID arrays that don't have power require any utilities or employees? Storage servers don't have to be turned on to keep their data in case you missed the 14 other times that was pointed out on this thread. As has been pointed out in other instances, they could have paid a year in advance and cleared all this up. The fact they did none of this proves Kim and MU didn't give a crap about their customers who used the site for legal purposes.

So tell me, did you actually have legitimate files that were permanently lost or are you just mad your favorite pirate site went down?

@Woofy One

This is why good companies will not buy into the cloud no matter what the storage company says.

That statement is utterly false. Cloud computing is increasing at exponential rates. Good companies, as you put it, are smart companies and smart companies know that #1 - you don't put all your eggs in one basket and #2 - you find out how your data is going to be managed before you sign any contracts.

When the government can destroy your data without proving it is pirated the service is less than worthless.

Well, since the government isn't destroying anyone's data, we'll call that statement utterly false as well.

Store your own data and trust none on these hucksters. They are all thieves.

And, strike three!

You know I have yet to see a single poster even attempt to rationalize why these third party storage providers or US taxpayers should be on the hook to pay to store MU's files.

@Don20xx

Who said the US taxpayers should be on the hook to pay the storage companies?

And the 3rd party storage companies paying themselves to store the files make no sense either.

Nobody explicitly said that but the only logical conclusion to preserve MU's files is to either force the third party storage providers to eat the cost or have tax money cover it. Of course, the providers might even choose to preserve the data without government intervention for publicity reasons but that's a long shot especially since they would have painstakingly comb through all the data to remove pirated files or face the same fate as MU. I'm sure privacy concerns would prohibit that anyways.

@Don20xx

So, you go for personal attack, you do know that there are so many sites like MU, right?

I read about MU and case related and in this case it just full of biased. Tell me, do you really trust everything the government or mass media feed you? Because that seems to be the case here. What is the reason for frozen assets in the first place that it rarely happen before?

I know you don't lose data w/o electricity, but have you ever seen a server farm with no electricity or anyone to take care of its for 6 months or more? I have here and it is no looking pretty. Have I mention about no security and thief? Or the infestation of various kind of insects and such.

Again, you haven't answer me, how many company able to survive with prolong frozen assets?

I guess when it comes to you, if nothing work, put "piracy" on others to make your case.

You are under the delusion the politicians running the show and receive millions from the entertainment industry actually give a @!$%# about "the people" in question.

@bradhart2

Yep, I suffer from this delusion for so long, I think it somehow become my reality now.

Corporations and Politicians are ours friend after all and they would never do anything bad for the people.

I also believe this delusion are contagious since more people are suffering from it as well.

I mean ACTA that recently got pass and failed SOPA, they must be for the good of all American. We as people have too much freedom and it's up to the government to control and censor what we can and can't do.

I am sorry, let's us all trust in politicians and corporation. Mass media and government are never wrong, so I guess MU case is totally fair, RIGHT?

CuongDNguyen - Yes it sucks to be accused of a crime. It can bring a company to its knees you are right. But you know what? Prosecuting this case is a HUGE risk by the DoJ and these folks had to have known that it would create a @!$%# storm of controversy. You really think the prosecution would have put their careers on the line and created an international outrage if there wasn't a good criminal case? That idea is LAUGHABLE. There is more than a 95% conviction rate in criminal trials and you can bet the farm that the DoJ wouldn't prosecute a case involving a multi-million dollar company unless conviction was virtually assured. Judging by the content of the indictment that is freely available online, Kim Schmitz is screwed with a capital S. He has no defense unless he can prove the evidence presented is phony which is very hard to do. He has no constitutional defense to these charges.

PS I don't believe everything I'm told and that extends to the rantings and ravings of internet trolls. It actually takes quite a bit of more original thought to be against Megaupload as anybody who simply swims with the tide would be jumping on the Anti-US bandwagon right about now. I mean just look at the other posts on here.

This is like the police chasing a drug dealer onto your property and then seizing your house and car.(BTW this happened).

Comcast and what ever ISPs people use are just as guilty.

@Don20xx

So, what is the case here? MU got frozen assets from the start and there are no verdict as of yet. Furthermore, this arrest coincide with a big SOPA bills from corporation to give government the rights to censor internet.

Yep, it must be bad to jump into anti-US wagon when the Congress rating is at 10% or less, a record of low rating that never happen before when ours economic is just happen in this state due to corporation by manipulate the government.

Again, banks have illegal money and items stored in their safe, many sites also have lots of illegal materials and I don't see anyone going to jail.

Again, tell me what does they have on MU to go to such drastic measure that rarely done before? Oh, I forgot how the movie and music industry involve in this as well, I guess government are bought and paid for corporation never happen before, just like oil corporation, RIGHT?

Scott...

You seem to be a real "Law and Order" type. I agree, but don't try to hammer it home. It only makes you seem weak. I decided years ago that I would say something ONCE and if they don't want to listen, saying it again won't change anything. Their loss, you know?

@dragonmaster

It's not that I'm a "law and order type", it's that I am in IT and know a bit about the law.

This entire idea that the government is causing the files to be delted is just plain garbage. There are those here who just want to blame the government for all their woes in life and couldn't possibly bring themselves to take any personal responsibility for their own actions.

Personally, I really don't care what you think I "seem" like. The reason I have reapeated my point is in the hopes that people who didn't see the other ones will see the additional ones.

Blanket attribution: all who complain of the government's actions here are free-loading whiners.

This is not evidence of thought.

You know I have yet to see a single poster even attempt to rationalize why these third party storage providers or US taxpayers should be on the hook to pay to store MU's files.

Because they aren't MU's files.

They are the personal files of people who paid for them. If the government is going to freeze the assets of the company for piracy that has no bearing on the legitimate contractual aspect of the with paid users.

If the government doesn't want to bother immediately separating the funds from piracy and those from legitimate storage then a court order to should be made for the government to fund the servers containing the personal files until the assets can be restructured. Otherwise, the government's actions are penalizing completely innocent subscribers and possibly causing a great deal of damage and loss.

Seeing the possible deletion of these legitimate files as collateral damage is completely unnecessary and unacceptable as a method of law enforcement. There is no need for this form of brute force.

There will be plenty of alternatives for this service that are legal. These guys are crooks, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with the "tool".....

MSpiel - I actually agree with you but it seems all sorts of file sharing "tools" are being closed down. Megaupload wasnt the first, wont be the last. They probably didnt make illegal copies themselves but through their services enabled users to do so. Just hope they dont come after individuals like the music industry did.

Why doesnt the government just shut down the internet since some ppl use it download copyright material. If megaupload is criminal then so is comcast, att etc...

It doesn't matter that the owners/operators were likely criminals. This is akin to the makers of Smith and Wessen being taken to court for shooting someone, being charged with murder, then the government confiscating all guns made by them.

Certainly this has to do with virtual data and is not the same as physical objects. However the data from innumerable innocent users is going to be taken, punishing them for a crime that hasnt been proven, as much as those who did download illegal content.

I agree. You don't see them banning Twitter or Facebook because some predators use them to find victims. That said - Megaupload has/had a responsibility to ensure that their tool wasn't being used for malicious purposes by removing infringing material from their site when asked by the copyright holders.

Therein lies the rub, as far as I am concerned - if Megaupload was asked to remove copyrighted materials repeatedly and failed to do so, then I'd agree that shutting them down was warranted as that would constitute condoning the behavior. If, on the other hand, no requests from copyright holders were ever sent (or they were complying with those they had received) and the government just invaded out of the blue with no warnings or anything, then I think the government was out of line.

@Nick etal...could MegaUpload use the excuse that they do not infringe on user's personal privacy as a reason why they did not sift through content and delete? Just wondering...l

i agree with davidb.that has been what the NRA has been trying to say for years and years. the government should not be able to BAN a tool just because a few choose to use it illegally.like cd burner or GUNS.

Mega DID respond to abuse reports, actually quicker than Facebook does. Mega has never used the 'users privacy' clause in their EULA to not respond to an abuse report. They cancelled lots of accounts, and deleted terabytes of pirated material. The thing is ... everyone knew they were just going through the motions and didn't really care how their system was used.

Mega simply got too big. Whenever anyone starts to attract attention to how easy it is to pirate music and movies, the government needs to smack them down.

Successful druglords learned long ago to avoid attention if you want to stay in business. Kim Shultz was never one to hide in the dark. He gets a thrill out of daring the authorities to come after him.

2 weeks in a Federal pokey and he'll own the place.

He's like the Dumb-and-Dumber version of Lex Luther.

David, there is solid evidence that MU ignored requests to remove data. Often times, they only deleted one of potentially dozens of links but left the original file in place. I've seen comments from several copyright owners on the various stories about this that stated their requests to remove material were ignored.

Facebook collected privacy datas and sold them out to third parties. Why aren't they in jail?

If you want to see damage, Facebook essentially cause more damage and in some case human's lives.

Oh wait, Facebook already have their server farm in Iceland and planning to move more business outside of US. I guess they are thinking ahead and will speed it up just like many other business.

So your only defense for Megaupload's wanton disregard for copyright enforcement is to say "b-bu-but what about Facebook?"

That, like most of pro-MU comments, seems more like a child's excuse for not doing their homework than a logical rebuttal.

@Don20

What about you? So your pro-government is to believe anything they feed you? That sound idiotic.

You know ACTA that recently pass or failed attempt to pass SOPA, those are some of the work government trying to pass as internet censoring. You know what else they look like? It's exactly how China is doing it now.

My defense is related to similar site with similar illegal activities. What is your defense for those?

Are you telling me Youtube, Facebook and others are totally legal?

Even so, the deletion of all of MU's data seems extreme. There is lots of legal, personal data stored on the site. Shouldn't users at least have the chance to recover their property before it is destroyed?

"What about you? So your pro-government is to believe anything they feed you?"

Yes that is idiotic but I am very far from that. Nice strawman by the way.

"Are you telling me Youtube, Facebook and others are totally legal?

The sites comply with the law, yes. They do everything within reason and according to the law to discourage and remove piracy from their site. Youtube has already been to court over this and WON.

So why would the DoJ pick on poor little Megaupload and not the other businesses? Because they don't like the way Kim Schmitz looks? GIVE ME A BREAK. You really should attempt to actually read the indictment. It explains very clearly why this case is different and why the laws that protect other content derived sites don't apply to MU. Until you do such a thing, you are just attempting to defend someone without even knowing what he is being charged with.

"Even so, the deletion of all of MU's data seems extreme."

How many times must this be explained? THE GOVERNMENT DID NOT DELETE ANY DATA. THE DATA IS HELD BY THIRD PARTIES WHO HAVE THE RIGHT TO MAKE ROOM FOR PAYING CUSTOMERS. GOT IT?!?!?! Good.

"Shouldn't users at least have the chance to recover their property before it is destroyed?"

Doing so and knowing pirated content was still on it would mean the enterprise who does this is knowingly distrubuting pirated content. They would be in the same legal boat as megaupload. Furthermore, it is impossible to go through all the files on the site without seriously violating people's privacy. If I had my files on the site, I'd rather they all be trashed then have someone from the government rummaging through it. I'm sorry but little suzies college level computer programming project is lost. It sucks I know but that's what happens when companies SCREW OVER THEIR CUSTOMERS.

And before you ask how did Megaupload screw over their customers consider this:

Megaupload represented itself as a legitimate service for storing legal files. As it turns out this is not the case. Therefore, Megaupload lied to you. You would actually have a very strong case to sue them in court for damages related to your lost files or subscription fees that were not refunded.

Then they should find a legitimate service like Dropbox, like anyone with a brain does. Megaupload encouraged uploading of pirated material. For crying out loud they delete anything that's not regularly downloaded, so if you put anything there to keep, you're an idiot.

@MSpielman

MegaUpload isn't being shut down because of the activities of the user base per se, the site was shut down and its owners/operators were arrested for promoting and facilitating the illegal activities of the user base.

you all have to agree that probably a large majority of users

Your argument is already shot. You can't that a "large majority" were illegally file sharing without data to back it up. You're just generalizing. You could say SOME users.

And a lot of people who download songs aren't hurting musicians. Musicians hurt themselves when they sign to greedy record labels associated with the RIAA. Musicians make most of their money off of concerts and memorabilia.

Reminds me of a couple of years ago when Trent Reznor released an entire NiN CD on the web for free, as a big f··· you to the RIAA. He's even urged people to "steal" music, because he knows how they rip off not only the bands they sign, but the people who buy their music. Please, that argument of yours has been beaten to death, and shown faulty.

Exactly.....

wives fan

Ray and others. The story clearly states the Govt is not in favor of deleting the files.

Could you point out the location of this information? Seem to be having trouble locating the cite.

you all have to agree that probably a large majority of users were simply breaking the law and stealing movies, music, etc

Why would anyone agree to only your fertile imagination without data to support?

Grandfather-2041741 sounds like a hater to me. I'm a grandfather also, but to condemn everything because of "some", is hateful, not constructive.

The American Constitution clearly states that a party is innocent UNTIL PROVEN guilty, not guilty if accused. If they are still innocent as the Consitution proclaims, then how can the data farms legally delete innocent parties data. AND, please, all, remember that there are millions of innocent parties storing some of their lives on those servers, and they had nothing to do with the alleged illegality of the Hong Kong company.

Innocent until proven guilty: not with a rampant press/media/politicians/ and "some" grandfathers that should know better.

Shame on you Grandfather-2041741 for forgetting constitution rights. Oh, if we can seize everything they own, including money just because they lease servers in Virginia, then by that same logic, they are completely entitled to our consitutional protections as well.

Nibor-please refer to the 5th paragraph. I will apologize for paraphrasing, but it actually says the govt has no legal right to do anything with the data since search warrants had been issued. Is up to the storage companies to work it out with the users.

Are you and Ranman trying to tell me all those nice little people who used Napster weren't stealing music files? Maybe they just liked being part of the "community" and wanted to "belong".

Ranman, I can't quote figures because it is an illegal activity. Not sure there are a lot of polls or studies related to crimes, but I will sure give it a look.

Lastly, please tell me why musicians should not feel any harm due to signing "greedy" record deals? First of all, successful musicians make a ton of money as they SHOULD because they supposedly have the talent. I again say if YOU wrote a song and you were losing money due to this type of theft, you would have a different opinion.

The American Constitution does not apply to people in Hong Kong and that is where Megaupload.com is located. If the US constitution applies to everyone in the world why aren't they paying US taxes

The 'government' can say whatever they like, but they aren't going to PAY to maintain the storage space. Why on Earth would any company that is in the data storing business keep their servers full for free - least of all to save the PR butts of the people that are killing off their customers. If I were in charge of one of the storage companies, I'd have deleted everything the instant the first payment was not made.

Napster isn't the same as MegaUpload. Still, your argument is faulty. You're assuming both user databases are the same, and the people using both services are using them for the same purposes.

The RIAA has a habit of forgetting to mention things. They do not like the idea of anyone having a copy of a song that they did not collect royalties on. That means that if you only like one song on an album they want you to buy the entire album instead of recording it off the radio, or borrowing the CD from a friend and ripping the single song you want. If you find an album questionable but like a couple of songs off it, you might be able to find them online for a buck or two. RIAA demands that you do this. The worst part is that the music industry has gotten complacent, they throw out one or two good songs on a CD and expect everyone to pay for it. Its like the movie industry, They throw out garbage at an alarming rate and then get mad when people decide that they want to know if its worth spending $7 at the movie theater to get in, $3 to 7 at the concession stand, per person, and then sit though a movie that should not have been released because its terrible. Then you get the movie execs that decide that since a movie 20 years ago did well it will again, they just need to update it. Then conveniently forget about paying the royalties on it. How about the recording company that releases a compilation disc of music and then deposits the money into their account even when the contract for the song requires them to pay the royalties on that song to the artist that sang it on the disc. But their not doing anything wrong to cause their word to be doubted.

If ripping songs from a CD was so illegal why is it that Microsoft is not being targeted because their media player has ripping built in.

Excuse me, Me-In-Nevada, but what Constitution are you supposedly talking about? It's clearly not the Constitution of the United States of America, which has no such statement as "Innocent until proven guilty".

This concept comes to us from English jurisprudence, and was never codified into the Constitution.

Stop yelling at Grandfather until you get your facts straight.

Well, Another David, since you wanted to quote from a website posting, at least post ALL of the quote. It does say that the "concept comes to us from English jurisprudence, and was never codified into the Consitution." However it finishes by stating; it "has been a part of that system for so long, that it is considered common law. The concept is embodied in several provisions of the Constitution, however, such as the right to remain silent and the right to a jury."

Read it, several provisions of the Consitution. Don't chastise another unless you give all facts. My facts are straight, you are the one that only put in what you thought would prove your point. That's typical of a certain political philosophy. Only give what will support you, not what is real. The actual term "innocent until proven guilty" is only emobodying several "provisions" of the Constitution into one terminology.

Sorry, David, but you're the one that needs to get your facts straight.

As to rond 36: I never said the Constitution pertained to Hong Kong. What I said was that if the FBI can use a server location in Virginia to shut down a company and seize its assets then the Hong Kong company is entitled to the same laws. The FBI is only allowed to deal with domestic issues, by law. If they can construe that servers leased in the US allows the company to be subject to US law, then the company has a right to protection under that same convoluted thinking.

Correct me if I am wrong, but if you frozen assets to any company, aren't you essentially destroy it from the start?

How many company can function without their asset? You can't do anything, you can't pay employees, you can't make payment or anything. This is essentially saying that the company can't function as long as they are in court. This could take years and when it is all over, business already destroyed.

Now, tell me which company can handle the frozen asset for prolong period of time?

I can smell big business manipulation here, buy a congressman, or paid 3rd company, upload something illegal and have that company in court with frozen assets. It's the start folks.

Britt, I'm 47 and purchased albums by the boat load. Then moved to CD's, then MP-3s. It has ALWAYS been this way. Many times, I would buy an album and probably like 4-5 songs. Buying legally an MP3 of those same songs would save me the cost of the album. Why SHOULDN'T the music industry make money off of their talents??? That is like saying you don't like two of the three items in a frozen dinner, so you think it is overpriced and should be able to steal it.

Ranman, Napster was most certainly the same type of business minus the picture storage, etc. All reports stated this company was used to share millions of files of copyrighted movies, music, etc. How is that different from Napster? Napster was just music, but it had the same issues. Everyone on Napster felt the had the "right" to share music with as many people as they wanted. Now it has gone legal.

Well, go for it if you think TurboTax is likely to be shut down by the Feds....not. This was a theft ring where 50 million folks participated in the fruits of the thievery. Youse pay your money and takes youse chances....but don't complain when you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar.

you said ....not. This was a theft ring where 50 million folks participated in the fruits of the thievery, isn't that for a court of law to decide? I thought people were innocent until proven guilty in this country

look like I was mistaken

This is exactly why you should not trust the US government, and move your company to another country that is not a lackey to the USA.

More reason to move further offshore!

Actually, it's harder to shut down this type of business in the US than in several other Industrialized nations. It has taken the government over 6 years to make this case.

Another thing ... no one used Mega to 'store' data ... it was a place to put it so others could get it. It was a transit station in cyberspace. Most uploads expired within a time frame.

It will be worrisome if sites like Dropbox and Windows Live get noticed. These are used heavily for trading music, but set tighter limits on space used.

I set up about 24 dropbox accounts between me and each of my clients. It is a smooth way to move code edits into production, but I was introduced to it by a middle-school kid who uses it to trade music with dozens of his friends.

This stuff will never go away. The pirates are always smarter than the average RIAA exec.

Megaupload was a file storage website. Want to backup important files like pictures, documents, back up your hardrive? Do you own a website and want to host content? Use megaupload. Are you an indie musician who needs a place to host your music for people to download it? Megaupload. Are you an indie video game developer that needs a place to host your files? Megaupload. Megaupload was simply a digital locker for people to put there stuff.

Then people realized megaupload did not care about piracy and the users started to upload and download pirated material. The issue with piracy isn't that it is stealing. Because it isn't. If I pirate a song, I didn't physically take anything from the creator. On top of that, borrowing from a friend or refraining from purchasing has the same effect on a business as piracy.

However, piracy is copyright infringement, which is a completely different thing. For the longest time, Megaupload and the Gov't had a good relationship. If a copyright holder or the US Gov't found copywritten material hosted. They would delete it on the spot. That relationship went on for YEARS.

But apparently one the Internet protests, blacks out, and stands up to stuff like SOPA and other anti-internet measures the gov't felt the need to strike back in a way that damages the internet.

Which is funny, they shut down all of the file sharing sites, so everyone is going to torrenting and p2p, if they shut those down too there is still usenet sharing. And to top it all off, I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't go back to burning physical CD's like we did in the 1990's.

Why? Because modern piracy is one of the strongest instruments we consumers have in this capitalist economy. We pirate because the prices are too high, the quality is too low, or a combination of the two. By not buying it or pirating it, we show the businesses that their product is crap and isn't deserving of money. Too bad that they chose to complain to the government like facists rather than make their music,tv shows, video games, movies a higher quality and lower the prices like a capitalist business.

Just like Apple...500 bucks or so for an Ipad that cost 30 to 40 dollars to make.....Just plain Greed..Screw Jobs and Apple

If their product is "crap" and overpriced to boot, why would you think it makes sense to steal it?

price vs value. Even crap is valuable to a farmer at the right price.

The stuff that gets copied is the stuff in the margins. It's the stuff that people WOULD buy if only it were a little cheaper. It's like going shopping and seeing something that looks interesting, but the price tag makes you think "dang, it's not worth THAT much". The really terrible stuff either doesn't get pirated that much.

This isn't to say that if prices were balanced better there wouldn't be piracy at all, but I'm willing to bet there would be a lot less.

This whole argument brings up an interesting distinction between simply wanting content to be aquired legally vs industry profit margins. I'd argue that the industry is unwilling to lower prices in the face of this competitive pressure from piracy because a) The amount of revenue they're losing is a lot less than the number they throw out to rally people against piracy and b) They would stand to lose a lot more revenue by lowering their prices than they're 'losing' to piracy.

Apparently, it's much harder to understand than you think, since you clearly don't.

Theodore, you're kinda sorta right.

Mega was started with the principal purpose of being able to pirate copyrighted material right under RIAA's nose. We all knew it, day one. It just happened to have excellent legitimate uses too.

Do some research before ranting grandpa. MU was a file storage site...period. They did not distribute, sell or provide copyrighted material. They provided a service for millions of paid users, and for every paid user there were thousands of non-paying users. There is no way that MU could verify each of the hundreds of millions of files on it's servers. The files were mostly uploaded in archive files, such as zip or rar, and file names were often disguised (eg. a bootleg of Cars 2 may have a file name of "My honeymoon videos").

The criminal enterprise is more and more becoming our government.

@Randomthough

This is a dangerous precedent.

There is nothign precedent setting about this. The government has been doing this sort of thing for over a decade, with respect to web sites and much longer (decades) with respect to brick and mortar businesses.

Brick and mortar do not compare to Internet businesses. Brick and mortar businesses have a limited scope. Internet businesses don't. That's the problem. Technically illiterate people draw analogies where none can be drawn and make devastating decisions.

Because a liberal conservative president will do WONDERS compared to a conservative liberal one?

Mitt Romney would turn the US into a slave economy and unless you are a 1% you are the slave with Zero chance for advancement..

Yes, let's add stupid and ignorant (and a guy that LOVES to fire PEOPLE and is a global expert at disassembling businesses for fun and profit) to the already awful inanity of what they are doing. The US needs Mitt Romney like it needs a new Dark Age.

Theo, there is nothing conservative about the current president. He is a liberal Liberal.

I agree with Tarc. Why get rid of Obama when things are going all so well here in America? He's a real leader. So much hope ... so much change. Ahhhhhh! Smell that?

You guys do know that SOPA gives US corporation more power than this right? Guess who want to pass it? Republican. Another similar bills pass 1 weeks before SOPA and from Republican also.

SOPA is another version for GreatWall in China for internet censoring, I guess Republicans are more on communist agendas than people thought.

Cuong, you know when you purposely spread lies, no one believes anything you post.

SOPA and PIPA and supported across the board by Republicans and Democrats alike.

SOPA is sponsored by the Republicans in the House and PIPA is sponsored by Democrats in the Senate. Neither bill has passed.

STOP SPREADING LIES!

You've been saying for 2 years that the US government can come in and effectively destroy all cloud data with nothing more than an accusation?

If so, then you my friend are a freaking psychic.

Hardly psychic. All you needed was six cooperating brain cells. It's been obvious how this was going to go down for ages... there have been conferences on the topic, papers writtena nd published, etc. Get a freaking clue.

i've been saying this, too, ever since i started to hear the first rumblings of internet data storage and/or data back-up. you relinquish control of your data as soon as you start letting someone else, somewhere else, store it for you. in addition to the government shutting down servers because of illegal activity, you also have the possibility of a company going bankrupt and just wiping the data and selling off the servers, or a disgruntled employee intentionally destroying client data, or even hackers stealing data from servers, deleting it, and then extorting people to get their files back. literally any and every scenario you can imagine is what's wrong with cloud computing. i understand the convenience of accessing files from anywhere, and the "security" of having an offsite back-up of your files, in case of fire, flood, etc. but AT WHAT PRICE??

as long as it "a backup", what's the prob with it?

As for the PRICE ... it's by the gigabyte, silly. Read the EULA.

Correct me if I am wrong, but if you frozen assets to any company, aren't you essentially destroy it from the start?

How many company can function without their asset? You can't do anything, you can't pay employees, you can't make payment or anything. This is essentially saying that the company can't function as long as they are in court. This could take years and when it is all over, business already destroyed.

Now, tell me which company can handle the frozen asset for prolong period of time?

I can smell big business manipulation here, buy a congressman, or paid 3rd company, upload something illegal and have that company in court with frozen assets. It's the start folks.

The way the state enacts an unpopular law is to go after the dregs of society IE. megaupload, bittorrent, sex-offenders, Rupert Murdock etc and once they have a foot in the door no one complains when offensive laws are passed. When we as a society don't defend free speech, freedom of home ownership, or freedom of choice - We loose those freedoms to the state. Imagine if ten years from now a parent uploads a picture of their infant child nude on a ball - that would be cause enough to close down sites such as Apple, or Microsoft NET, or any other business cloud computing site. That is what this is all about!

Okay, that's a little more paranoid than I was expecting...

Welcome to Nazi America, where if a dead body is found on your land, you must be guilty of murder. (Same principle here...pirated content is found on their servers, therefore, they are guilty for allowing it.) Wait a minute.....The government passed a law a couple years ago that protected server owners from being held criminally responsible for content stored that was illegal..... So now all you server owners out there can lose everything at the whim of the federal government.

Nothing in computing is rock solid. hard drives crash, raid arrays fail, Murphy happens. The cloud has been secure up to now, in some ways moreso then physical media. It has relied on the former stability of the US government. Its a symptom of bad governance to suddenly start strict enforcement of laws after a long period of laxity. Countries like Chia do that, they have long rolls of law so they can pick and choose which ones to enforce according to the politics and bribes of the moment.

Actually, services such as megaupload are reasonably safe if one *encrypts* their data. So long as one uses a good encryption strategy (i.e.: algorithm & sufficient key size), the data will be safe.

Cloud storage services (e.g.: drop box, box.net, spider oak, etc.) include encryption features that sufficiently encrypt the data in transport and while at rest in their cloud.

but ... encrypted pirated material is still illegal. What's more, a court can order you to provide the encryption key, and if the key you supply cannot decrypt the data, you are held in contempt of court.

The only means of defense against having someone manipulate your encrypted file is to retain a hash of the original, and then DS it and store it away where it won't get compromised.

There is a US case going on now about an encrypted hard drive.

many get punished by a few is a big thing right now. the big banks made government put back regulation which in turns hurts all the small businesses. the top 1% can't count all the money they make but the other 99% can't count how much in debt they are.. and here we are with both sides that can't do what needs to be done. it's really embarrassing

the US government is not responsible for consequences arising from the lawful execution of policing duty.

It is not their fault the storage vendor will delete the data. As long as they were legally covered to order the asset freeze, they are in the clear.

wierdo!

And to think that their only reason they're able to take action is because "One of their servers are leased in Virginia."

The American Govt. can ruin any Co. true, but with the shape of this American Govt. there are allot of Corps, that can ruin this country. There is allot of anti-American feeling out there, but there is a hell of allot anti-Corporation sentiment as well. We have a puppet President, who has signed into law some very pro Corp. We also have candidates on the other side that are to busy attacking each other, and not keeping an eye on the primary issue how fouled up this country has gotten in the last few years.

With whats happening to Megaupload by the Govt. is just the first glint of the oncoming headlight of whats to come. If your smart protect yourself, buy the external hard drive or copy to DVD/blue ray. I can see this happening with the cloud. But it's gonna be a Typhoon, Hurricane, Tsunami. Either or will wipe out the other.

Personally I only store books, games, n such, nothing personal. NO WAY! NO HOW!

Get over your hate! Tell us what corporation told the government what to do! Facts, not hate-mongering, please!

The RIAA and MPAA are nothing but corporations.. you can start there.

Corporations = record companies and all the musicians that have their music downloaded for FREE from this site and others. Violating every copyright law on the books.

This is why musicians can't have a normal life. They have to constantly tour to survive because the last few generations have never known a world without FREE MUSIC. So instead of making an album and actually SELLING IT - all the downloaders want it for FREE. But they wouldn't work for free! They would have to survive eating macaroni and living in a van 7-10 months a year!

You are a Farking Icehole!!

Oh boo-hoo! Having to play shows to hundreds if not thousands of fans. Music should not be about money. I gave away tons of cd's and cassettes tying to get my music out there. The pure satisfaction of hearing your music at a party, on the radio, playing shows and people coming up to you saying how much they enjoyed it is a feeling money can not buy. I wonder how many artist would let you download their music if they were not under these crazy contracts they have to sign. Bands need to remember who got them there THE FANS. Throw'em a bone once in a while. Having said that, no internet site should make a profit from charging a fee to pirate their music, but sharing music should not be a crime.

It's good to read about performers/writers that craft music for pure reasons. Regrettably, some of the least talented among us, fear their "music" will be pirated for gain. How many times at an open mic, have you been accosted by a performer that thinks people that are recording your music, for your purposes, are there to pirate their awful drek ? Those very "short people", add their votes to support the media conglomerates that wish to monetize everything that can be sold, by labeling it "intellectual property". The Gordon Gekko quip, "Anything worth doing, is worth doing for money", debases all performance activity. Do remember, fans are the first to be exploited and are never represented in the discussion. In sports, when disputes arise between owners and players, the FANS do not have a seat at the table, even though they're the only reason there's money to fight over.

Jeff S, it sounds like you dont feel musicians should have to 'earn' their living.

The record labels are nothing but huge advertising machines. That is the only thing they actually offer. Musicians are realizing that they do not need them anymore: real musicians that is. The Kesha's of the world will always need others to do the actual 'art' part of the business.

Good luck with that! Since, the NDAA passage the government would label you a terrorist and jail you with out due process and take your home for quarters for the military who jailed you. You and I already lost our freedom. It is just a matter of time before they knock on the door and let you in on the secret. You lost your 2nd Amendment rights already on Dec 31st when President Obama signed the NDAA into law. You can not file suite from Gitmo.

So you would sue to "protect YOUR" stuff on a known criminal site. Good luck with your plan DUMMY, WE WILL LAUGH YOU OUT OF TOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will stop using a PC if I cant store data on it.

I trust a cloud as far as I can throw it.

Where are they providing this "warehousing security"?

In the cloud. Or did you miss that part?

This is ANOTHER GIGANTIC OVER-STEPPING of the American Government. Or should I say attempt to CRUSH our Civil Rights. They are OUR RIGHTS not the Corporations. Corporations are run by the FEW not the MANY. The right to free press, speach, to gather and voice our likes and dislikes in conventional or otherwise fashions is ours and ours alone. The Corporations of the World Should have absolutely no say in what American Civilians do. They also should NEVER have been given the right to buy I mean "donate" funds to any person's venture to Civil Posts. @!$%# it, I'm buying as manhy guns as I can and arming my neighbors. Anyone, want to learn how to shoot a rifle? I'll teach you. You are going to have to know how too soon enough if the government keeps going the way it is.

teach me. i wanna shoot all those damn politcians

This one I agree with.