With over 150 million registered users, the file sharing site MegaUpload.com is one of the most popular on the Internet. At least, it was.
Megaupload's website was shut with no notice from the government and no opportunity to challenge it in court. Megaupload Ltd., registered in Hong Kong, is the website's owner of record, according to the indictment. The locales of its computer servers with the allegedly illegal content included Ashburn, Virginia, and Washington, according to the indictment.
The site has now been seized by the US government and its homepage converted to an FBI anti-piracy warning. Its founder, a high tech entrepreneur named Kim Dotcom (yes, he had it legally changed), was arrested in New Zealand after his homes were raided and assets seized.
These actions were all at the behest of the US government. And it's just the latest example of Big Brother overextending its authority across the entire world.
Megaupload is advertised as having more than 1 billion visits to the site, more than 150 million registered users, 50 million daily visitors, and accounts for 4 percent of Internet traffic, prosecutors said.
Megaupload paid millions of dollars in incentives to subscribers to the site, who were rewarded for uploading content that others could then use, according to the indictment.
A survey released in December of 1,600 corporate customers of Palo Alto Networks Inc., a computer security company, found 57 percent of the companies had workers who spent some time trading film clips and games on Megaupload.
The indictment contains one count of racketeering, one count of conspiring to commit copyright infringement, one count of conspiring to commit money laundering and two counts of criminal copyright infringement.
The racketeering and money laundering charges carry maximum penalties of 20 years in prison while the copyright infringement charges have maximum five-year penalties.
Prosecutors said the conspiracy was led by Kim Dotcom, a 37-year-old resident of Hong Kong and New Zealand, and a dual citizen of Finland and Germany, who had legally changed his last name. Dotcom founded Megaupload Ltd. and is the director and sole shareholder of Vestor Ltd., according to the indictment.
In 2010, Dotcom received more than $42 million from the conspiracy, the indictment alleges. Dotcom, who also goes by Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, was one of those arrested.
When police arrived at Dotcom's Auckland home, he entered his house and activated electronic locks, Detective Inspector Grant Wormald said in a statement today. Police neutralized the locks and then had to cut their way into a safe room, where Dotcom was found with what looked like a sawed-off shotgun, Wormald said.
"It was definitely not as simple as knocking at the front door," Wormald said.
New Zealand police said they carried out 10 search warrants and seized 18 luxury vehicles, including a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe and a 1959 pink Cadillac. The vehicles are valued at NZ$6 million. Police said as much as NZ$11 million in cash was restrained in various accounts.
Last week, I posted information about efforts to stop passage of the SOPA/PIPA legislation that would give the US government jurisdiction over the Internet. Wikipedia blacked out its English language pages to raise awareness of the issue, and people went completely nuts.
Congress subsequently withdrew the bills amid popular outcry, and the public rejoiced that their efforts successfully thwarted further encroachment on their liberty. Or so they thought.
On the exact same day that everyone was celebrating victory over SOPA/PIPA, the US government simply used another set of regulations to nab Dotcom and seize his assets. The fact that SOPA was scrapped turned out to be completely irrelevant, they just found other rules to apply (or break).
As usual, it's probably not legal. But such technicalities don't matter in the 'guilty until proven innocent' system in which we live. Executive agencies exercise extreme latitude when confiscating assets, and victims often don't have the opportunity to address the matter in front of a judge for years, if ever.
In Dotcom's case, the man probably won't even successfully make it past the extradition process for at least a year... let alone bring the issue to trial. The government is using its bureaucracy to completely circumvent due process and make an example of somebody that they consider a nuisance.
So why should they care? What interest could the US government possibly have in a silly file sharing site? None. But the entertainment industry does.
You see, we don't live in a representative democracy. Democracy is an illusion to make people believe that they're free. Instead, it's blocs of large corporations who are really in control. If the entertainment business wants Kim Dotcom to go away, the government will invent or break any law necessary to make it happen. They're all in bed together.
What's more, it doesn't matter which group or party is in power. Democrat or Republican, Labour or Conservative, Liberal or New Democratic... they're all for sale. Citizens concern themselves with the outcome of elections, investing heavy emotional and financial support for 'their guy'. Companies just wait it out and buy off whichever candidates win.
Kim Dotcom, though a wealthy and successful entrepreneur, was essentially a lone wolf standing against the entire industry. Rather than find ways to work with him in what is clearly emerging as a dominant media platform, they chose to eliminate him... by having the US government send the New Zealand government to arrest him and seize his assets.
About an hour after the indictments were unsealed, the public websites of the Justice Department, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America wouldn’t load. The hacker-activist group known as Anonymous took credit for the disruptions, citing the Megaupload prosecutions, according to Twitter accounts used to publicize the group’s activities. The sites were disabled by a so-called directed denial of service attack, which floods websites with so much traffic that they temporarily crash without harming network systems or giving attackers access to confidential information.
It's mind numbing when you really think about it.
Ultimately, Dotcom may successfully find his way back to a normal life after years in court and perhaps some time in jail. In the meantime, though, his case certainly makes a strong argument for flying under the radar. It's a stark reminder that, if they really want to get you, they'll apply, invent, or break whatever laws are necessary to do so.
No comments:
Post a Comment