Although I'm disappointed that Megaupload and its sister sites are dead, after a day of reading up on the indictment I do understand where charges are coming from.
Most people assumed that Megaupload qualified for the safe harbor provision under the DMCA that protects service providers from the content their users upload. While Megaupload did have a DMCA form, they didn't comply with the requests in accordance with the law. Their response to DMCA takedown notices was to simply disable the offending URLs in the request without deleting the file. Since Megaupload also had a deduplication service, the same file on their servers could have hundreds of URLs, and the file would never be completely deleted. Megaupload is accused of intentionally neglecting their obligation to delete offending content, even illegal content such as CP. The owners are also accused of searching their databases to infringe on copyrights internally. Plus, there's some money laundering charges in there or something.
The extradition is also understandable. The owners were stupid to be knowingly breaking the law, yet they hosted the website in the US. Since they were breaking US laws from inside the US, it makes sense that they should be extradited to be prosecuted under US laws. Basically, I see it the same as committing murder in the US and fleeing the country. Granted, it's not as extreme, but it's the same concept.
The thing I find most amazing in all of this is the support for Megaupload and the HATE for the US government and big corporations. Out of curiosity, I looked up an article on the Wall Street Journal, which is considered to be a largely conservative newspaper. The article had over 200 user comments, and while waiting for the comments to load, I expected the majority to be anti-piracy. I was SHOCKED to see that the overwhelming majority of the comments was actually criticizing the US for being in bed with Hollywood and blaming Obama for wasting taxpayer money on defending corporations opposed to targeting REAL issues such as illegal immigration. Many people who commented also brought up their anger in being unable to access their legitimately hosted files they uploaded to Megaupload. They mentioned that they used Megaupload to share files too large for email, and as backup storage.
Just to clarify whose side I'm on...I'm against the takedown, but I understand why it happened.
Originally Posted by dark navi
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