



I. RIP Megaupload







II. Feds Kill MegaUpload Abruptly, Arrest It's New Zealand Admins









III. Counterstrike







Developing story...

Sources: Twitter, U.S. DOJ

Comments     Threshold


I wonder..
By tamalero on 1/19/2012 10:13:37 PM , Rating: 3
What kind of muscle or pressure the USA government put in New Zealand and the countries raiding and detaining people for "copyright infringement" by US sources.

I wonder if this is a counter to the whole music argument (regarding that famous musical video.. where megaupload claimed the artist were legit doing the video.. but the RIAA claimed it was copyrighted work...)

RE: I wonder..
By CityZen on 1/20/2012 12:30:24 AM , Rating: 5
EXACTLY! That is the most frightening thing of all. I mean, the NEW ZEALAND police arrested four people for a non violent crime supposedly committed against an American Company??? Say what?
I'm neither a lawyer nor an expert in international law, but I have some SERIOUS doubts about the legality of these arrests.

RE: I wonder..
By B3an on 1/20/2012 9:38:41 AM , Rating: 1
America always bullys these type of countries in to things. It's the same with similar draft laws in Europe that are a lot like SOPA. It's been proven the American goverment was behind them and was bullying others to support it. **** America.

RE: I wonder..
By msheredy on 1/20/2012 11:36:17 AM , Rating: 1
No it's not **** America, it's **** the GOV of America. Get it right and don't generalize dipshit.

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RE: I wonder..
By StevoLincolnite on 1/20/2012 12:55:33 PM , Rating: 2
America always bullys these type of countries in to things.

Except... America Bullying New Zealand doesn't work, they have tried in the past.

New Zealand is a Nuclear Free zone, America wanted to have it repealed to allow Nuclear ships and weapons, that's not going to happen as the people and Government had already spoken.
So, the US suspends the ANZUS defense obligations to apply some pressure. And even today New Zealand hasn't buckled, they would rather continue their close ties to their neighbor Australia than the US.

New Zealand is seen to have the least corrupt government on Earth, they would have followed and done everything by the book, otherwise they would get castrated by the people and the news outlets.

RE: I wonder..
By x10Unit1 on 1/20/2012 10:56:09 AM , Rating: 2
And you wonder why they want SOPA passed. They already can arrest people in other countries for charges of copyright infringement. It is too slow and too expensive to bribe people do arrest all of these people. Why spend money on time, research, and bribes when you can spend a lot of money for a law that gives you rights to shut down any site you please for little or no reason? I am sure they can use this to arrest people too.

RE: I wonder..
By aurareturn on 1/22/2012 1:40:05 AM , Rating: 2
If you read the entire document, you'll see hard evidence that suggests employees at Megaupload knowingly allowed illegal content on their sites. They were also trying to find traffic to those illegal content. DOJ has emails sent between MU employees talking about how to make money off of these links.

Let's be honest here, illegal content is probably MU's biggest revenue stream. Heck, I thought about buying a MU account once because of that but never did.

If MU was really serious about piracy, they would have went to and deleted all their links. It would have probably taken several people 24 hours to do so and they would have had a big part of illegal content off their service. They didn't and didn't care.

This is MU's fault. I'm sad that they are gone too but let's not act like they are innocent.

RE: I wonder..
By TSS on 1/20/2012 10:58:08 AM , Rating: 4
Frightening is not the word i'd choose. "Normal" would be.

My country (holland) has a agreement with the US that we turn over any dutch citizens suspected of any crime in the US. Probably, that agreement was used in the arrest of the person from the netherlands.

However, if an US citizen is suspected of crime in the netherlands, the US DOES NOT have to turn him/her over. By law, they are allowed to give us the finger.

All perfectly legal, and i suspect remnants of WWII/the cold war. They will remain that way until the politicians grow some balls and recognise the US could just as easily be a threat as a friend, and any relationship should be a 2 way street.

RE: I wonder..
By tecknurd on 1/20/2012 8:39:16 PM , Rating: 1

Easy, the intellectual property is copyrighted under USA law. It is enforced where copyright content is sold. This means USA has a right to arrest those that did not confine to the rules in those areas. Though USA should of put MegaUpload in a temporarily down state until all copyright material is erase to a point that it did not ever exist, but people that New Zealand police arrested were pro-piracy which is again illegal.

For MegaUploads accounts that are using it legally, those people should start suing if the site is not up. Hacking to bring a government site down does not work against the government. Suing or protesting does.

