questionsdid you see that the government took down…


Chickens**ts can't even do it on American soil or themselves. They've got to bully some little country into doing the whole thing.


They must have gotten angry over the SOPA protests.


That's frustrating, they were a useful anime resource.


Now where are people going to go for their illicit materials (namely pron)?

Oh wait, the internet!

(In all seriousness though, that stinks to hear just from a SOPA likely related retaliation-ish?)


(Profanity) and here I am trying to get it to work and now I know why. Damn that sucks a lot.


What's next? Apparently, the Dept of Justice, RIAA, MPAA, and Universal Music...

(In all seriousness, though, it's a little scary how far the U.S. government's reach goes - especially outside its own borders/citizens)


So, that means that MegaVideo (their brother site) is down to? Bummer.


So do you think they're going to go after folks who may have had an account at MegaUpload?


Will this affect Megavideo? I actually use that one..


I didn't use the site myself, but it's interesting to see the charges. Looks like they don't have anyway of charging those that run the sites on donation only. That is for now.


@lavikinga: I'd say that depends on a few things...first and foremost, records. Assuming they give up complete and valid records, then I'd say activity/content would be the next factor.. (guess that's kind of stating the obvious :D)

I definitely think they'd be more likely to go after somebody with hundreds/thousands of GBs a month of Sony/Paramount/Other Big-Studio movies, than they would somebody who has a bunch of Anime up for streaming or old TV shows :)


Megavideo, too. I used to watch some of the simpsons episodes on there


I've been staff at a pretty popular private torrent site for over 6 years now, and users/members of sites taken down like this have very little to worry about. It's the owners and staff of sites that take 99% of the risk of prosecution or lawsuits.

Anyway, I never heard about any members being targeted when sites like oink were taken down, even the people who were responsible for a large volume of the uploads. It's a numbers game, going after thousands of users is just not economically feasible, but going after 1 or 2 site owners successfully could scare a lot of site owners into shutting down.

If you are scared of being prosecuted or sued for using torrent sites, then don't use them. I know full well that I am risking prosecution by participating in filesharing activities, but realize the likelihood is very slim. It's the proverbial "don't do the crime if you can't do the time"


@kamikazeken: OOOOh OOOOh
any site off torrentscan?

haha i know you can't/shan't say. I work support for a small satellite ISP. your right, they don't care or atleast my ISP doesnt. They give 3 warnings then your suspended, then the violator calls, we tell what files you were caught downloading were, and if it happens again the account is disconnected.

I handle about 50 calls per day and have been the past year and a half, i have only had 2 of these calls ever. They are getting more frequent though. They are quite fun i'll admit.

People are all like "noooooo we don't DL torrents here what are torrents?"
"the name of the file was xvid.meninblack3.2012, that looks like a torrent file...."

reply: "yea... ur right it does!"

Never seen anyone sued yet. and they seem like they are always disney movies they catch them with. never music/games/software, so get you fill (JK I don't support piracy!)


@mx023: that comment represents thoughts/reflections from myself and I am are in no way speaking for my employer


Did you see Anon took down the government?


I wish I could go with a conspiracy theory on this one, but take downs like this take weeks, usually months, to get to the point of making arrests. They may have sped the process up by a couple of days, taking it down today instead of next week, because of all the protests, but I'm sure the take down has been in the works for a while.

It's also not a politically smart move, while it may be a smart move from the law enforcement point of view. We all know that politicians rarely care about who the represent unless appearing to will get them re-elected. With the 2012 elections right around the corner, politicians don't want to give oxygen to the already flaming fire that is the occupy world we currently have.


@mx023: Those aren't private trackers.

Anyone else weirded out that Swizz Beats is the CEO of Megaupload?

SOPA, PIPA, gov't. takedowns, etc. all remind me of Princess Leia's comment to Grand Moff Tarkin (which I will paraphrase): The more you tighten your grip, the more pirates slip through your fingers. This was just the proverbial drop of water in the ocean of piracy.


I saw this: : an attempt of a boycott, I laughed. I barely do any of the things on the list to begin with!


@mx023: I got an email once... I was scared for half a second, then just laughed and thought, "Oops".


As I do tend to be reputation-suicidal, I feel the need point out there's a significant difference between the kind of overstepping that would be facilitated by SOPA/PIPA (i.e. placing the burden of responsibility for all user-generated content on any given site and then bypassing due-process on the enforcement side) and this. This is more just "stepping." Given MegaUpload's business practices, there's something to be said for the case that they were more than just passive hosts of infringed content.

Frankly, the kind of commentary that's been going on in this thread is probably a big factor in why some people aren't taking the SOPA/PIPA protests seriously.


I think this is different from the usual copyright infringement case as, from what I understand, there are allegations of massive money laundering through the sites.


I know this sounds strange and not possible but I long for the day we could go back to dial-up. You know, back in the day when you called a BBS to post messages, download and whatnot. I myself called BBS's from 1987 to 1994 - yes the internet took over from there via AOL 1.0, but I had so much freedom in the BBS days - of course if the board was up. If the government wanted to shut you down, they had to actually go get the computer.

Made them work a little harder.


Saw it on the news, friends that pay more for media/storage than for content were grumpy. I can't say I have ever come across a legitimate use of the megaupload sites. I don't think it will stop anything as someone will step in and fill the void and this time they won't make the same mistakes that previous owners did.


So sad, there goes my lifetime account to them :(


@lavikinga: I hope not, but then again the only things I have on my account are zip files of promo pics I took for local bands of which I know personally. I don't plan on suing myself for that, lol.


@myspaceisacult: Darn that yearning to see those episodes of Torchwood.


@lavikinga: I was more for watching episodes of Futurama that I didn't know aired in 2011, and finally getting around to watching Firefly. In either case, it's a messed up thing to do, but didn't mediafire take a hit a while ago and they're back online. I hope MU is the same, I barely use rapidshare anymore and my premium account will expire there soon. MU is way better, but Rapidshare takes down links that are in violation, and they're still up and running, why take down Megaupload unless they didn't agree to take down links that are in violation either.


@curtisuxor: this is more than a drop in the bucket. 150 million registered users and 50 million hits per day. $25 million+ that the owner of megaupload has "earned".

I don't have a problem with filesharing, but I do have a problem with people earning that kind of money from it. Finally, Megaupload was stupid enough to rent servers that were/are physically located in the United States. That's just asking for trouble, at least rent servers in canada for christ's sake!