Megaupload.com Gets Hit by Mega Piracy Indictment

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/justice-fbi-crack-megaupload/story?id=15396526#.TxiTyJibJKM

By JASON RYAN, PIERRE THOMAS and JACK CLOHERTY

Jan. 19, 2012

The Justice Department has indicted seven individuals and two companies behind the popular file sharing website Megaupload.com which has been touted by stars will.i.am, Kim Kardashian and Puff Daddy.

The indictment alleges that the website and a shell company associated with the website, Vestor Limited, caused an estimated half-billion dollars in copyright losses and made an estimated $175 million in proceeds. The website was established in 2005 and at one point ranked as the 13th most visited website on the Internet.

The feds indicted the site's founder, Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz, a 37-year-old resident of Hong Kong and New Zealand. He was arrested in New Zealand by New Zealand authorities.

Also indicted were employees Bram van der Kolk, aka Bramos, 29, Julius Bencko, Finn Batato, Sven Echternach, Mathias Ortmann, and Andrus Nomm. New Zealand authorities arrested Batato, Ortmann and van der Kolk. Bencko, Echternach and Nomm remain at large, officials said.

The indictment accuses the suspects of being members of "the Mega Conspiracy, a worldwide criminal organization whose members engaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale." The case comes a day after internet companies and websites such as Google, WordPress and Wikipedia protested about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).

An hour after the indictment was announced, the Justice Department's website, www.Justice.gov, came under cyberattack with a denial-of-service attack. Anonymous, the hacktivist computer group, is claiming responsibility.

The indictment returned by a grand jury in Virginia alleges, "In exchange for payment, the Mega Conspiracy provides the fast reproduction and distribution of infringing copies of copyrighted works from its computer servers located around the world. Premium users of the site... are able to download and upload files with few, if any, limitations."

Describing the operation of the site and relations with users the indictment noted, "For much of its operation, the Mega Conspiracy has offered an 'Uploader Rewards' Program, which promised premium subscribers transfers of cash and other financial incentives to upload popular works, including copyrighted works, to computer servers under the Mega Conspiracy's direct control and for the Conspiracy's ultimate financial benefit."

The seven suspects have been charged with participating in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement.

If convicted they could face a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Sounds like a great idea might have a crack over the weekend. I'll think of some punny name

I'm leaving the cover design AND naming of Vol. 7 open to whomever wants it badly enough.

First thing we'll need is a good name for the comp. So start posting some ideas for the name in this thread and whichever one I like best will get the go-ahead to design the cover. Sound good? Thanks!

Try Robert Rankin ! the Armageddon, the Musical (1990) series are great ! elvis , aliens, zombies all of that with a big sens of humor and non-sense !

they are quite rare to find in french translation... but i guess in UK or US...

The HitchIker's guide to galaxy by Douglas Adams , my all time favorite !!

Here are a few of my favourites (not really music related)

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

Tales of Ordinary Madness - Charles Bukowski

Pimp - Iceberg Slim

Mama Black Widow - Iceberg Slim

Dopefiend - Donald Goines

Trainspotting - Irvine Welsh

On the Road - Jack Kerouac

If anybody has any suggestions for new reading material that would be great. Cheers.

Yay! Now everyone can see that the American government has very little, if nothing, to do with the what the American people as a whole really believe. This is what our "FREEDOM" is all about... a special interest group AGENDA that rarely represents what the average American believes and makes everybody hate us for their warmongering, power hungry ways. This PIPA & SOPA is exactly counter and opposite our 1st Amendment assuring us freedom of speech, of the press, etc., as in the premise on which we're supposed to stand.

I'm trying to put the necessary code into place tonight so that the Hideout can participate in this online protest, too... IF I can get the code to work. We'll see, I guess.

I'm really glad that that Google and Wikipedia are protesting,that's great! What concerns me is that naturally everyone who has intellectual property does not want it taken and it should be protected, but that's easy to do.  With the internet everyone is learning as we go along now.  You can protect your images and get your shit copywritten before putting it out there if you so desire.  What the real fear is for (at least, our government) is that we no longer need Reuters, Associated Press or Fox News to get all our info and news from.  We can see police violence or video it or write about something that everyone should be aware of.  They're also scared to death of groups like Anonymous, because now we don't have to ask for the transparency we should naturally be getting in the first place, so they have to toe the line.  I don't know jack about programming or computer language or code and some of the things they do I feel is a bit unethical, BUT not any less so than our government has been as far as bullying us as a whole or as individuals.  So I say "keep on rocking in the free world", we're supposed to be all about freedom, right?

Raw Story: House to take up Stop Online Piracy Act in February

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/17/house-to-take-up-stop-online-piracy-act-in-february/

Google Joins Online SOPA Protest:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/17/google-joins-online-sopa-p...

The sad thing is people are so sufficiently divided and/or media hypnotized (by TV, digital toys, and {well, the internet itself}), by all the completely unimportant things.  They do not consider the very real possibility of history repeating itself.  People are so distracted and divided that they don't even do anything or decide to get together regardless of their differences and do something (well it's slowly starting to happen actually).  So when something like what happened here, the NDAA passes which is completely against the 5th & 6th amendment or the so-called Patriot Act passes here, etc. you start to realize that the people up on the hill don't give one single shit about you. They don't tell you what they're really doing or they pretend it's in your best interest when it's absolutely not. They're going to do what they're going to do and they are a separate entity and they do not care or work for the common good.  (Sorry I'm not sure what it hit to make it italicized so I changed).

I'm not American and I don't live in America but this stuff makes me very concerned. Basically because our right wing parties copy this sorta stuff and push it into legislation late at night when no-one is around to oppose it. I really hope the people are heard with this one!

Thank you for posting this.  Thus, "Let's keep on saving it. Let's kill PIPA." because I didn't vote for the Patriot Act, I didn't vote on the NDAA, but we can hopefully do something about this. Please do your part, it hasn't been killed yet:

http://americancensorship.org/

Just saw this on Boing Boing:

UPDATED: SOPA is DYING; its evil Senate twin, PIPA, lives on

By Cory Doctorow at 7:22 am Monday, Jan 16

Updated: Commenters have pointed out that I've jumped the gun here. SOPA is shelved, but not killed. It could be put back into play at any time.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has killed SOPA, stopping all action on it. He didn't say why he killed it, but the overwhelming, widespread unpopularity of the bill and the threat of a presidential veto probably had something to do with it.

Before you get too excited, remember that the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), the extremely similar Senate version of SOPA, is still steaming forward, and has to be stopped.

But you can get a little excited, as this is pretty goddamned great news. Six weeks ago, I was in DC talking to all the Hill rats of my acquaintance and to a one, they sucked their teeth and said, "Yeah, this thing really looks like it's going to pass. I don't like our chances." A friend who had served in several administrations said he'd "never seen the MPAA get its ducks in a row like this." So we did something amazing here. Thank you all for helping to save the net again.

Let's keep on saving it. Let's kill PIPA, then use this amazing energy to build something positive: a lobby for networked freedom, that acknowledges that the net is more than a glorified form of cable TV -- it's the nervous system of the information society. Any pretense that is used to build censorship and surveillance into the network will touch every part of networked life.

House Kills SOPA (via /.)

Yeah, we're definitely meek, seems like so few people even want to know what's going on. God, SOPA, etc., it makes my head throb!

Lutz Vipinderwoman said:

What's really is happening is that we're not only a turning into a 3RD WORLD COUNTRY, BUT ALSO A POLICE STATE and the pimps just sell our asses and make us do what the hell ever they want and everybody just sits back and does it like good little boys and girls.

What's really is happening is that we're not only a turning into a 3RD WORLD COUNTRY, BUT ALSO A POLICE STATE and the pimps just sell our asses and make us do what the hell ever they want and everybody just sits back and does it like good little boys and girls.

A link to for anyone that wishes to audit the Fed.  It's never been done and it's no more Federal than the Federal Express.....

http://auditthefedphonebomb.com/general/audit-the-fed-phone-bomb/

I think it's only America where Stella is unironically "reassuringly expensive"

the topic isn`t that attractive for international media at the moment, so it`s hard to find new articles about the issue in English. In Germany they just arrested a group of Neonazis who killed several turkish fastfood restaurant owners over years.

What about extreme right wing parties in the Netherlands?

....and yea, the reason for the rise of extrem right wing parties might as well be the shit mainstream people got in there heads but I think another reason is, that people stop believing

in this so called democracy which is still only controlled by a diabolic economic system.

I´m originally from Bavaria and I know exactly what you mean. In Germany (and Austria as well) a person with e.g. turkish roots will never be seen as a German or Austrian but as Turk, no matter how long he lives there. Also in my opinian in Austria the problem with extrem right wing politics is even worse because when you speak of Nazis and Hitler usually people outside Europe don`t think of Austria. There is still alot of historical reprocessing that needs to be done here. But of course you can find also examples for that elsewhere in the world.....the Japan government still hasn`t admitted most war crimes of the second world war.

What really pisses me of, is that in Europe most people talking of their country as soooo progressiv, modern, democratic and shit. In fact it is still the same old story.

To be honest I'm more worried about the mainstream in Europe. You're from Austria right? Is the notion of nationality similar to here in Germany? For instance a German has to be white and Christian. Black people, Turkish people, Asian people are never German even after several generations unlike in Britain where you can hear if a man is British or not.

In Italy it seems like the far right have long been in the mainstream, a few weeks ago an Italian girl lied about being raped by gypsies, and a mob attacked and burned down a trailer park. In the same week some white Italiens opened fire in a street market frequented mostly by "immigrants". Here in Germany no one gives a crap about a dead non German unless the murderer kills a pig.

I want to politely and respectfully disagree completely with everything up there. As the popular smear campaign is losing it's validity, the libertarian platform goes completely against being a racist or a homophobe because it puts individuality first.  The reason why Ron Paul is contraversial is because of 2 things;

A. He wants to end the Federal Reserve (it's evidently not working for us). 

B. He against sending more money or troups to Israel and against a war on Iran.....BIG reason why the special interest group driven popular media are out to kill any interest in him and smear his name in the face of what he really believes:

Here's what black people, including the Austin President of the NCAAP have to say about Ron Paul:

http://www.therightperspective.org/2011/12/24/ron-paul-no-racist-naacp-austin-president/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYZXDSoC9GY&feature=related

Now here's what the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has to say about American occupation in Israel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dqTLe66_hc4

Obama and Mitt Romney are two puppets fueled by these engines (in other words the same engine fueling popular media as well as the war in the middle east that so many Americans are getting sick of and are completely opposed to.  Contributor list:  Goldman-Sachs, Bank of America, JP MorganChase, CitiGroup, Morgan Stanley, etc.

Last but not least, Rand Paul was one of the few Senators to vote AGAINST the anti-constitutional NDAA.