Megaupload random thoughts

[rivkat]

I was reading the Megaupload indictment, as you do, and found a couple of points of interest. First, an answer to a question about Megaupload that occasionally arose pre-shutdown: “On or about March 3, 2009, DOTCOM sent an e-mail to a reporter indicating ‘Whenever a user uploads a new file it is checked against our database and if we already have the exact same file the upload completes instantly. This way a complete system backup into the cloud only takes a fraction of the time it used to take. And the longer we exist, the more files we receive, the faster we get.’”

Also, Megaupload didn’t care about infringements of the little people’s works. No Hong Kong materials were allowed, because the company was based in Hong Kong, but one email directed an employee, in response to copyright complaints from Mexico, “In the future please do not delete thousands of links at ones from a single source unless it comes from a major organization in the US.”

Finally, several individual uploaders and premium members in the Eastern District of Virginia were identified by first and last initial, though they weren’t named as unindicted coconspirators. Still, that subpoena’s gotta be pretty terrifying.

Comments

[watersword]

.....eeeep.

[anitac588]

Finally, several individual uploaders and premium members in the Eastern District of Virginia were identified by first and last initial, though they weren’t named as unindicted coconspirators. Still, that subpoena’s gotta be pretty terrifying That means that users (like those who post on DL communities) will be called to testify?

[rivkat]

That's a long way off and making predictions in a criminal case is difficult, but since the government apparently knows who these particular users are, they could be called as witnesses. Since the EDVa stuff appears to be in there to make absolutely clear that the court has jurisdiction over all these foreigners, there's actually no particular reason to bring them in if the defendants don't contest jurisdiction; the real issues in the case will have to do with defendants' knowledge and the overall operation of the site, so these individual users might not contribute much.

Edited for clarity.

[anitac588]

Legal matters and language are difficult to understand, thank you for this explanation. This is going to be very interesting to see how it goes.

[jadelennox]

So, from my non-lawyer's perspective, this seems to have minimal implications for safe harbor, and more implications for how dangerous it is to be a complete flaming idiot while finding your infringing activities hilarious.

[rivkat]

Minimal but nonzero, I'd say, given what the government is alleging. There are allegations that they knew that other people were aggregating links to infringing files, and that failure to have a search function showed intent to conceal infringement; those are things that standing alone shouldn't count as red flag knowledge of infringement, but given the other things in the indictment it's doubtful that other providers are behaving in this way.

[tehomet]

*gulp*