iTunes Chart-Toppers (a/o February 21st):
Mega's been seized and its leaders locked up, but who's next? Are you next? Welcome to the very tense, fear-frought climate following the MegaUpload raids.
...from Thursday: "Who Needs SOPA, Anyway? The FBI Shuts Down MegaUpload..."
Go ahead, argue the due process and legal merits all you want - and MegaUpload will do just that - but the US Department of Justice, FBI, and MPAA are wielding gigantic guns here. And that is forcing MegaUpload's competitors to consider some very practical scenarios, including the possibility of getting shut down and buried for good. Because this is a bad, bad place to be:
Over the weekend, FileSonic opted for total insurance: they disabled all file-sharing on their lockers, with almost certain user fallout expected. FileServe quickly followed suit, with attrition a guaranteed result. But fleeing users is probably better than a knock (or bang) on the door from the FBI.
RapidShare - among the largest locker-and-hosting services - is confidently staying put, which in this uncertain enforcement climate could be risky. "RapidShare AG was founded in Switzerland and in fact, it was always located at the address given in the company details and was always run under real names without any anonymous intermediate businesses," RapidShare CEO Alexandra Zwingli told Ars Technica. "The radical measures against MegaUpload were apparently required since the situation there had been totally different."
But just like FileSonic, others are also playing it very safe, at least for now. That includes upload.to, which has reportedly disabled sharing and seems to have denied access to US users. Their site looks like this from a US terminal, more on this situation as it emerges.
The question is whether this starts spilling beyond locker services, and towards other major players like SoundCloud, Grooveshark, and even Dropbox.
And, anyone partnered or associated with MegaUpload is potentially in broiling water. In perhaps in the strangest twist yet, Swizz Beats is fighting to distance himself from his CEO position at the company, with lawyers arguing that the rapper and producer never formally started the gig.
More as the reactions develop.
zzz Monday, January 23, 2012
I doubt Dropbox and Soundcloud have anything to worry about.
Rapidshare and GrooveSHARKS on the other hand..mmm...
Idaho87 Monday, January 23, 2012
Liberals Monday, January 23, 2012
lol....the one thing I can't stand about being in the music industry is that it is infested with socialism and liberals, like most of you clowns who post on this site.
All be it, I agree that Piracy is wrong. However, do you need the "Nanny" state to take down ever site that has file sharing? Or can the just go after the person who is stealing> hummm like case law that has been used against a mother when her children illegally downloaded songs owned by the Major's and was sued...to the tune of 300k.
The MAJORS are finished, done, old news, dinasours, and they are not coming back. They mis-caculated the digital revolution, they were stuborn to imbrace the "itunes" style store and now the are playing catch up. But the do not want to loose there power or money and now, their lobbist are going to put pressure on DC to "SHUT DOWN ALL THOSE EVIL DOERS"
Pathetic. All be it most of those who post on this site do not have a pot to piss in, hardly make any revenue from their music because it's pure shite. Yet they are the first ones to call the DOGS to take a bite of of "Crime".
I sell a lot of music on Itunes. I do post my own freebe's from time to time on sound cloud. I have had my music rip'd off, but its 1% at most. I do not cry like a little baby, call in the Nanny State nor wave my fist in the air and demand justice.
They, "THE POWER" have the technology to track ISPs, directly to the criminals who steal content. Why shut down entire sites?
Yes, I say Fine the damn sites if they get caught. That will teach them to up their "survaliance" against those who pirate.
But all you liberal retards who champion "The Power", "The Nanny State" to swoop in and save the day, are more of a cancer to my industry than those who pirate.
YouAreaJoke Monday, January 23, 2012
Kra-Z Tuesday, January 24, 2012
There will always be some sort of pirating of creative goods and if that method becomes too prevalent than The government will act on the behalf of corporations, entertainment or otherwise. The risk of such shotgun policy of SOPA and PIPA is that you can very quickly turn the United States into a facist one, by cutting off pieces of the worlds internet whether there is just cause or not. The current situation with filesharing sites will inevitably lead to another another half dozen alternatives for filesharing in the future, although it may take more intellectual effort on the part of the downloader, but probably not. After nutritional deprevation, cultural deprevation can be most damaging to one's view of the world and new and emerging concepts. If a father can't afford cable for his children because of the cost of living expenses. Is he wrong for downloading the shows as being his only affordable option or should he get a 2nd job and spend no time with his kids. He probobably is also spending thousands on other products produced by the same companies that are lobbying for the shutdown of these filesharing sites. The idea of internet censorship on filesharing sites sickens me, when groups like nambla and others who are far worse post some of the most sickening ideas ever thought up and are allowed to operate in there grey area with little government involvement. There are websites I would like to see shut down that I believe truly deserve it, however we all place more importance on some issues over others. In summurization I would rather be a Liberal Capitalist, as opposed to a Facist Capitilist when it comes to the subject of filesharing.
Guest Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Not as big of a joke your parents made when they shit out ugly shit like yourself. Prime example on why to use a condom. No telling what spawn will come out.
bpalmer Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Not an total error worth condeming a person...
Dictionary says, "albeit |ôlˈbē-it; al-|
conjunctionalthough : he was making progress, albeit rather slowly.ORIGIN late Middle English : from the phrase all be it [although it be (that).]"
jasper1226 Monday, January 23, 2012
Frankly, I think the US government has no business policing the internet, nor is it their job to combat piracy; however, sites like Megaupload are not doing any "surveillance" I guarantee you. According to DMCA regulations, they are required to remove any content that is reported by the copyright holder, but they are certainly not investing any time in doing so without notification. The other issue, with regard to Megaupload, is that they were allegedly paying users to upload infringing content while raking in millions from subscribers' fees, which is obviously illegal--that is, to profit from another person's copyrighted material. Nevertheless, I don't think the FBI or any other gov't agency should be stepping in to solve the problem--if copyright holders don't want their content on such sites, it is up to them to litigate against them.
Ultimately, you have to accept a certain amount of piracy. It began with the advent of recordable media, namely cassette tapes, and advances in technology have just made it easier and more prevalent. And in time, technology will undo piracy when people stop caring about downloading and switch to streaming on demand. Of course, that will somehow be piratable too!
Sam @ Projekt Monday, January 23, 2012
Fortunately for all of us, you aren't the one who gets to decide on the function of the government (Thomas Paine spoke of the need to defend against Pirates back in 1776! ). That's why there are laws, and the government has the responsibility to enforce them. Conspiracy to commit fraud is just one of the many laws megaupload broke - read here.
jasper1226 Tuesday, January 24, 2012
The definition of piracy may have changed a bit in the 236 years since Common Sense was published. However, I can relate to Paine's essay, railing against the oppression of the British monarchy, in which he says, "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil." I'm sure all the legitimate Megaupload users who may never get their files back can relate too.
The interesting thing is, after all the debate over SOPA, we can see now that it wouldn't have mattered if it passed or not, because the government is going to do whatever the hell it wants anyway.
TOM Tuesday, January 24, 2012
jasper1226 Tuesday, January 24, 2012
If people want to give away their music, films, or whatever they create for free that is their right. Others want to get paid for what they produce and that is their right as well. As for the latter, piracy does affect them; but piracy is not a wrong that is going to be righted but shutting down a few websites. Meanwhile, a lot of tax dollars are being spent on the resources allocated to do so. It's just a lot of time and money wasted on a battle that can't be won.
Visitor Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Megaupload deserved to be shut down.
But. The scary thing is that, while the government should serve the interest of the people, in fact they are largely controlled by corporations. Now, capitalism has given us virtually all the nice things we have today, but sometimes those interests do conflict.
I really hope that shutting down the most flagrant offenders, such as megaupload, will be enough for corporations, because there is really no way to stop piracy without what would essentially be a scorched earth policy. Could popular utilities such as iCloud and dropbox be targeted? I'm truly scared that corporations could actually have enough power to make such a thing happen.
Snoopydog Friday, January 27, 2012
In 1979, the US Supreme Court decided a very important case. Disney and Universal sued Sony, RCA, and other electronics companies claiming that the video recorder allowed casual violation of copyright law. Now even grandmas could create new copies of TV shows and movies - something only studios and content producers could do before - and they wanted these new machines labelled as illegal and taken off the market. The court decided in favor of Sony, declaring that non-commercial recording of movies and TV shows was legal. In other words, taping an episode of Bonanza was legal. The court did not decide about content from pay providers like HBO and Showtime, or PPV events. But the die was cast. To date, nothing has changed that ruling. It is still legal to bring new copies of a work into existance as long as one doesn't have to pay for it. Megaupload might be found guilty of requiring payment for access to copyrighted works, but they will NOT be found guilty of copyright infringement because they themselves did not violate US law. Paying users for content that is downloaded might be an issue for the lawyers to discuss, but taking down the whole megaupload site is just as illegal as what the FBI contends Megauploads did. I hope Megauploads wins their court case, and then sues the pants off the FBI for exceeding their boundaries. I think federal authorities who exceed the law are far more dangerous than companies who make movies and TV shows available to people. Just my opinion...
Oab999 Sunday, January 29, 2012
That is about The rightest, most accurate comment I've read in this site, EVER!!! And I have been in both sides of this issue For plenty of years. As much as a lot of these commentarors would disagree with, history will proove you right.
Visitor Tuesday, January 24, 2012
SoundCloud? no it doesn't, I've been on that site for a while, and I've never heard anything illegal. EVER.
GrooveShark on the other hand...I can upload my complete music collection, they could be next in the USA's new "catch the internet" scheme.
I guess I'm going back to rapidshare. Especially since I've started my website (FINALLY) I need a place to upload my music albums (ALL LEGAL SOPA, GTF OFF MY BACK)- the songs I've made that I distribute before I catch God know's who's attention <_<
BillYBoy Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Cockroaches, look it up, I give it 30-60 days until more underground services sprout up, free at first. Servers off shore, around the globe. RIAA, MPAA, give it your best shot!!!! hahahaha
Steamboat Springs, CO Monday, January 23, 2012
Are you sure Soundcloud is safe?
Here's 50 pages of user-uploaded Coldplay songs posted for free streaming and download
http://soundcloud.com/tracks/search?q[fulltext]=coldplay&q[type]=&q[duration]=
And they just raised $50Million from investors. If history is any indicator, the majors will be suing them for the $50Million in 3, 2, 1...
Sam @ Projekt Monday, January 23, 2012
If the stats here are correct, we have a forecast for who will take the next little holiday….
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Greg003 Monday, January 23, 2012
This is really a tremendous reorganization of the file-hosting sector. It may lead to a comeback of public files. Public files are available my the millions in the web, may now beome more popular again, given that is so easy to find and to download public files form the Internet using ageneric file search engine.
Bob Hart Monday, January 23, 2012
this sucks but filesonic really did have a GRIP of infringing content on it...regardless I personally hated both filesonic, megaupload, AND most of all hotfile...I used to have alot of my stuff on FS, but then their service went down to crap…then switched to hotfile, who's servers crashed & lost ALL my files…then megaupload which omg i can’t believe what happened.
now I have all my files on:
http://www.peeje.com/upload
…decent sized allowance, and it gives my users direct-links…which they love....so far, it’s been better than sonic, MU and HF COMBINED!!!
ibetimright Monday, January 23, 2012
ive been using thses sites for a few years now and each time i get to one it lasts about a year then goes down it crap. Now there trying to step in and take everysingle file shairing site down people will only get smarter and the government will fall behind again. Give it two months maybe three everything will go back to normal and the government will be lost in the dark again. I would bet that half the people trying to stop the use of these sites are users themselfs.
AverageGuy Monday, January 23, 2012
The next step is alternative DNS servers. This would cut off the music and motion picture industry from tracing information. The whois for a domain like "ITOLDYOUSO.FREE" would have no entry in the global whois listing - the Top Level Domain (TLD) ".FREE" doesn't exist except in the pirate server. Cyberlockers could still use dynimic IP addresses tied to alternative DNS. It would also destroy the internet as we know it because alternative DNS names could be assigned to existing domains on an alternater DNS server. For example, "SONY.COM" in the present dns would lookup Sony Corporation. In an Alternative DNS, "SONY.COM" could be a porn site.
Go ahead! Tuesday, January 24, 2012
We can always raid the datacenters ourselves, you know. On a day you won't even expect us to show up.
Regular guy Monday, January 23, 2012
The next site for file sharing to go up will have an encrypton key and no one will be able to know what your downloading because it will be encrypted and only you will have the key to decrypted.
How do you track that.
tuli Tuesday, January 24, 2012
If a random anonymous user with lay-level knowledge can get to the file (including obtaining the key and decrypting it) from a visible and stable starting point (such as google), then the feds can too, and build evidence against the uploader or the site.
FindFiles.net Tuesday, January 24, 2012
I guess our previous comment got removed. I any case, let me point out, that there is a world of files beyond file-sharing and file hostings. There are litterally millions (800) of public files of all kinds in the Internet. As these files are hosted on regular sites there is, for every single public file, a person responsible for it. Concerning music: There are (and we have links to them) in general a huge variety of remixes and other interesting music creations to be found on the net.
Chingaruna Lau Tuesday, January 24, 2012
I think it was ridiculous for the authority to shut down the convinient just like that. They just prefer the hard way like making a wagon instead of the car, makine themselves old fashioned fools that they seemly denied themselves. Where is the freedom of the Internet?
imbacrs Tuesday, January 24, 2012
So what do the pirates do now? is it back to buying a dogy dvd in the pub or do the idle hands start a war against legislation, the power should know that people are uncontrollable, they dont have slush funs or porno income or insider trading so they pinch overpriced films dvd's and software, ok it is wrong""
So if everybody was honest would their be any millionaires?, who owns the lands we live on, no body I know has an original bill of sale from god, so the biggest bullys pinched the land and now we pay for it, good luck to the rockefellas and the windsors, and the black nobility "Bilderberg etc"
But we dont lie down and we keep busy, and surely at a time like this when world powers are on the edge, we should keep the masses entertained, Without us You aint got "%$^*"
Visitor Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Payback time! Tuesday, January 24, 2012
It is interesting to see how many people profited from MegaUpload. They are all screaming right now. Poor babies, lost your affiliate money. Oh, poor babies.
FiftyFifty Tuesday, January 24, 2012
On the one hand, why should an author spend many hundreds, possibly thousands of hours of his/her life - sometimes at great personal/financial sacrifice - to produce a body of work which is then stolen and dispersed around the globe for nothing? Ditto for struggling musicians and bands?
On the other hand, I have invested a great deal of money in legitimate music albums and computer software on the strength of stuff I originally downloaded in a questionable way! Which is fairer? In an ideal world, there is a legitimate argument for the "Try Before You Buy" approach, but there are too many people, particularly kids, who will always want something for nothing.
Dave Friday, January 27, 2012
This big-footed government takedown will absolutely kill the Cloud Storage movement, which had been trending up. Companies and individuals will logically not want to place their vital data in an amorphous location where it might be seized in the future. They'll just keep all data in physical hard drives that they control.
Visitor Saturday, January 28, 2012
shutting down a lot of sharing site wont done much to the piracy spirit that has been into them , i think , only if , it will be a real problem if they shutdown torrent port ,huge problem if its happening :)
Big Brother Is Watching Wednesday, February 01, 2012
Quite frankly, the whole piracy/"legitimate downloading" argument is one that can be traced to a number of societal tendencies that predate even Jesus himself (and he's a pretty old guy at this point). In every society, there have been certain things deemed to be immoral or illegal or both. One such example is prostitution (with some exceptions). The government we currently have, at least in America, hates its existence and has decided that criminilizing it will be the approach they take in order to stop it or reduce its prevalence. Those who solicit sexual acts from prostitutes can get caught and those offering the acts can as well. Does this deter either party from making those decisions? Rarely, and usually not enough to make any kind of impact. The fact that it is illegal does not deter Ms. Prostitute from selling her body for monetary gain, just as it did not deter Ancient Ms. Prostitute from doing so thousands of years ago. The fact that it has been driven to the black market only makes it a less reliable and more dangerous trade.
My point (and don't worry, I do have one!) is that stealing, like prostitution, is a crime that takes place every where on this planet and has been for a long time. I personally do not see it declining because of the recent FBI involvement. Essentially, the top file hosting sites may get shut down. For the sake of argument, let's imagine the top 15 sites go down within 3 months. Within 3 months after that, 100 new shadier sites will spring up, offering a crappier and less reliable service that could also contain trojans/keyloggers/etc to harm the downloaders computer. The music industry did not do enough to adapt to a changing music culture. They had their chance and to be honest, dug their own graves while simultaneously plugging their ears and burying their heads in the sand.
I personally couldn't care less about the music companies. They can figure out a way to enhance CD's with extra security, maybe a randomized CD key like one would find if they were installing game software. Blizzard is a massively successful video game company. They don't get ripped off with people torrenting their games. Sure, some do but not any of their recent games which are what bring in the most money. If it is too easy for soemone to walk into a store and steal, the store should do something to prevent it from happening with such ease.
To censor the internet is an abomination. Give me liberty or give me death...
Maybe both E, maybe both!
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