Feds Shutter Megaupload, Arrest Executives | Hacker News Reader

Feds Shutter Megaupload, Arrest Executives

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38 pointsrsingel19 comments

This is ridiculous. What is the point of DMCA if you arrest sites that comply with DMCA requests? The onus is on the copyright holder to find infringing content and report it. The concept is a simple one.

"No one is coming to see my movie because they're all downloading it via this link that I've just reported and thus everyone will come and see my movie again."

That is the concept everyone agreed to, so why now is that not enough? The US Government is laughable in this regards, they handle something as simple as this so completely and utterly poorly and then think to themselves, that's too hard, let's take a sledgehammer to it all in the name of SOPA. This is everything that's wrong with the Anti-Piracy movement.

Would be interesting to hear the Obama administration's take on this ... but they will most likely just keep quite.

Doesn't the FBI count as the "Obama administration"? They are in his branch of the government after all.

Why is MegaUpload not protected under DMCA for user uploaded content?

They are. The Justice Department apparently is trying to argue that they aren't following the DMCA.

Slightly off-topic, but can someone explain the history and use of the word "Shutter" in this context?

Obviously it means "shut down"... I see the term fairly often on HN, but haven't really seen it used that way elsewhere.

When a shop closes down, or even closes for the night, the shutters are pulled down over the windows, hence it is 'shuttered.'

I think it's an Americanism. I used the term once in a news story for a (British) radio station I worked for, and it was edited out by management and replaced with (I think) 'closed down.' I hadn't realised it was a foreign term until then!

It's an American colloquialism:

shuttered is a form of: shut·ter verb /ˈSHətər/ shuttered, past participle; shuttered, past tense; shuttering, present participle; shutters, 3rd person singular present

Close the shutters of (a window or building) - the windows were shuttered against the afternoon heat - barred and shuttered stores

Close (a business) - the city was gripped by economic forces that were squeezing its tax base and shuttering its factories

It seems that the whole SOPA/PIPA fight is useless, it already happens without the new regulations

The sopa fight is about forcing Congress to use court proceedings and due process to take down sites, not to justify any possible site. The important thing is that guilt is being determined in a building before sentence is given. With sopa all you see now would have taken place without anyone but the users of the service and the censorers knowing.

This is also a valid argument against SOPA and PIPA since DMCA + regular old due process provides all the relief required.

They should be found guilty in a court of law before the site is taken down... Not before. Innocent until proven guilty is a cornerstone of a great and lawful nation.

Let the due process begin. Luckily they didn't screw up the global dns to pull this stunt.

Yeah but if they done that, they'd lose. The MU laywers would simply prove that the site adheres to DMCA take-down requests and thus do everything they're required to do by law.

The government seems to have a whole slew of charges lined up against MU, so they'd likely be able to get MU on one technicality or another. I'm guessing, however, that they're aiming to prove that MU encouraged copyright violation. I.e., intent is a very important part of the law.

You're not interpreting the constitution correctly. People have the right to due process, and are presumed innocent of their crimes such that they cannot be punished for them without a guilty verdict. Web sites (like other property) do not. They are things, and often evidence, and they can (subject to the fourth amendment requirement for a warrant) be seized in the course of an investigation.

This is at odds with "corporations are people".

Also, IIRC /People/ were arrested, not just websites.

If a factory was illegally dumping poisonous material into a river, would you require a prolonged case against their executions to succeed before stopping the criminal behaviour?

Why would a website which allegedly engages criminal behaviour be treated differently? You don't have to search very long to find direct megaupload links containing rips of Hollywood movies or AAA computer games.

It doesn't matter if it was a corporation, actions can be prevented from occurring via injunction even when the actor is an independent person. Example: gag orders in slander cases.

Of course people were arrested. And they cannot be held for more than 24 hours without charges filed and a bail hearing. After which (presuming they are granted bail, which for this crime they will be) they go free until they are found guilty by a court of law.

And I don't follow the corporate personhood argument. A web site isn't a "corporation", it's just property. It can be seized whether or not its owner is a human being.

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