Why was MegaUpload really shut down? | Hacker News Reader

Why was MegaUpload really shut down?

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23 pointsbane11 comments

I think it's a bit of a stretch. The FBI had been investigating the MegaEmpire for years. If anything, their plan to legitimatize their business was a reaction to the inevitable raid, not the other way around. Conspiracy theories make great link bait, but it's ridiculous to believe that somebody at UMG called somebody at the FBI and said "those gosh darn do-gooders at MegaUpload want to take down our evil empire and offer artists 90%, they must be stopped!" and the FBI complied.

Anyways, this made me laugh.

> "Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works."

Yeah, they tested it alright.

I'd have to see more evidence before I'm completely convinced, but I don't see that as unlikely. Media concerns played with law enforcement before trying to sue normal people for crazy sums. They used the system to make those cases long, costly and tried forcing new laws which would make more attacks easier in the future.

Why is it hard to imagine that they would pay a lot to speed up investigation / raid on a company which already had FBI's attention? It could be just a troll / conspiracy post of course, but I wouldn't say that this course of action is improbable.

> but it's ridiculous to believe that somebody at UMG called somebody at the FBI and said "those gosh darn do-gooders at MegaUpload want to take down our evil empire and offer artists 90%, they must be stopped!" and the FBI complied.

After years of exposure to American media, I actually find this relatively easy to believe as far as conspiracy theories go.

Very unlikely, if you want some more background read the indictment (actually very interesting) in its raw glory here: http://www.nbr.co.nz/sites/default/files/images/78786408-Meg...

It certainly changed my opinion on the whole matter.

Thanks for the link. I started to read the court case and to be honest, the wording and descriptions really rubbed me the wrong way. I only read the first 7 or so pages.

The more I read about the case, the more I feel that Megaupload did not break the law.

Here's the best evidence against Megaupload that I can see:

* Questionable characters (criminal background)

* Obnoxious Lifestyle (Kim DotCom, license plates, etc.)

* Loads of illegal content available

The only one of these items that could be a crime is whether the site broke the law in providing incentives to reward popular content which often happened to be illegal.

As far as I can tell, the following is true:

* Megaupload rewarded popular content even if it was illegal

* Megaupload took down all illegal content upon request following DCMA

* The Megaupload employees did not seek out or upload illegal content.

If my reasoning is correct, then Megaupload did not break the law. They followed DCMA.

The scariest thing for me about this is the wording of this complaint and the ease at which its participants were criminalized.

This is stupid and wrong. The investigation into MegaUpload took two years. This post wants me to believe the US government convinced the New Zealand government to perform a 70+ person raid in two weeks? The government can't give authorization to someone to tie their shoe in under two weeks!

More importantly, this is an opinion piece with zero facts or evidence posted by a freaking high school student. Why in the hell is this nonsense being posted to HN?

"Why in the hell is this nonsense being posted to HN?"

I think it's a very interesting business model. One way to kill the movie and music industry is to give artists a better place to sell there art.

This is the reason I come to HN, the reddit thread is full of oblivious agreeing with the post without any fact-checking or initial scepticism.

I agree with you on the lack of evidence, but calling her a "freaking high school student" is an argumentum ad hominem.

I think you only have to look at the indictment to see why they were shut down. Whilst it's an interesting point, and perhaps if the mega empire had attempted to legitimize their business a lot quicker then the indictment would never have been put together, I simply think this falls into the realms of conspiracy theory.

I have posted the full Indictment as a news story, with highlights, for those that are interested in the actual reason for their shut down: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3487808

aside - is there a way to remove the stupid, fat search bar from the top of the page, or at least let it scroll with the rest of the page. I'm a habitual space-to-page-up user, and this type of design means I have to scroll back a few lines each time.

I know, their site they can do what they like and all, but it's messing with my muscle memory :)

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