What kind of DMCA system did Megaupload provide? And what kind of DMCA system is required by law?
All of this is crazy, and the point in the article is very much valid in my opinion, on the other hand if the copyright holder allegedly affected were to sue Megaupload in a civil case in the country that Megaupload operates from then that would be perfectly fine in my opinion. I don't agree with the copyright laws that exist at the moment, but everyone should have the right to try to protect their rights in court, even if I don't personally agree with the law.
The reason I asked about what steps Megaupload made to comply with DMCA complaints, and what the law says about DMCA take downs, was out of curiosity about the legal landscape and the chances of Megaupload in this case, even though it shouldn't be a criminal case.
I am not sure if that is required by the DMCA. I know youtube has this "fingerprinting" system that stops copyrighted uploads, but is that the law?
They won and they are not required to operate a fingerprinting system.
In Germany/Switzerland.
Even other public links might be legitimate, and Megaupload would not have a way of determining that based merely on the presence of links.
Do I think they were aware that there were tons of illegal copies? Absolutely. But whether or not they could blanket delete content without in effect deleting content the people filing the DMCA takedown requests had no rights to request taken down is an entirely different matter.