Megaupload Project

THE RIGHTFUL ACCUSATION

ANTHONY CHURPITA - DMA 216 SPRING '18

Megaupload was a file-hosting website that operated from 2005 until its controversial shutdown in 2012. The shutdown was so controversial due to how popular it was among Internet users. However, many media industries knew the website as a piracy advocate. Reason being, Megaupload often ignored the copyright infringements claims that were brought to them by such industries. Thus, Megaupload quickly became home to storing pirated files. The shutdown that came about in 2012 relates directly to this idea of ignorance.

THESIS

Megaupload does play the role of a distributor. However, it must be noted that to be protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act as a distributor, there needs to be some type of effort made to actively remove infringing content. In this case, Megaupload ignored claims of infringement and did not take action against infringers. Thus, Megaupload’s accusations are correctly placed when it comes to copyright infringement.

CASE

The Megaupload case involved the United States accusing the defendants of five counts:

18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) - Conspiracy to Commit Racketeering
18 U.S.C. § 371 - Conspiracy to Commit Copyright Infringement
18 U.S.C. § 1956(h) - Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering
17 U.S.C. § 506 - Criminal Copyright Infringement By Distributing a Copyrighted Work Being Prepared for Commercial Distribution on a Computer Network & Aiding and Abetting of Criminal Copyright Infringement
17 U.S.C. § 506 - Criminal Copyright Infringement By Electronic Means & Aiding and Abetting of Criminal Copyright Infringement

The indictment, as was sourced from WikiMedia Commons, can be viewed here.

CONTROVERSY

Due to the ongoing case, Megaupload was seized by the F.B.I. on its final day, January 19th 2012.⁴ Saying that Megaupload was popular is no joke. Reported by USA Today, “Megaupload was estimated at one point to be the 13th most frequently visited website on the Internet”.⁵ Sure, number 13 on a ranking list does not seem high. However, factoring in media giants and search engines, this number in reality is very high.

Considering its popularity, Megaupload’s shutdown was seriously inconvenient for its users. Sure, a lot of infringing content was removed in the seizure of the website. It’s important though to consider the users that used the site in compliance with the law. These users, who used the site for just simply storing or sharing their files lost access to all of their data that was previously stored on Megaupload’s servers.

As most of the Internet deemed the seizure of Megaupload inappropriate due to the role it held as a distributor, users were outraged by the actions taken. First, the fact that U.S. authorities arrested someone in New Zealand enraged people. The Electronic Frontier Foundation stated “If the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim, what is next?”⁵ With the outrage came DDoS attacks on many important U.S. websites, such as those of the Department of Justice, F.B.I., and even those for industries such as the MPAA and RIAA.⁴ DDoS attacks are considered crime, as they are attacks on websites which send mass amounts of data to their servers with intent to push them offline.

EXPLANATION

Many people argue that Megaupload is completely innocent to any claims of copyright infringement, and that they should not be guilty for content posted by its users. However, to hold this role as a distributor, the service provider must comply to certain rules set forth. For example, the DMCA states:
“Upon receiving proper notification of claimed infringement, the provider must expeditiously take down or block access to the material.”⁶
This is something that Megaupload failed to do. As is stated in the initial report by USA Today, the service “turned a blind eye to requests from copyright holders to remove copyright-protected files”⁵

Not only was Megaupload convicted of aiding in copyright infringement, but they also committed acts of copyright infringement. Stated within the same USA Today report, Perry states “their investigation focused on the leaders of the company, not end users who may have downloaded a few movies for personal viewing.”⁵ Therefore, regardless of whether or not the concept of the website is at fault, the defendants are still at fault for infringing themselves.

As for the counts of racketeering, the court considered the service to be one that rewarded users for malicious activity. Again, stated in the USA Today report, “users received cash bonuses if they uploaded content popular enough to generate massive numbers of downloads.”⁵ This falls under racketeering as it is what made the service as popular as it was. An upload of something such as the most popular movie may allow for revenue, and in this case, revenue for copyrighted material.

OUTCOME

Just past the 6 year anniversary, the Megaupload case is still ongoing. Kim Dotcom (the owner) and co. are still facing criminal charges in the United States.¹ The United States has attempted to extradite the group involved. However, New Zealand courts have declared themselves at wrong for actions taken in the past.¹ As is stated, the “government was wrong to refuse to hand over various documents requested by the Megaupload chief (Dotcom) in 2015”.¹

Along with the New Zealand government losing battles against Dotcom, the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) are still in the midst of battles against Dotcom. In 2014, both entities sued Megaupload for copyright infringement.¹ However, the criminal charges stand prioritized over such civil cases, and also await Dotcom’s arrival into the United States.¹

Dotcom’s response to the takedown of Megaupload is a bit different than what is expected. Instead of staying away from the file-sharing business, he bounced right back into it. 2013 saw the launch of Mega, a file-hosting site that claims to be more encrypted than any others. As a matter of fact, WIRED claims that the encryption is so strong that “There’s no way to even retrieve a lost password”.³ They claim that “Mega has no idea what it is hosting”³ which stands to be fairly ironic. This stands as a direct loophole to what they are guilty of by their charges, as they failed to manage the content hosted by Megaupload. However, with Mega, the company has no possibility of managing such content. Dotcom, a strong advocate of having a free Internet, announced this at a press conference. This can be viewed here for more information.

SOURCES