Megaupload has been shutdown?

[happymark]

ah... I remember Hispabrick Magazine (old issues) and some LEGO ideabooks are there.

bad thing .

[Big Cam]

I don't see how this is general LEGO discussion, maybe in the community, but not really.

[Hinckley]

Hispabrick and LEGO idea books are General LEGO topics, I think. Right?

[Omicron]

Hispabrick and LEGO idea books are General LEGO topics, I think. Right?

Although it's a response to MegaUpload being shutdown. Thanks to SOPA. :/

-Omi

[Brickity]

I wonder how far these guys are going to go. Will this cause violence and strong protests?

[WhiteFang]

It has been prosecuted. Link

[Flipz]

You all realize that if these bills pass, Eurobricks could be shut down entirely if ANYONE posts a SINGLE leaked set photo, right? And considering how often that happens, "could be" should be read "will be".

[Omicron]

You all realize that if these bills pass, Eurobricks could be shut down entirely if ANYONE posts a SINGLE leaked set photo, right? And considering how often that happens, "could be" should be read "will be".

I do.

No site is exempt or safe, whether they be American based or not. MU being a fine example.

-Omi

[satanspoet]

ah... I remember Hispabrick Magazine (old issues) and some LEGO ideabooks are there.

bad thing .

we are fixing old downloads of HBM

Regards,

HispaBrick Magazine webmaster

[TLOR FETT]

Not a surprise, MU is one of the main sources for Pirated video games.

[rriggs]

Out of interest, where is Eurobricks hosted and in which country is the hosting bill payer based?

Cheers

Rog

[Omicron]

Out of interest, where is Eurobricks hosted and in which country is the hosting bill payer based?

Cheers

Rog

It won't matter. Anyone, anywhere, can be prosecuted by this bill. Megaupload is Hong Kong based, and the owner lives in New Zealand & Hong Kong, and he is charged with 20 years.

-Omi

[Smrgol]

That new law is ridiculous, I can understand blocking people who are actively sharing films and music, but even if a site puts up a picture of something that whilst is copyrighted its not going to harm the product or the money the company will make, like here TLG will actually make MORE money.

My little brother has been blocked from some sites in America because one of his mates used his IP address to access something a little dodgey!

Also, I hope the world finds away round this as I want to see the files :-)

Edit: do a news search for Megaupload on google and there is a link for ABC news about megaupload using an IP address instead of a URL (I won't post either of the links here to protect more of our enjoyment).

Edited January 20, 2012 by Smrgol

[rriggs]

It won't matter. Anyone, anywhere, can be prosecuted by this bill. Megaupload is Hong Kong based, and the owner lives in New Zealand & Hong Kong, and he is charged with 20 years.

-Omi

I know that - which is why I said "out of interest".

As for "anywhere" being prosecuted - how is the US's extradition treaty with North Korea or any one of another 50 states that do not co-operate with the US?

The simple answer is, of course, not to break copyright law and then nobody can prosecute you anyway!

Cheers

Rog

[Omicron]

As for "anywhere" being prosecuted - how is the US's extradition treaty with North Korea or any one of another 50 states that do not co-operate with the US?

Obviously Hong Kong/New Zealand won't extradite the guy.

The simple answer is, of course, not to break copyright law and then nobody can prosecute you anyway!

Problem is though, people do it all the time. When you share a video or picture on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, etc, you're breaking it. I post vids from Youtube all the time on my Facebook, so I can be in a lot of heat just for that.

-Omi

Edited January 20, 2012 by Omicron

[kermit]

Police in New Zealand on Friday raided several homes and businesses linked to the founder of Megaupload.com, a giant file-sharing site shut down by U.S. authorities, and seized guns, millions of dollars, and nearly $5 million in luxury cars, officials said.

Police arrested founder Kim Dotcom and three Megaupload employees Thursday on U.S. accusations that they facilitated millions of illegal downloads of films, music and other content, costing copyright holders at least $500 million in lost revenue. Extradition proceedings against them could last a year or more.

With 150 million registered users, about 50 million hits daily and endorsements from music superstars, Megaupload.com was among the world's biggest file-sharing sites. According to a U.S. indictment, the site, which was shut down Thursday, earned Dotcom $42 million in 2010 alone.

Although the company is based in Hong Kong and Dotcom lives in New Zealand, some of the alleged pirated content was hosted on leased servers in Virginia, and that was gave U.S. prosecutors jurisdiction to act.

New Zealand police served 10 search warrants at several businesses and homes around the city of Auckland.

Police spokesman Grant Ogilvie said the seized cars include a Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe worth more than $400,000 as well as several Mercedes. Two short-barreled shotguns and a number of valuable artworks were also confiscated, he added.

Pictures posted on Flickr and technology news website Gizmodo showed the haul included a 2010 Maserati and a pink Cadillac. One Mercedes had the personalized license place "MAFIA,"while another had a plated that read "CEO."

A report by New Zealand news website stuff.co.nz said Detective Inspector Grant Wormald from the Organized and Financial Crime Agency NZ (OFCANZ) gave details of the extraordinary raid, which had been planned for several months.

"Police arrived in two marked police helicopters," said Wormald, according to the website. "Despite our staff clearly identifying themselves Mr. Dotcom retreated into the house and activated a number of electronic locking mechanisms. While police neutralized these locks he then further barricaded himself into a safe room within the house which officers had to cut their way into."

Once they gained entry into this room they found Dotcom near a firearm which had the appearance of a sawed-off shotgun, Wormald said.

"It was definitely not as simple as knocking at the front door," he added.

New Zealand's Fairfax Media reported that the four defendants stood together in an Auckland courtroom in the first step of the extradition proceedings.

Dotcom's lawyer raised objections to a media request to take photographs and video, but then Dotcom spoke, saying he didn't mind photos or video "because we have nothing to hide." The judge granted the media access, and ruled that the four would remain in custody until a second hearing Monday.

Dotcom, Megaupload's former CEO and current chief innovation officer, is a resident of Hong Kong and New Zealand and a dual citizen of Finland and Germany who had his name legally changed. The 37-year-old was previously known as Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor.

Two other German citizens and one Dutch citizen also were arrested and three other defendants — another German, a Slovakian and an Estonian — remain at large.

Megaupload has retained Washington, D.C. power attorney Bob Bennett in the case, according to a person inside the company. Bennett is best known for representing former President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The person within Megaupload spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the company's plans.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends free speech and digital rights online, said in a statement that the arrests set "a terrifying precedent. If the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim, what is next?"

The indictment was unsealed one day after websites including Wikipedia and Wired shut down in protest of two U.S. proposals intended to make it easier for authorities to go after sites with pirated material, especially those with overseas headquarters and servers.

Before Megaupload was taken down, the company posted a statement saying allegations that it facilitated massive breaches of copyright laws were "grotesquely overblown."

"The fact is that the vast majority of Mega's Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay. If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch," the statement said.

Several sister sites were also shut down, including one dedicated to sharing pornography files.

[Brickdoctor]

Out of interest, where is Eurobricks hosted and in which country is the hosting bill payer based?

Cheers

Rog

Even though it doesn't really matter, to answer your question, I believe EB is based in France.

[AndyC]

You all realize that if these bills pass, Eurobricks could be shut down entirely if ANYONE posts a SINGLE leaked set photo, right? And considering how often that happens, "could be" should be read "will be".

There's an enormous gap between "theoretically could" and "actually would" wide enough to drive several trucks through. Even with things like SOPA, minor copyright infringement like a posting of a leaked image is a civil offence and not a criminal one, which means TLG themselves would be required to push for prosecution and is something they could theoretically do today anyway, but obviously don't because there are easier, cheaper and more publically acceptable ways of resolving such issues.

Sites like Megaupload are heavily used for mass scale piracy, run by criminal gangs who are generating enormous levels of income from them and have long been the target of worldwide police investigations. It's unfortunate that the small percentage of people using such sites for legitimate material, such as Hispabrick, suffer as a result but it's also inevitable.

[vexorian]

This annoys me because megaupload much like youtube actually removes files if reported correctly as infringing. And this shut down happened without a trial.

[legomonk]

This is about non LEGO as it comes. I am a pirate in many forms of the definition and I support in full the sharing of information and art in any form. I am scared when "THE MAN" can shut down sites for any reason. Sounds kinda dumb but our right to get information in any form needs to be protected. Now I will get off my soapbox. Thank you.

[Flipz]

There's an enormous gap between "theoretically could" and "actually would" wide enough to drive several trucks through. Even with things like SOPA, minor copyright infringement like a posting of a leaked image is a civil offence and not a criminal one, which means TLG themselves would be required to push for prosecution and is something they could theoretically do today anyway, but obviously don't because there are easier, cheaper and more publically acceptable ways of resolving such issues.

Actually, SOPA puts the U.S. government in charge of pushing for prosecution, at least the last time I checked. One of the two also made copyright infringement a criminal offense, though I think that provision might have been changed as well.

Sites like Megaupload are heavily used for mass scale piracy, run by criminal gangs who are generating enormous levels of income from them and have long been the target of worldwide police investigations. It's unfortunate that the small percentage of people using such sites for legitimate material, such as Hispabrick, suffer as a result but it's also inevitable.

And how do you know that it's only a "small percentage" of legitimate use? Do we have solid numbers indicating the percentage of illegal uses versus legal uses of Megaupload and similar sites? (If so, the U.S. government would probably offer a nice reward if you could direct them to it.)

Even if you (like me) believe that piracy is wrong and that copyright holders have the right to be compensated for their content, there's such a thing as being majorly overzealous. The cure (a complete loss of freedom and free speech on the Internet) is worse than the disease. This action was a major overreaction fueled by the same misguided philosophy that drives SOPA and PIPA; if those bills pass, things will only get worse. Even if you ignore the gross violation of U.S. constitutional free speech principles (not to mention the blatant violation of prior restraint), on the level of international law it is a clear-cut case of one country interfering in the sovereign affairs and legal processes of other nations--remind me again how the U.S. has the authority to arrest a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim over a Hong Kong-based company? I know my country's constitution pretty well (I've always made a point of knowing my own rights, and I even took some political science courses over the last semester as part of my general ed), and SOPA and PIPA are direct violations of both its written words and its general spirit. The only way these laws could be "legal" would be if they were passed as a constitutional amendment, and that's (thankfully) pretty much impossible considering the vocal opposition and the sheer number of skeptical people the supporters would have to convince.

Getting back to EB and the relevance to LEGO, what is EB's plan in case these bills do pass? Will EB, in order to stay open, ban all outside links (including images)? As the bill is written now, that would be the only way to be safe, and even then there would have to be a lot of heavy-handed (read: permaban) requirements enacted in order to prevent any copyrighted material from being posted in text form. Actually, it would probably be easier for EB to just block all access from American servers, but then they could get caught up in legal battles anyway if someone decides to try to use a proxy to access EB...

[Aanchir]

I read that the reason Megaupload was under U.S. jurisdiction was that for a time some of its servers were located in Virginia. One might call it a stretch, but to be fair doing something like that is just setting yourself up for the inevitable repercussions.

Now, I think if anything this shows that current U.S. copyright law is more than sufficient for ensuring that copyrights are protected on our shores. I feel SOPA is overreaching legislation that, while based on the honorable goal of protecting intellectual property, causes more damage than it heals. And some of this just seems like sloppy legislation, like how search engines like Google could potentially be prosecuted against just for not actively limiting users' access to sites that host pirated material.

It's not the intent of the legislation that bothers me, it's the collateral damage. I don't know much about PIPA but from what I've heard it's better-written than SOPA in this regard. It may very easily have problems of its own, but many of the websites I use tend to view it as a more livable alternative to SOPA. I'll keep an eye out for if the sites I trust start to see cause for alarm in that piece of legislation.

[Larrynautik]

Shutting down websites for economic interests is a means from the governments to take control of the Internet.

Every tracking of citizens for downloading files results in lower liberty as there are many ways to abuse from this system.

In France the government created a system that allow private societies to track your connection and report it to a government commission, who automatically send you warnings of legal problems, then being fined, and finallly a cut of your internet connexion. You can also be sent to jail if necessary.

The private societies that track your connexion override the civic laws, because they look what you do on the internet and can keep every data transfered. Once you're accused, you get no way to defend yourself. The IP address is used as a proof, and that's all. No need for them to prove with files on your computer or something else. They just say "you've downloaded" and it's as if the Law itself had spoken.

The owners of these private societies are friends of the french political leaders that get the power. They know each one another like you and your brother. So everything here becomes more and more corrupted, in every domain, such like the question of nuclear energy that is totally hidden in the media under a wave of stupid subjects like the snow falling from the skies or the last fashion tendency of wearing a moustache. The energy lobby are behind this media orientation. It is the same thing about the downloading question : the copyright owners lobby acts for more power against the consumer, to leave you no choice than what they want you to do. I have to connect to international channels like NHK, Euronews, Al-Jazeera or American ones to get informations about what really happens.

The french government massively applaused to MegaUpload shutdown, excepted the extremist ones. Nothing now can prevent other websites to be suddently shutted down for any reason. Politics now get the power to do that, and will do that without a need of proving anything. They will just say "they are pirates" or "they are planning terrorism" or any free accusation, and act. And that's why liberty is actually dying under a tsunami of misinformation.

It reminds me the Matrix pills : the blue cool one or the red true one ? Want to be happy, or want to be free ?