Quote (Aydar @ 30 Jan 2012 18:14)
In one of our hardware/software web services there was an article about the MU raid. The founder of the MU wanted to open a service where every artist could sell their stuff and make 90% on it. It'd be possible to skip the middle man, the big companies, the riaa etc. If it's true, then no wonder he was the first victim. If I were him I'd just move the fuck out of USA and start doing this somewhere it'd be possible.
Another article I read was about UK student being extradited to states for having a blog where peeps could share links to files on other servers. A filesharing site but without any files on his server. He had 300k unique visits/month. The press said he's going to be made example of and he'll get maximum sentence - 10 years in usa prison. Ridiculous.
The MU dude, iirc, was sued on 2 main contentions. 1st was like (100 some odd examples) of known copyright infringement, internal emails, and what not that he was knowingly infringing, not complying with DMCA requests, and essentially leaving a bigass paper trail like a dumbfuck. the 2nd was money laundering, which, just seems to be a tack-on charge for moving money related to MU through US e-soil. Paypal, etc. I think this was what triggered the initial scare for the other file services with affiliate programs.
So while megabox was supposedly going to be quite artist friendly, it was built ontop of this empire of piracy. Somewhat similar to crunchyroll, lol (altho, idk if they ever had a paid affiliate thing, i doubt it). The fact that it was going against the recording industry so blatantly, was probably the catalyst.
He was extradited because of having servers in US soil (VA). Both the HK/NZ police cooperated.
I didn't hear about the student, but it sounds kinda sketchy. I don't think the US should be able to extradite foreigners, who aren't breaking their own countries laws.
Quote
A filesharing site but without any files on his server
"enabling piracy" comes to mind, but hurr.
tbh I don't see much point with these middleman public linkshare sites. that's sorta.. toeing the line. 300k/mo was probably decent ad/amazon revenue too.
This post was edited by Gensokyo on Jan 30 2012 11:40am