MegaUpload, a popular filesharing "locker" website has been shut down by the US Government, charged with being a worldwide criminal organisation for online piracy.
The indictment alleges that the MegaUpload founder and employees have formed a conspiracy to commit money-laundering and racketeering and have presided over massive online piracy. The indictment accuses Megaupload of costing copyright holders $US500 million in lost revenue. According to the indictment, the suspects are members of the "the Mega Conspiracy, a worldwide criminal organization whose members engaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale."
Allegedly, the conspiracy operated websites that unlawfully reproduced and distributed infringing works. It is claimed that the business models of MegaUpload were expressly designed to promote the uploading of copyrighted works and designed to discourage the use of the website for personal uploading. The conspirators also allegedly paid those users that they knew uploaded popular infringing material. It is also claimed that they did not terminate the accounts of known infringers and did not comply with obligations to remove copyrighted materials. (See the Department of Justice media release here.)
In a raid worthy of a movie, the founder of MegaUpload and three other employees were arrested in New Zealand at the request of the US Justice Department. The domain name was seized, and police seized more than $NZ50 million in assets, including luxury cars and art works.
In response to the MegaUpload takedown, members of the hacktivist computer group, Anonymous, have attacked the FBI, US Copyright Office, Department of Justice, Universal Music, MPAA and RIAA websites.
Previously, we blogged about the row between content holders and MegaUpload about a YouTube video, in which music stars had supported MegaUpload. The video was taken off YouTube using the DMCA take-down process following a notice from Universal Music Group.
An interesting question is whether the US courts have jurisdiction in the matter. The founder of MegaUpload is based in New Zealand and the service is based Hong Kong. However, some of the allegedly pirated content is hosted on US servers, which the US federal authorities argue gave them jurisdiction.
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