Full Version: 7 Charged as F.B.I. Closes MegaUpload
As part of the crackdown, more than 20 search warrants were executed in the United States and in eight other countries.
About $50 million in assets were also seized, as well as a number of servers and 18 domain names that formed Megaupload’s network of file-sharing sites.
nytimes.
That's some interesting timing, right after the SOPA/PIPA protest day.
What ever happened to DMCA takedown notices? Did Megaupload ignore those?
Why MegaUpload was really shut down.
The free market be damned.
QUOTE
In December of 2011, just weeks before the takedown, Digital Music News reported on something new that the creators of #Megaupload were about to unroll. Something that would rock the music industry to its core. (http://goo.gl/A7wUZ)
I present to you... MegaBox. MegaBox was going to be an alternative music store that was entirely cloud-based and offered artists a better money-making opportunity than they would get with any record label.
"UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings," MegaUpload founder Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz told Torrentfreak
Not only did they plan on allowing artists to keep 90% of their earnings on songs that they sold, they wanted to pay them for songs they let users download for free.
"We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free," Dotcom outlined. "Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works."
I present to you... MegaBox. MegaBox was going to be an alternative music store that was entirely cloud-based and offered artists a better money-making opportunity than they would get with any record label.
"UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings," MegaUpload founder Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz told Torrentfreak
Not only did they plan on allowing artists to keep 90% of their earnings on songs that they sold, they wanted to pay them for songs they let users download for free.
"We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free," Dotcom outlined. "Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works."
The free market be damned.
QUOTE (sheena_yanai @ Jan 24 2012, 12:50 AM) 
Why MegaUpload was really shut down.
The free market be damned.
The free market be damned.
Sheena has always been a thinker, I'm inclined to believe that
Must be the invisible hand at work.
QUOTE (sheena_yanai @ Jan 24 2012, 02:50 AM)
Why MegaUpload was really shut down.
The free market be damned.
The free market be damned.
Except that takedowns like this aren't orchestrated in just a few weeks. The takedown of megaupload was the product of months if not a year or more of police work, making it illogical to think it is intricately tied to the release of a music market that people had only known about for a relatively short amount of time.
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