Entertainment Industry Was Eager to Work With Megaupload. Considering the aggressive stance taken by the MPAA against Megaupload, one might be forgiven for thinking the Hollywood-backed group and file-hosting service were sworn enemies. But behind the scenes things were quite different, with companies including Disney, Warner Brothers and Fox courting Megaupload to set up content distribution and advertising deals.
“By all estimates, Megaupload.com is the largest and most active criminally operated website targeting creative content in the world,” said the MPAA in a statement issued immediately after Mega was shutdown in January. As statements go, they don’t get much more harsh than that, so one might think that hostilities between Megaupload and the member companies of the MPAA are a long-standing thing. But as we know, despite all the rhetoric the likes of the usually-aggressive Disney never sued the Hong Kong based file-hosting service, and instead opted to let the FBI do their work for them.
My name is Gregg Pendola. Thanks. Gregg Joshua D. Hi. Megaupload Drops Mega Song Lawsuit to Focus on “Nonsense” US Charges. The troubled Megaupload will drop its lawsuit against Universal Music Group who allegedly deleted the immensely popular Mega Song from YouTube last December. While the cyberlocker still believes the "sham takedown" was unlawful, Megaupload's lawyer informs TorrentFreak that they will focus their efforts on defending themselves against the US criminal charges and similar "copycat" suits.
A month before its shutdown Megaupload pulled off one of the biggest file-sharing related marketing coups in recent memory. The file-hoster released a pro-Megaupload song featuring stars such as P Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Mary J Blige, Kim Kardashian and even boxer Floyd Mayweather all publicly endorsing the site. Within hours the ‘Mega Song’ was watched by hundreds of thousand of people, but the fun stopped when Universal Music Group (UMG) took down the video from YouTube. Why the video was taken down has never been made clear. The Mega Song (uncensored) Kim Dotcom: The US Government is Wrong, Here’s Why. For a man who’s the main defendant in one of the biggest criminal cases ever brought in the US, Kim Dotcom is surprisingly composed. The Megaupload founder is convinced of his innocence, and instead of letting fear or anger get to him, he is excited.
Deep into the night, Dotcom digs through heaps of paperwork, collecting evidence that shows how he was framed by the US Government. Talking to TorrentFreak by phone, he gives example after example of why he thinks the indictment twists the truth. While Megaupload’s lawyers are still working on the first motion in response to the indictment, he agreed to exclusively share the first details with us. Stealing from 50 Cent? One of the claims of the US Government is that Kim Dotcom personally shared copyrighted files on Megaupload, so-called ‘direct infringement’. “A link distributed on December 3, 2006 by defendant DOTCOM links to a musical recording by U.S. recording artist ’50 Cent’. “The URL to this song had zero downloads. Google to the Rescue. Google Defends Hotfile (and Megaupload) in Court. Google has filed a brief at a federal court in Florida defending the file-hosting site Hotfile in its case against the MPAA.
The search giant accuses the movie companies of misleading the court and argues that Hotfile is protected under the DMCA's safe harbor. Indirectly, Google is also refuting claims being made by the US government in the criminal case against Megaupload. In February 2011, the MPAA announced a lawsuit against Hotfile, one of the Internet’s most popular cyberlocker services. The site’s popularity is “a direct result of the massive digital theft that Hotfile promotes,” the movie industry group said.
Two weeks ago the movie studios asked the court to issue a summary judgment against Hotfile and shut the site down. This request didn’t go unnoticed by Google, who have now filed an amicus brief in support of the file-hosting site. What makes this even more interesting is that many of the arguments made by Google are also relevant to the criminal indictment against Megaupload. Google Amicus Brief PDF. Kim Dotcom: US Military Had 15,634 Megaupload Accounts. In recent weeks the battle has continued to save the data stored at the now-defunct site Megaupload.
Contrary to the image painted by the entertainment industries, untold numbers of people used the file-hosting service for completely legitimate sharing. Today we can reveal that not only did people at the Senate, Department of Homeland Security, FBI and NASA hold Megaupload accounts, so did more than 15,600 members of the US Military. Ever since Megaupload was dismantled in January there have been concerns about data being held on the site’s servers.
While the MPAA and RIAA insist that the site was simply a huge piracy hub, the facts point to a much bigger picture of people using the site for countless legitimate transfers of files simply too big to email. As mentioned earlier this month, Megaupload’s legal team is working hard to reunite site users with their data, an aim also shared by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) with their MegaRetrieval campaign. Megaupload's Innocent Users Deserve Their Data Back. San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today formally requested the preservation of the data seized when the U.S. government shut down Megaupload.com and related sites, notifying the court and attorneys involved in the case that Megaupload's innocent users deserve a fair process to control and retrieve their lawful material.
"The government knows that Megaupload had many customers who followed the law. Yet it gave those users no notice that their data was at risk and no information about how they might be able to eventually get that data back," said EFF Staff Attorney Julie Samuels. "Our client, and the many other innocent Megaupload users, are entitled to a clear process for obtaining access to their own property, and the first step is to make sure that property is not deleted or damaged until the court can sort this out.
" "Megaupload's innocent users are entitled to access their property," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. Contacts: MegaRetrieval. Police court order Dotwrong. Internet tycoon Kim Dotcom's cash, cars and property were seized using a court order which should never have been granted. A judgment from Justice Judith Potter on Friday declared the restraining order "null and void" and having "no legal effect". The blunder might now lead to the beleaguered internet mogul getting back everything that was stripped away in the surprise dawn raid on his mansion eight weeks ago.
Police commissioner Peter Marshall and the Government's legal advisers at the Crown Law Office have admitted making an embarrassing "procedural error" when filing documents to seize Dotcom's property. Potter said Marshall's application for the restraining order had "confused" legal moves by opting for one in which Dotcom was not given a chance to mount a defence. It meant Marshall applied for the "incorrect order". Potter said he had sought to correct the mistake after the raid by applying for the proper order, retrospectively listing assets already seized. - Herald on Sunday. Megaupload Seizure Order “Null and Void” Says High Court. In another astonishing development in the Megaupload saga, a judge in New Zealand's High Court has declared the order used to seize Kim Dotcom's assets as "null and void".
The blunder, which occurred because the police applied for the wrong type of court order, means that the Megaupload founder could have his property returned. Just when it seemed that the handling of the Megaupload case couldn’t get any more controversial, a development from New Zealand has taken things to the next level. Following the raids on Kim Dotcom’s mansion in January, police seized millions of dollars worth of property belonging to the Megaupload founder. But thanks to a police blunder, he could now see all of those assets returned. On Friday, Justice Judith Potter in the High Court declared the order used to seize Dotcom’s property “null and void” after it was discovered that the police had acted under a court order that should have never been granted.