Piracy pays - Megaupload chief took in 42 million last year

[flamingdem]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/technology/megaupload-indictment-internet-piracy.html?_r=1&hp



"The police said they seized $4.8 million in luxury vehicles, including a Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe and a pink 1959 Cadillac. They also seized art and electronic equipment and froze 11 million dollars in cash in various accounts..."

---

Mr. Dotcom has made himself a visible target. He splits his time between Hong Kong and New Zealand and casts himself in flamboyant YouTube videos. His role as one of the most prominent Web locker operators has earned him a half-joking nickname in Hollywood: Dr. Evil.

According to the indictment, he took in $42 million from Megaupload’s operations in 2010.

[Brickbat]

1. Is he four people?

Did he pirate identities, too?

[flamingdem]

2. He's the guy on the right

but those are his pirate buddies who also owned Megaupload

[Ecumenist]

21. The plump one?

[quinnox]

3. wow, hope he enjoyed it

The feds are going to make an example out of this poor slob, and he is looking at some hard time, on top of losing all his wealth.

[flamingdem]

4. He's wiley enough to have hidden some in the Black Forest or something

Well maybe not considering how blatant he was .. I wonder if the prisons down there are nice, nature walks and such included.

[quinnox]

5. they are going to extradite him to the US

He is looking at doing hard time in a federal prison.

[joshcryer]

6. He'll get 10 years, if that.

He'll be out before you know it, and still be ridiculously rich.

[quinnox]

7. Well, the feds got him on the hook for 675 million so far

and his property and accounts are being seized, I hope he hid some money well, because they are going to be looking for it starting with his family members.

[flamingdem]

8. Whoa! This must have been in the works for years

... but the timing, right after the Sopa debacle, got to wonder.

[Fool Count]

9. No way any jury, not having 12 Hollywood executives on it, would convict him.

They are just trying to teach everyone a lesson by keeping him in detention for a couple of years
and bankrupting him through court and legal fees. He will be almost certainly acquitted, but that is
beside the point.

[quinnox]

10. true, thats possible

but they could also try and make an example out of him, and that could be very hard on him. There is no parole in federal prison, you have to do almost all the time they give you...


I remember when people thought all those mega-rich CEOs who cheated like the TYCO and ENRON scandals would get away with it, but they were hammered and are still in prison today with long sentences and assets seized in the multi millions.

[flamingdem]

11. Why would he be acquitted?

They made money from copyrighted materially knowingly. At least I think that can be proven...

If it was real world and you used someone's copyrighted song they'd be suing you successfully quite easily. 3-4 grand a song, etc.

[Fool Count]

19. No, they didn't. At least it could be argued that they didn't.

Megaupload was just a flle storage website, like Dropbox. They even have warnings
about not uploading copyrighted material displayed. They didn't even provide search
capability, the uploaded files could only be accessed via links provided by up loaders
themselves. The service they provided did have legitimate uses and was, in fact, used
by many people for legitimate purposes. Those people now lost all their files. They could
only be accused of failing to police their users. They could argue that it was not their
legal responsibility or that it was too onerous to implement. There should be enough
reasonable doubt there to make jurors think at least. The manner in which this case
was pursued will by itself put many potential jurors off. It is by no means a slam dunk
for prosecution, so going all out like they did for an iffy case clearly indicates the
lesson-teaching nature of this excercise.

[woolldog]

22. Correct.

And they can't even be blamed for failing to police their users because

1) If you were a copyright holder and believed that there was a file being stored that violated your copyright, they would take it down. Ive seen that happen many times with megupload and other file hosting sites.

2) It's not practical to expect them to examine all the contents of all the files that were uploaded. There's such an enormous numbers of files being stored on that site, it's impossible for them to have a handle on it without someone pointing out the files that violate their TOS. If I wanted to for example take a file upload it into megaupload as a rar file, and send you the link, megaupload would have no idea what's in that file. Multiply that by millions and tens of millions of uploads and it's just silly to expect them to track that kind of stuff. And the technology has valid, non pirating-related uses. It's an overbroad regulation of free speech to shut down the entire site, and attempt to put the technology "back in the bottle" because it has some illegitimate uses as well as legitimate ones.

I hope it goes to court and the megaupload execs are found not guilty.

Also there's something disturbing to me about the FBI swooping in on New Zealand and taking these people to the US to stand trial for violating US copyright laws, especially when this is clearly being done for political reasons. It disturbs me as a US citizen and if I were a foreigner it would piss me offeven more. No wonder the rest of the world hates the US

[flamingdem]

28. Yes they did respond to take down notices

and at least that's better than a site run by hackers like Anonymous, they had some sense of following the rules

[woolldog]

20. I don't think you understand how megaupload work.

In fact, going by your post, I KNOW you don't.

[white_wolf]

12. And yet the Wall Street bankers are still free and caused a lot more harm.

Sorry, but until we deal with real criminals like the bankers who ruined the world economy, I see no point in wasting our time on internet piracy. At least this guy didn't make his money by causing massive unemployment and making people homeless.

[FrodosPet]

15. Are you sure about that?

Entertainment professionals are some of the most loyal progressives there are. Not to mention, even if the big companies and big stars are making too much money, it is a labor intensive industry. People downloading without paying are costing working people jobs.

[fujiyama]

13. What's really pathetic is that the studios could have made some of that money

if they were open to other business models earlier on. I'd say they could have made considerably more if they used sane streaming price models. Instead it's a dinosaur of an industry.

Yes, streaming is available through Netflix and other services but the selection through Netflix streaming is lacking - and it's not really Netflix' fault. Once again it's the studios and their need to control absolutely every aspect of distribution and find a way to take every single dollar they can. I'm really sick of hearing "protecting creative property" as an excuse for their inability to adapt and their continual insistence on doing business the old way, when it's clear it hasn't been working. Instead they get our bought and paid for government to do their dirty work for them. Now, this doesn't really excuse this guy who was profiting off of copyrighted work but in some ways its more revealing about the pressure the US government is putting on other nations to bust these guys - it seems like a lot of time and effort spent by the DOJ.

Ideally something similar to Spotify will emerge for movies as well - near unlimited high quality media available for streaming for a reasonable monthly fee.

[flamingdem]

14. Very true. They really didn't want to give up on "DVD windows" and such

because they made disgusting gobs of money from that.

Now, too late, well nearly too late. We shall see.

[Luminous Animal]

16. Did he solicit pirated material?

[Earth_First]

17. How much of this was through ad revenue?

This was one of the largest bit torrent sites in the world.

How much of this $42 million was through ad revenue or premium access memberships?

[flamingdem]

18. I bet most was via premium acccounts

Those were nice rotating monthly fees

[Ichingcarpenter]

23. Anyone see a picture of his house in New Zealand? Wow

[flamingdem]

27. OKAY I think it's time to learn the filesharing biz!

not bad..

[JCMach1]

24. So he and Mitt have a lot in common then...

[Jello Biafra]

25. Here is a New Zealand perspective on this....

http://www.voxy.co.nz/national/chris-ford-dotcom-mansion-raid-very-over-top/1273/112866

gives an argument on the other side which is compelling......

[NNN0LHI]

26. Is the big one Chumlee from Pawn Stars?