The following story is not for the faint hearted: It involves guns, illegal downloading, police raids and, perhaps worst of all a terrifying man who changed his surname to ‘Dotcom’. Read on for ‘Megaupload: the takedown’.
Last week, the US Government moved in on Megaupload, one of the most notorious and dominant forces in file sharing. The founders now stand accused of cheating rights holders out of $500m alongside racketeering and money laundering.
The men arrested in several New Zealand raids included ‘Kim Dotcom’ (real surname: Schmitz), the founder of the online criminal enterprise that is estimated to have generated more than $175m in profit for its associates through advertising and premium memberships.
Hugely popular site Megaupload.com was established in 2005, going on to attract 50 million visitors per day and is accused of hosting material under copyright including films, TV shows and of course music.
Visitors could access content with a single click through to a digital locker and the founders are accused of deliberately facilitating mass online piracy. The site that occupied an estimated 4% of total Internet traffic is now indefinitely shut down, shelving plans that the company had to create ‘Megabox’, a digital distribution service for unsigned artists. Unsurprisingly, Megaupload has also dropped its lawsuit against Universal Music Group for its takedown of the ‘Megaupload Mega Song’, featuring endorsements of the file-sharing service from pop stars such as Kayne West and Mary J Blige.
Conspiracy theorists will note that the raid hit the headlines in the same week that Wikipedia put the brakes on SOPA and PIPA, perhaps throwing the entertainment industries a sweetener despite the current setbacks in US legislation. However, the Department of Justice has confirmed that seven people associated with Megaupload were indicted by a federal grand jury earlier in the month over the charges.
Kim Dotcom seems almost fictional, like a tech nerd version of a Scorsese character- The German born 38-year old former hacker owned a fleet of expensive cars featuring number-plates such as HACKER, MAFIA and GOD and was reportedly the world’s number one rated online player at video game Modern Warfare 3. Holding previous convictions for insider trading, police had to cut him out of a locked panic room at his New Zealand mansion, at which they also discovered firearms.
The move has sent shockwaves throughout those involved in sharing online content, with Filesonic disabling its ‘sharing facility’ and so-called hacktivist group Anonymous taking down the websites of the RIAA, Warner Music and Universal in retaliation at various times earlier in the week.
Dotcom was remanded until today (25 January) and is awaiting a ruling on bail conditions.
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