Yesterday saw the takedown of Megaupload, including the seizure of 18 domains connected to Megaupload. Users of the sites were greeted by a message from the FBI which stated that “A federal grand jury has indicted several individuals and entities allegedly involved in the operation of Megaupload.com,”[3] and lists a variety of crimes including Conspiracy to Commit Copyright Infringement. However, the chief executive of Megaupload (Swiss Beatz) was not included in the indictments.

The indictment goes so far as to frame the defendants as “a worldwide criminal organization whose members engaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale,” and repeatedly refers to the site as a “Mega consipracy[4].”

This marks the first time that a cyber locker has been taken down using criminal law instead of civil law. 4 people were arrested in New Zealand, with 3 others facing arrest in other countries. Data centers in the Netherlands, USA and Canada were also raided as part of the police action[1].

For its part, MegaUpload claims it is a neutral service provider. The “cyberlocker” concept acts only as a conduit for user-supplied content. Like a hard drive manufacturer or Internet Service Provider (ISP), they are not able to automatically block potentially infringing material. MegaUpload maintains that they exceed (US) DMCA requirements by providing major rights holders with “direct realtime takedown accesss.” They go on to say that of the billions of user files they host, “the vast majority are accessed less than 10 times during their lifetime.”[5]

Since SOPA/PIPA, it has become obvious that the USA has been co-opted by the RIAA/MPAA lobby (copyright trolls) to impose their own wish list for copyright laws. Wikileaks cables have also shown that the recent “Canadian” copyright reform (C-32 / C-11) came straight from the US trade representative. The USA has also been bullying other countries on imposing their own style of copyright and patent laws, written directly by the major special interest groups. They have also threatened to enforce trade sanctions on countries that refuse to bow to their demands.[6] Dozens of diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks also point to the same USA effort towards Canada, especially towards the copyright reforms contained in C-32 (now C-11), and the clear admission by the government that the consultations were just for show. [7]

These copyright trolls have claimed $500 Million in damages yet the CRIA (the canadian division of the RIAA, now called “Music Canada,”) was guilty of almost $6 billion dollars[2] in commercial copyright infringement and settled for $45 Million (0.75% of the actual damages).  By this standard, Megaupload should only pay $3.75 Million.

The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a treaty which seems to be a revisit of the unpopular Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) which was also negotiated in secret. TPP wants to change copyright terms from Life+50 to Life+70. The copyright trolls at the table in these secret meetings are also demanding that Canada pass more bad legislation like the American DMCA which has been heavily criticized for its chilling effect on the Internet already. And likely making us pass legislation similar to SOPA/PIPA which sparked world wide outrage and protests by many popular sites including Wikipedia and Google.

The increase in copyright term length is sought after by said copyright trolls in order to prevent works from entering public domain; thereby removing the potential for companies to continue leeching off of them. Copyright now lasts longer than the media upon which the fixations are stored. The only way for them to enter the public domain is to copy them before the original has degraded enough to require “creative” restoration, thereby renewing the copyright.

The Pirate Party of Canada understands that we need to adjust “Intellectual Property” law to balance the needs of authors, inventors, and corporations with the needs of society.[8] Of particular concern, given the introduction of PIPA/SOPA in the US and Internet surveilance legislation in Canada, is the erosion of net neutrality and Internet privacy. By imposing liability on service providers for user-generated content, they are encouraging self-censorship on the Internet. ISPs, registrars, and webhosts are forced to impose restrictive Terms of Service on their customers. Websites and users in turn, are forced to censor themselves to avoid having their service cut off. The result is a passive Internet where the vast majority of users mindlessly consume content regurgitated by copyright trolls.

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Pirate Party of Canada
Parti Pirate du Canada

Sources:

[1] US department of justice press release January 19, 2012:
“Justice Department Charges Leaders of Megaupload with Widespread Online Copyright Infringement”
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A//www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/January/12-crm-074.html

[2] Micheal Geist blog; December 7, 2009:
“Canadian Recording Industry Faces $6 Billion Copyright Infringement Lawsuit”  http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4596/135/

[3]David Kravets, Wired.com; January 19, 2012:
“Feds Shutter Megaupload, Arrest Executives”
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/megaupload-indicted-shuttered/

[4]http://www.scribd.com/doc/78786408/Mega-Indictment

[5] MegaUpload FAQ; retrieved January 17, 2012:
“What Is MegaUpload’s Stance Towards Abuse?”
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A//www.megaupload.com/?c=faq

[6] Nate Anderson, ArsTechnica.com; January 6, 2012:
“How the US pressured Spain to adopt unpopular Web blocking law”
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/how-the-us-convinced-spain-to-adopt-internet-censorship.ars

[7] Michael Geist blog, April 29 2011:
“Wikileaks Cables Show Massive U.S. Effort to Establish Canadian DMCA”
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5765/125/

[8] About the Pirate Party of Canada
https://www.pirateparty.ca/about