Good news indeed for the owners and originators of all web sites and especially our frindes in the spanking scene. Megaupload, one of the internet’s largest file-sharing sites, has been shut down by officials in the US. This site was a major repository for material stolen from spanking web sites all over the world. Used by criminals to line their own pockets these sites have for years worked hand in glove with the pirates to fleece the owners of all types of web sites of their hard earned money.
The site’s founders have been charged with violating piracy laws.
US Federal prosecutors have accused it of costing copyright holders more than $500m (£320m) in lost revenue. The firm says it was diligent in responding to complaints about pirated material, yes we know that but they were equally diligent in ensuring that what was removed was replaced as soon as possible.
The US Justice Department said that Megaupload’s two co-founders Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz, and Mathias Ortmann were arrested in Auckland, New Zealand along with two other employees of the business at the request of US officials. It added that three other defendants were still at large.
“This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States and directly targets the misuse of a public content storage and distribution site to commit and facilitate intellectual property crime,” saia a statement posted on its website.
Third-party sites
The charges included, conspiracies to commit racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering. A federal court in Virginia ordered that 18 domain names associated with the Hong Kong-based firm be seized. The Justice Department said that more than 20 search warrants had been executed in nine countries, and that approximately $50m (£32m) in assets had been seized. It claimed that the accused had pursued a business model designed to promote the uploading of copyrighted works.
“The conspirators allegedly paid users whom they specifically knew uploaded infringing content, and publicised their links to users throughout the world,” a statement said. “By actively supporting the use of third-party linking sites to publicise infringing content, the conspirators did not need to publicise such content on the Megaupload site. “Instead, the indictment alleges that the conspirators manipulated the perception of content available on their servers by not providing a public search function on the Megaupload site and by not including popular infringing content on the publicly available lists of top content downloaded by its users.”
Before it was shut down the site posted a statement saying the allegations against it were “grotesquely overblown”. “The fact is that the vast majority of Mega’s internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay,” it added. Oh yeh!!! Let’s hope this is just the first of these parasitical sites to be put in the trash bin of life.
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