Megaupload.com seized

Fri Jan 20 19:37:16 UTC 2012

On 01/20/2012 09:11 AM, Ricky Beam wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:34:33 -0500, Michael Painter 
> <tvhawaii at shaka.com> wrote:
>> I quickly read through the indictment, but the gov't claims that when 
>> given a takedown notice, MU would only remove the *link* and not the 
>> file itself.
>
> That's actually a standard practice.  It allows the uploader to file a 
> counterclaim and have the content restored.  One cannot "restore" what 
> has already been deleted.
>
> However, never going back and cleaning up the undisputed content is a 
> whole other mess of dead monkeys.
>
 From what I understand about MegaUpload's approach, they created a hash 
of every file that they stored.  If they'd already got a copy of the 
file that was to be uploaded they'd just put an appropriate link in a 
users space, saving them storage space, and bandwidth for both parties.  
Fairly straight forward.  Whenever they received a DMCA take-down they 
would remove the link, not the underlying file, so even though they knew 
that a file was illegally hosted, they never actually removed it.  That 
comes up for some argument about the ways the company should be 
practically enforcing a DMCA take-down notice, whether each take-down 
should apply to just an individual user's link to a file or whether the 
file itself should be removed.  That could be different from 
circumstance to circumstance.

Paul