SOPA/PIPA

[Mix]

RIP megaupload

[Tek]

apparently up on racketeering and money laundering charges. Heavy stuff, and that's without this bill.

[Noobert]

http://www.kongregate.com/games/nolanla ... -sopa-bros

Play that.

As for MegaUpload - Look at this.

http://gizmodo.com/5877612/feds-kill-megaupload

[Desert Ghost]

the senator has withdrawn his proposal to the senat....

DG

[Jack]

It's only temporarily shelved until the furor dies down.

In the mean time, he's proposed yet another Trojan horse law in the guise of combating child porn.

[Loki™]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Count ... _Agreement
Similar stuff for EU.

[Legendary Apophis]

I am strongly in favor of intensive fight against counterfeit goods black market led by mafias with goods such as cloths, mobile/TV technology etc...I am also strongly supporting fight against "local" black markets of counterfeit goods sold by individuals, like riped DVDs/CDs sold by the mass-downloaders at a very cheap price (and no right to sell it themselves) compared to legal price in shops. In short those who earn money out of torrents downloading by selling what they downloaded at broken price to make money out of said music/movies.

But, back to internet copyright issues, I consider that sites like youtube and wikipedia are already policed enough by themselves and don't need a law to bother them with copyright infringement. Instead of removing sites like Megaupload, stronger policing of content uploaded should be done (like in youtube). Removing sites is pretty much criticized, among reasons for the fact the content not falling under copyright infringement (people uploading their work instead of using a USB key) is now lost for these people if they didn't save it elsewhere.

Considering internet has quite a bit of pathetic trolls, such law would legitimate a mass removal of sites because of said trolls' actions uploading illegal content -most often knowingly of new laws-. Control by sites is better than removing sites, because it's better to punish the bad than punish all due to the bad's actions. Removing site is sort of troll's victory. Policing by sites is troll's defeat.

A signing ceremony was held on 1 October 2011 in Tokyo, with the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea signing the treaty. The European Union, Mexico, and Switzerland did not sign the treaty, but "attended the ceremony and confirmed their continuing strong support for and preparations to sign the Agreement as soon as practicable".[9][10] Article 39 of ACTA specifies that the agreement is open for signature until 31 March 2013.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Count ... _Agreement


Edit: interesting article about Megaupload founder:

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/285168/ ... ounder.htm

(...)
Federal authorities claimed that Megaupload executives, including Schmitz who reportedly owned a 68 percent stake, made $175 million from user subscription fees and online ads. Authorities said the Web site robbed authors, movie producers, musicians and other copyright holders of more than $500 million, according to The Washington Post.

(...)
Life of Luxury

Who exactly is Kim Schmitz? Schmitz is a 37-year-old German national who holds Finnish citizenship and has homes in Hong Kong and New Zealand, according to the Global Post. According to the FBI's indictment, the former hacker made $42 million from Megaupload and its associated Web sites including Megavideo, Megalive and Megapix.

Schmitz was found in the safe room of his New Zealand mansion. He lives in New Zealand's most expensive home, according to The Sydney Morning Herald - a $23 million mansion in Coatesville, north of Auckland, formerly owned by the founders of the Chrisco Christmas hampers empire.

Police raided the home to carry out 10 search warrants. They seized a total of 18 luxury vehicles, including Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe and a 1959 pink Cadillac. He also had a 2012 Maserati and numerous Mercedes Benz vehicles.

The license plates on the vehicles were interesting unto themselves. They read: "GOD" (Rolls-Royce Phantom Drop Head Coupe), "MAFIA" (Mercedes-Benz ML63 AMG), "STONED" (Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG), "GOOD" & "EVIL" (Mercedes-Benz ML63 AMG).

(...)

Not His First Breach with the Law

The Megaupload takedown was not Kim Schmitz's first breach with the law. His list of convictions date back years and include inside trading, credit-card fraud, hacking and embezzlement.

Schmitz was also the mastermind who cracked the systems of banks and governments, including Citibank and the Pentagon. He then fled to Thailand to avoid indictment in Germany, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported. In 2002, Schmitz was deported from Thailand to Germany on charges of insider trading and fraud, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.

He was granted New Zealand residency despite his blemished past after he invested $NZ10 million in government bonds and made hefty donations to the Christchurch earthquake foundation.

[Bromas]

I enjoyed this... (It is SOPA related)

[Reschef]

[spoiler][/spoiler]