Megaupload
Megaupload Ltd was a Hong Kong–based online company established in 2005 that operated from 2005 to 2012 providing online services related to file storage and viewing.[1]
This article is about the FBI-seized website. For the successor of Megaupload, see Mega (service).Company type
21 March 2005
19 January 2012
(6 years, 9 months and 29 days)
Shut down by the United States Department of Justice
Worldwide
Finn Batato (CMO)
Online file hosting
HK$ 175 million+
155
megaupload.com (archived)
On 19 January 2012, the United States Department of Justice seized the domain names and closed down the sites associated with Megaupload after the owners were arrested and indicted for allegedly operating as an organisation dedicated to copyright infringement.[3] Subsequently, HK$330 million (approximately US$42 million) worth of assets were frozen by the Customs and Excise Department of Hong Kong.[4] The company's founder, New Zealand resident Kim Dotcom, has denied any wrongdoing, and the case against Dotcom has been the subject of controversy over its legality.[5] In 2017, a New Zealand judge ruled that Dotcom should be extradited to the United States, but Dotcom remained at liberty in New Zealand pending the results of an appeal.[6] On 5 July 2018, the New Zealand Court of Appeal found Dotcom and three of his former colleagues were eligible to be extradited to the U.S. authorities. His lawyer said they would appeal to the New Zealand Supreme Court.[7] The shutdown of Megaupload led to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on a range of websites belonging to the U.S. government and copyright organisations by the hacktivist group Anonymous.[8][9]
On 19 January 2013, Megaupload was relaunched as Mega under the domain name mega.co.nz (later moved to mega.nz, and then to mega.io). The re-launch date was chosen to coincide with the first anniversary of Megaupload's takedown by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.[10]
Reception[edit]
[edit]
Although incorporated in Hong Kong, the company did not operate there. From 2009 onward, users with Hong Kong IP addresses were banned from accessing the site. The reason for the block was never disclosed by Megaupload,[22] but Hong Kong customs officials have suggested that the block was an attempt to hinder law enforcement investigation.[23]
As of 23 May 2010, access to Megaupload was intermittently blocked by the Internet authorities in Saudi Arabia by their regulator Communications and Information Technology Commission.[24] Megavideo was also intermittently blocked in the United Arab Emirates due to pornographic content being accessible through the service.[24]
From 9 June 2011 onward, the Malaysian government through Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission ordered all ISPs in Malaysia to block Megaupload and Megavideo. Some ISPs reportedly blocked all the sites on the list while other ISPs throttled connection speeds.[25]
In July 2011, access to Megaupload and Megavideo was blocked in India for Reliance Entertainment customers,[26] after a court order was obtained, citing illegal copies of the 2011 film Singham on file hosting sites.[27]
On 19 January 2012, U.S. federal prosecutors in the state of Virginia shut down Megaupload and laid charges against its founder Kim Dotcom and others for allegedly breaching copyright infringement laws.[28][29]
For a short time after the closure of the site, users could access material via Google's web cache and The Internet Archive. One day after the indictment, Google and Archive.org voluntarily removed the site mirrors to avoid the responsibility of hosting a website taken down for copyright infringement.[9]
Criticism[edit]
In January 2011, MarkMonitor published a report entitled "Traffic Report: Online Piracy and Counterfeiting," which said that Megaupload and Megavideo were, along with RapidShare, the top three websites classified as "digital piracy," with more than 21 billion visits per year.[30] Megaupload responded by stating: "Activity that violates our terms of service or our acceptable use policy is not tolerated, and we go to great lengths to swiftly process legitimate DMCA takedown notices."[31] Mark Mulligan, an analyst at Forrester Research, pointed out that the number of visits did not necessarily indicate the number of downloads of illegal material.[32]
Megaupload Toolbar was said to redirect users to a custom error page when a 404 error occurred in the user's browser. It was also said to contain spyware.[33] FBM Software said that the Megaupload toolbar is free of spyware.[34]
When a file was uploaded to Megaupload and another file with the same hash was already found to exist, the uploader would be asked if they would like to link to the already existing file. Therefore, a single file may have contained multiple links to it. This caused some controversy, since when a DMCA takedown notice was issued, only the link that was provided (but not necessarily the file itself) was removed.[35]
Megaupload song controversy[edit]
On 9 December 2011, Megaupload published a music video entitled "The Mega Song," showing artists including Kanye West, Alicia Keys and will.i.am endorsing the company.[36] Snoop Dogg appeared in earlier versions of the video.[37][38][39] The music video was also uploaded to YouTube,[40] but was removed following a takedown request by the record company Universal Music Group (UMG). Megaupload said that the video contained no infringing content, commenting: "we have signed agreements with every featured artist for this campaign."[41] Megaupload requested an apology from UMG, and filed a lawsuit against the company in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, on 12 December 2011.[42][43] UMG denied that the takedown was ordered under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and said that the takedown was "pursuant to the UMG-YouTube agreement," which gives UMG "the right to block or remove user-posted videos through YouTube's CMS (Content Management System) based on a number of contractually specified criteria."[44] The video was subsequently returned to YouTube, with the reasons for the UMG takedown remaining unclear.[45] YouTube stated: "Our partners do not have the right to take down videos from YT unless they own the rights to them or they are live performances controlled through exclusive agreements with their artists, which is why we reinstated it."[46][47] Lawyers for will.i.am initially said that he had never agreed to the project, but on 12 December, he denied any involvement in the takedown notice.[48]