Megaupload's Planned Music Locker - Example of Private Justice?

[harset]

MegaUpload Is Now Launching a Music Service Called MegaBox ...There's another gigantic wrinkle in the MegaUpload drama. Not only is MegaUpload fighting tooth-and-nail against Universal Music Group, but they're now planning the launch of a cloud-based music locker, download store, and do-it-yourself artist service. It's called MegaBox, and it's already up in beta with listed partners 7digital, Gracenote, Rovi, and Amazon MP3. Actually, this is technically a relaunch of an earlier concept, and a perfect re-stab at major label opponents. "UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings," MegaUpload founder Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz told Torrentfreak this week. – Digital Musical Upload
Dominant Social Theme: Megaupload was just a bunch of crooks on the make. We're glad we got 'em, and you should be too.
Free-Market Analysis: Whoops. Turns out that Megaupload was planning to launch its own music service to compete with Hollywood's music monopoly – and that may have been the reason for the recent raid that shut down one of the largest websites in the world.

http://www.thedailybell.com/3542/Meg...rivate-Justice

[don]

Re: Megaupload's Planned Music Locker - Example of Private Justice?

If this is valid, coupled with MF Global, we truly are in a new Wild West. What totem will be the next to fall?

[davidstvz]

Re: Megaupload's Planned Music Locker - Example of Private Justice?

To be fair, MegaUpload built its empire on unlicensed ('stolen') content? Even if they were planning to transition to a legitimate service, that doesn't change how they got to where they are. The greater danger is if things go to hell and such powers are used to suppress information.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Megaupload's Planned Music Locker - Example of Private Justice?

The media describes the pirates as on the run...Goodbye Lime Wire and Pirates Bay. Grooveshark withdraws from Germany (yesterday), but until the prices come down, there will be a new Napster every six months.

I heard an old interview with Sheryl Crow the other day. She blamed piracy on the greed of the record industry. “One day you could buy my music on a cassette for 4.99, then it was 15.00 for a CD. I wasn't getting a penny more.”

Spotify, Rhapsody, they're all expensive enough to keep piracy alive and well.

For a brief couple of years, music in Thailand was legal. The government crushed mountains of cassette tapes and hounded away the street vendors. The legal cassettes were selling for 2 -3 dollars, a third of the price in the states, and at a price Thais could afford. Then came CD's. The prices were out of reach and piracy came back with a vengeance, putting the CD shops in the big malls out of business overnight.

[*T*]

Re: Megaupload's Planned Music Locker - Example of Private Justice?

What is equally troubling is the effective shutting down of the business by confiscating the servers. No proof of guilt necessary, only allegation.

Surely no cloud storage service can be safe.

[harset]

Re: Megaupload's Planned Music Locker - Example of Private Justice?

Agreed...but the question arises if this was illegal why it has been allowed to grow so big & for so long time.....and second question arises is that once regulators decided that it was illegal, megaload was not given a chance to defend themselves.....

[flintlock]

Re: Megaupload's Planned Music Locker - Example of Private Justice?

There's always a problem with Government entities picking the winners and losers in business. Don't know if it applies here, but it is a current trend.

[doom&gloom]

Re: Megaupload's Planned Music Locker - Example of Private Justice?

What is equally troubling is the effective shutting down of the business by confiscating the servers. No proof of guilt necessary, only allegation.

Surely no cloud storage service can be safe.

The US has this funny policy of arresting 'assets'. want your asset back, prove it was not used illegally. So go to your bank, take out say $12 grand to buy a used car. get stopped and frisked by a cop who finds the money, and he'll call it a potential drug money stash and keep it. Want it back? Take i to court. YOU have no tbeen arrested, just your pmoney. This has become a big money-maker for government at all levels.

[davidstvz]

Re: Megaupload's Planned Music Locker - Example of Private Justice?

Yep. As far as I know, doom&gloom is entirely correct. Asset forfeiture laws in the U.S. work exactly like that. The laws were developed due to the war on drugs. They use some loopholes to get around the whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing. In short, they don't have to charge the property claimant with a crime to seize the property. They charge the property itself with a crime (accessory to _______ ). In many cases they clearly care more about the asset than the crime since the seizing department gets to keep a healthy percentage. Be careful with your gold.