Megaupload complied with search warrants from the FBI which led to the arrest of NinjaVideo founder Hana Beshara
Megaupload helped US authorities indict the administrators of NinjaVideo when it complied with a search warrant back in June 2010, according to recently unsealed court documents.
According to a report by Wired on Tuesday, NinjaVideo was using Megaupload?s video streaming service to run its own file-sharing service.
While the government was already investigating Megaupload, in the case of NinjaVideo, Megaupload was treated as its internet service provider. Under this treatment, Megaupload qualifies for the DMCA safe harbor, Kim Dotcom?s lawyer Ira Rothken said.
Megaupload turned over information on NinjaVideo, including database information on the 39 pirated movies in the warrant, Wired says. These same files were later used against Megaupload to seize its domains and prosecute Dotcom.
An additional piece of evidence showed that Megaupload executives knew the 39 files in question were not strictly hosted on the accounts controlled by NinjaVideo; in fact, the files were uploaded by over 2,000 different Megaupload users. The movies remained on its servers, and the government argued this showed Megaupload knew its service was being used for piracy.
Recently, file sharing service RapidShare changed its traffic policies, placing a daily cap on outbound traffic to deter piracy and copyright infringement on its service.
Rothken said Megaupload didn?t touch the files because it didn?t want to tamper with evidence against NinjaVideo.
?We even emailed back to Carpathia [Megaupload's US server host] to ask the FBI (and the FBI had our emails before asking for the Mega domain seizure) if we should do anything about those files. We never got a response,? Dotcom told Torrent Freak.
The move by Megaupload is particularly unexpected since it seems to go against Dotcom?s vision of the internet and his ?us versus them? mentality. Though Dotcom has been hailed by some as some kind of martyr, the recent charges show that he was invested in protecting himself above his clients, and that Megaupload was, above all, a business.
Part of this ?martyr? image can be attributed to services like Dotcom?s planned free broadband Internet for New Zealand residents, one of the features of the? new encrypted file sharing service Me.ga set to launch next year.
Talk back: Are you surprised that Megaupload helped US authorities nab NinjaVideo? Do you think it is fair for the NinjaVideo files to be used against Megaupload in its trial? Let us know in a comment.
About Nicole Henderson
Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.
Tsunami Lil Reese Hurricane Sandy Nyc aapl Saanvi Venna vikings Colin Powell
No comments:
Post a Comment