and so it begins

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... 07d67b674d

McLEAN, Virginia (AP) — One of the world's largest file-sharing sites was shut down Thursday, and its founder and several company executives were charged with violating piracy laws, federal prosecutors said.
An indictment accuses Megaupload.com of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. The indictment was unsealed one day after websites including Wikipedia and Craigslist shut down in protest of two congressional proposals intended to thwart online piracy.
The Justice Department said in a statement said that Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz, and three others were arrested Thursday in New Zealand at the request of U.S. officials. Two other defendants are at large.
Megaupload was unique not only because of its massive size and the volume of downloaded content, but also because it had high-profile support from celebrities, musicians and other content producers who are most often the victims of copyright infringement and piracy. Before the website was taken down, it contained endorsements from Kim Kardashian, Alicia Keys and Kanye West, among others.
The Hong Kong-based company listed Swizz Beatz, a musician who married Keys in 2010, as its CEO.
Before the site was taken down, it posted a statement saying allegations that it facilitated massive breaches of copyright laws were "grotesquely overblown."
"The fact is that the vast majority of Mega's Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay. If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch," the statement said.
A lawyer who represented the company in a lawsuit last year declined comment Thursday.
Megaupload is considered a "cyberlocker," in which users can upload and transfer files that are too large to send by email. Such sites can have perfectly legitimate uses. But the Motion Picture Association of America, which has campaigned for a crackdown on piracy, estimated that the vast majority of content being shared on Megaupload was in violation of copyright laws.
The website allowed users to download films, TV shows, games, music and other content for free, but made money by charging subscriptions to people who wanted access to faster download speeds or extra content. The website also sold advertising.
The indictment was returned in the Eastern District of Virginia, which claimed jurisdiction in part because some of the alleged pirated materials were hosted on leased servers in Ashburn, Virginia.

Dotcom, a resident of both Hong Kong and New Zealand, and a dual citizen of Finland and Germany, made more than $42 million from the conspiracy in 2010 alone, according to the indictment.
Dotcom is founder, former CEO and current chief innovation officer of Megaupload.

Don't fuck with the People's Republic of Virginia.

I love his new last name. Awesome!

http://gizmodo.com/5877679/anonymous-ki ... nge-strike

Anonymous has sure been quiet lately, but today's federal bust of Megaupload riled 'em up good: a retaliatory strike against DoJ.gov has left it completely dead.
DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com is reporting the department's site as universally nuked, and an Anonymous-affiliated Twitter account is boasting success. This is almost certainly the result of a quickly-assembled DDoS attack—and easily the widest in scope we've seen in some time. If you had any doubts Anonymous is still a hacker wrecking ball, doubt no more.

Update: Anonymous says they've also knocked off the RIAA's site—looks down for us at the moment as well.

Update 2: Universal Music Group has also fallen off an e-cliff.

Update 3: Goodbye for now, MPAA.org.

Update 4: Affected sites are bouncing in and out of life, and are at the very least super slow to load. Anon agents are currently trying to coordinate their DDoS attacks in the same direction via IRC.

Update 5: The US Copyright Office joins the list.

well WTF

As Ozzy says: "Let the madness...begin!"

After looking at this: xxx those Anonymous people are a bit scary. I'm glad they ain't after me!
Edit: just removed the link. Don't know if it's acceptable on RM. It has the address and stuff of the CEO of the MPAA and all sorts. Frightening!

yeah, i saw that too!

great powett

BTjunkie is the latest file-sharing site to shut its doors
By Molly McHugh | Digital Trends – Mon, Feb 6, 2012

It appears that we’re living in a post-Megaupload era. Shortly after the site was taken down by authorities and the ensuing drama of Kim “Dotcom” Schmitz played out before our eyes, torrent site BTJunkie has decided to shut its doors.

While BTJunkie wasn’t forced into shuttering its service, the site voluntarily decided to quit. “This is the end of the line my friends,” the site now reads. “The decision does not come easy, but we’ve decided to voluntarily shut down. We’ve been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it’s time to move on. It’s been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best!”

BTJunkie began in 2005 and quickly became one of the most popular file-sharing services. Of course, this put it at risk to be held responsible for copyright infringement, something with whih other P2P sites have found themselves grappling. Just last year, LimeWire was shut down and forced to pay $105 million in copyright infringement damages.

And BTJunkie isn’t the only one shutting down to avoid litigation entirely: Uploaded.to (now unavailable in the U.S.), Filesonic, and FileServe are just a few of the sites that have suspended their services in light of the Megaupload’s defeat. The entire P2P sharing market seems to be cowering at the heavy-handedness of the FBI. After existing relatively unscathed by the legal system, authorities have toppled a giant of the industry to warn them about what happens to file-sharing services that don’t obey copyright laws.

Which once again begs the question — why do we need the types of anti-piracy regulations that SOPA and PIPA would introduce? There’s been a mass exodus of file-sharing sites, while others that remain available will only offer their single user file uploading and downloading applications. Piracy will never entirely flee the face of the Internet, but recent dramatics have made a noticeable dent – all without the fringe consequences of outright censorship that SOPA and PIPA bring to the table