Megaupload
Megaupload was a website that allowed people to upload and download files.[1] It had several sister websites including Megavideo, Megapix, Megalive[2] and others. It is based in Hong Kong.
 | |
| Online | |
| Founded | March 21st, 2005 |
| Defunct | January 20th, 2012 |
| Headquarters | |
| US$175 million | |
Number of employees | 155 (as of 2012) |
| Website | |
It allowed users who do not have an account to upload and download files up to 1 GB. People with free accounts got 200 GB of space. People with paid accounts had unlimited space. After uploading a file, a URL can be used to access and download it.[3]
It would stay there for
- Users without accounts - 21 days.
- Free accounts - 90 days
- Paid accounts - forever[3]
The website was supported by advertising. It gave incentives to people who uploaded the files that were downloaded the most. The website displayed advertising as users downloaded the files.
Visitors
- Unique visitors per days: 50 million
- Page Views per month: 1 billion
- Registered users : 150 million
- Depth view: 26
- Reach: 2.2%[4]
Legal case
On 19 January 2012 the United States Department of Justice seized and shut down the file hosting site Megaupload.com and commenced criminal cases against its owners and others.[5] Worldwide, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Kim Schmitz (Founder), Finn Batato (CMO), Mathias Ortmann (CTO and co-founder), with Bram van der Kolk arrested by the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand.[6] Their bail request was denied in New Zealand court as it was opposed by US authorities on the case.[7] On January 20 Hong Kong Customs froze more than HK$300 million (US$39 million) in assets belonging to the company.[8]
The case drew particular public attention because the arrests were on the day after a large protest of proposed legislation to expand United States legal authority against foreign piracy websites. Shortly afterward, the Department of Justice's website and a number of other organisations' websites were taken offline following concerted denial of service attacks from activist group Anonymous.[9]
A group spokesperson described the attacks as "the single largest Internet attack in [the group's] history" in an interview, adding that it was "a terrible case of happenstance that federal agents went after Megaupload only hours after the thousands of sites protesting in an anti-SOPA blackout went back online. Web surfers were by-and-far ready to defend an open Internet ... the feds 'could not have chosen a worse time to take down Megaupload'."[10] He noted that from commencement until the point the government's web servers were offline was a mere 70 minutes.[10]
Besides the Department of Justice's justice.gov, the Denial of Service attack included Universal Music Group, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), and the website of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Even without SOPA having been passed yet, the federal government always had tremendous power to do some of the things that they want to do. So if this is what can occur without SOPA being passed, imagine what can occur after SOPA is passed,” Brown told RT. Anonymous also attacked the website of France's anti-piracy organisation.[11]
On 19 January 2012 Anonymous released a statement on Pastebin.com accepting responsibility of the mass attacks on websites including those of RIAA, MPAA, BMI, FBI and others.[12]
Megaupload Media
The first page of the indictment, listing the defendants
References
- ↑ Sinha, Champ. "UploadFiles Releases Free Completely New Service In Order To Share Files Online". 7 December 2010. Release-news.com. Retrieved 9 December 2010.[dead link]
- ↑ "MEGAUPLOAD - the leading online storage and file delivery service". Archived from the original on 2011-05-11. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "NOTICE". Archived from the original on 2012-09-06. Retrieved 2010-12-09.
- ↑ [1] Google saying its the top 1000
- ↑ Kang, Cecilia. "Megaupload lawyer Q&A on DOJ criminal case". 20 January 2012. The Washington Post. Retrieved 21 January 2012.
- ↑ "Four Megaupload personnels arrested in New Zealand". 19 January 2012.
- ↑ "Jailed MegaUpload Employees Denied Bail". 20 January 2012.
- ↑ Yung, Chester (January 21, 2012). "Hong Kong Freezes Megaupload Assets". The Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577174362457114578.html?mod=googlenews_wsj. Retrieved January 21, 2012.
- ↑ Anonymous in revenge attack for MegaUpload shutdown. http://blogs.ft.com/fttechhub/2012/01/anonymous-megaupload-ddos/#axzz1k55k0F00.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Internet strikes back: Anonymous' Operation Megaupload explained – RT". Rt.com. Archived from the original on 25 January 2012. Retrieved 20 January 2012.
- ↑ "Hackers bring down French anti-piracy site". The Local. 20 January 2012. Retrieved 20 January 2012.
- ↑ "Anonymous post on Pastebin". Archived from the original on 2012-07-19. Retrieved 2012-01-21.
Other websites
- Official website Archived 2009-09-30 at the Wayback Machine