Pelanggaran Hak Cipta, menjadi palu bagi pemerintah Amerika untuk menggebuk situs file sharing besar MegaUpload.com. Hari ini situs megaupload sudah tak bisa di akses. Entah ada hubungannya dengan undang-undang yang sedang ramai yaitu SOPA dan PIPA Bills, atau tidak yang jelas the FEDs sudah mengeluarkan surat penangkapan sejak tanggal 5 Januari 2012. Dilaporkan bahwa situs MegaUpload memiliki banyak domain yang disebut sebagai 'Konspirasi Mega'. Server situs file sharing yang berdiri sejak tahun 2005 ini menghasilkan laba lebih dari 175 juta dollar, kebanyakan laba berasal dari praktek pelanggaran hak cipta dan ada indikasi pencucian uang.
19 Januari 2012 situs MegaUpload.com sudah tak bisa lagi di akses dan ditutup oleh FBI. Polisi Selandia Baru pun menangkap 4 orang pekerja penting di situs ini termasuk Kim DotCom. Karyawan situs Mega Upload dibayar dengan maksimal kalau tidak bisa dikatakan berlebihan. Misalnya salah satu karyawannya seorang penduduk Slovakia, berusia 35 tahun, Julius Bencko mendapatkan penghasilan sebesar 1 juta dollar pada tahun 2010.
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The individuals and two corporations – Megaupload Limited and Vestor Limited – were indicted by a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia on Jan. 5, 2012, and charged with engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement. The individuals each face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on the charge of conspiracy to commit racketeering, five years in prison on the charge of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, 20 years in prison on the charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering and five years in prison on each of the substantive charges of criminal copyright infringement.
The indictment alleges that the criminal enterprise is led by Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, 37, a resident of both Hong Kong and New Zealand. Dotcom founded Megaupload Limited and is the director and sole shareholder of Vestor Limited, which has been used to hold his ownership interests in the Mega-affiliated sites.
In addition, the following alleged members of the Mega conspiracy were charged in the indictment:
- Finn Batato, 38, a citizen and resident of Germany, who is the chief marketing officer;
- Julius Bencko, 35, a citizen and resident of Slovakia, who is the graphic designer;
- Sven Echternach, 39, a citizen and resident of Germany, who is the head of business development;
- Mathias Ortmann, 40, a citizen of Germany and resident of both Germany and Hong Kong, who is the chief technical officer, co-founder and director;
- Andrus Nomm, 32, a citizen of Estonia and resident of both Turkey and Estonia, who is a software programmer and head of the development software division;
- Bram van der Kolk, aka Bramos, 29, a Dutch citizen and resident of both the Netherlands and New Zealand, who oversees programming and the underlying network structure for the Mega conspiracy websites.
Dotcom, Batato, Ortmann and van der Kolk were arrested today in Auckland, New Zealand, by New Zealand authorities, who executed provisional arrest warrants requested by the United States. Bencko, Echternach and Nomm remain at large. Today, law enforcement also executed more than 20 search warrants in the United States and eight countries, seized approximately $50 million in assets and targeted sites where Megaupload has servers in Ashburn, Va., Washington, D.C., the Netherlands and Canada. In addition, the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., ordered the seizure of 18 domain names associated with the alleged Mega conspiracy.
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Kutipan surat edaran dari Pengadilan Amerika di atas pada 19 Januari 2012 : 'Justice Department Charges Leaders of Megaupload with Widespread Online Copyright Infringement' dikeluarkan menindaklanjuti Surat yang dikeluarkan Pengadilan Virginia di sini. Kasus ini adalah kasus besar dan di sebut sebagai 'Mega Conspiracy' dimana ada 20 orang akan masuk dalam daftar pencarian orang di berbagai negara seperti Amerika, Belanda, Inggris, Philipina, Hongkong, Jerman, dan Kanada. Arstechnica menulis 'Why the feds smashed Megaupload' tentang kekayaan para pemilik Megapload yang diantaranya memiliki 14 Mercedez Benz dengan plat nomor yang aneh-aneh:
#333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">The indictment goes after six individuals, who between them owned 14 Mercedes-Benz automobiles with license plates such as "POLICE," "MAFIA," "V," "STONED," "CEO," "HACKER," GOOD," "EVIL," and—perhaps presciently—"GUILTY." The group also had a 2010 Maserati, a 2008 Rolls-Royce, and a 1989 Lamborghini. They had not one but three Samsung 83" TVs, and two Sharp 108" TVs. Someone owned a "Predator statue." Motor bikes, jet skis, artwork, and even 60 Dell servers could all be forfeit to the government if it can prove its case against the members of the "Mega Conspiracy."
Tak ada lagi ampun untuk pelanggaran hak cipta
Megaupload.com memiliki 523 server yang di tangani sendiri di Virginia, dan 600an server di Belanda dan banyak lagi tersebar di berbagai negara di dunia. Situs file sharing ini mengaku memiliki tool untuk mendeteksi pelanggaran hak cipta, dan terdaftar secara resmi di DMCA dan Pemerintah Amerika Serikat. Megaupload juga memberikan hak khusus bagi pemilik konten berhak cipta, memiliki kerjasama dengan Universal Music Group untuk lisensi konten. Pada akhir tahun 2011, Kim Dotcom CEO Megaupload mengirimkan email galau kepada PayPal:
Our legal team in the US is currently preparing to sue some of our competitors and expose their criminal activity. We like to give you a heads up and advice [sic] you not to work with sites that are known to pay up loaders for pirated content. They are damaging the image and the existence of the file hosting industry (see what's happening with the Protect IP Act). Look at Fileserve.com, Videobb.com, Filesonic.com, Wupload.com, Uploadstation.com. These sites pay everyone (no matter if the files are pirated or not) and have NO repeat infringer policy. And they are using PayPal to pay infringers.
Semua log yang ada tercatat dan diketahui oleh Pemerintah AS, tentang bagaimana tools anti pembajakan yang tak berkerja, tools ini hanya menghilangkan alamat url download saja, sementara file masih ada. Dan tentu saja staff megaupload mengetahuinya. Pemerintah AS juga mengetahui bahwa staff Megaupload sendiripun suka mengunggah file yang berhak cipta seperti film-film dokumenter BBC.Bahkan untuk menghilangkan file ber-hak cipta di batasi hanya 5000 file perhari.
In a 2008 chat, one employee noted that "we have a funny business... modern days [sic] pirates :)," to which the reply was, "we're not pirates, we're just providing shipping servies [sic] to pirates :)."
Employees send each other e-mails saying things like, “can u pls get me some links to the series called ‘Seinfeld’ from MU [Megaupload]," since some employees did have access to a private internal search engine.
Employees even allegedly uploaded content themselves, such as a BBC Earth episode uploaded in 2008.
Other messages appear to indicate that employees knew how important copyrighted content was to their business. Content owners had a specific number of takedown requests they could make each day; in 2009, for instance, Time Warner was allowed to use the abuse tool to remove 2,500 links per day. When the company requested an increase, one employee suggested that "we can afford to be cooperative at current growth levels"— implying that if growth had not been so robust, takedowns should be limited. Kim Dotcom approved an increase to 5,000 takedowns a day.
Bisnis ini jadi sangat mengerikan apabila tidak di pandang dengan bijaksana, tuduhannya kriminal. Namun bagaimana bisa menyambungkan dengan strategi bisnis yang sehat, ketika kompetisi adalah dalam hal trafik, views, iklan dan premium konten. Jelas sekali ketidakadilan akan sangat merata bila tidak ada solusi yang bijak tentang hal ini. Bagaimana bisa membandingkan dengan sebelum adanya teknologi digital, ketika pentas musik dan sandiwara harus dilihat secara live, belum ada rekaman. Dan saat ini dengan teknologi internet dan digital, mendengar musik dan melihat video film dengan kualitas yang hampir sama dengan bioskop dan pentas musik itu sendiri cukup dapat dilakukan dengan sebuah flashdisk kecil. mp3 player, atau tablet.
Produsen produk teknologi harus bisa mencari laba atas riset dan produk barunya, sementara produsen konten seni, tetap dengan biaya yang sangat mahal untuk membuat karya seninya. Jika tidak terlalu angkara mungkin semuanya akan dapat dengan adil, namun bukan dengan kekayaan yang demikian dahsyat. Sementara di kasus konspirasi mega ini megaupload hanyalah sebuah tempat atau pasar, atau perahu untuk mengantarkan para bajak laut menjual barang hasil bajakannya. Mungkin iya mungkin juga tidak, pemerintah atau badan peradilan tidak dapat begitu saja menurunkan keputusan, sebagaimana harus ada pihak ketiga seperti Universal Music Group dan lain sebagainya apakah benar kejahatan hak cipta yang dilakukan.
The MPAA doesn't have any doubts, though. "By all estimates, Megaupload.com is the largest and most active criminally operated website targeting creative content in the world," it said in a statement. "This criminal case, more than two years in development, shows that law enforcement can take strong action to protect American intellectual property stolen through sites housed in the United States."
Jadi mungkin YouTube juga akan sepi dengan konten-konten baru yang bagus, dan pengunggahnya bukan lagi user Google namun para provider konten sendiri tersebut yang pastinya membutuhkan layanan premium untuk dapat diakses, dengan arti kata 'berbayar'. Internet akan berubah di Amerika, namun mungkin tidak di negara lain, atau entah, mungkin nanti susunan kata atau kalimat pun jika hampir sama akan diadukan dan dianggap plagiat atau pelanggaran hak cipta. Jadi mau apalagi, keadilan memang bukan sembarang manusia yang bisa memikirkannya. #mdrcct
Arstechnica | Justice Department Charges Leaders of Megaupload with Widespread Online Copyright Infringement
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 USA vs Kim Dotcom | 974.78 KB |
