I’ve read through the Megaupload Indictment, and I’m not terribly impressed by the case presented by the U.S. government. Not when there are items like these to be found throughout it:
In approximately April 2006, members of the Mega Conspiracy copied videos directly from Youtube.com to make them available on Megavideo.com.
So? Were these copied videos copyrighted and the licensing ignored, were the licenses followed, or were they in the public domain?
On or about August 31, 2006, VAN DER KOLK sent an e-mail to an associate entitled “lol”. Attached to the message was a screenshot of a Megaupload.com file download page for the file “Alcohol 120 1.9.5 3105complete.rar” with a description of “Alcohol 120, con crack!!!! By ChaOtiX!”. The copyrighted software “Alcohol 120” is a CD/DVD burning software program sold by www.alcohol-soft.com.
The last time I checked, it wasn’t illegal to possess CD/DVD burning software. More germane to this investigation, did they actually use it to make unlicensed copies and distribute them? Or, was this email possibly even a joke? Again, there’s no context given.
On or about November 13, 2006, VAN DER KOLK sent an e-mail to another individual that contained 100 Megaupload.com links to infringing copies of copyrighted musical recordings by the artist Armin van Buuren.
But why did he send them? And who did he send them to? For all I know, he sent them to an individual at a recording company to verify they were infringing. Or maybe he was pirating them. Again, no context is given to tell.
And on and on and on, for 72 pages. It’s amazing the government’s case is so slipshod after they’ve apparently been collecting and sifting through email from megaupload for years. That long-term surveillance suggests a fairly high priority was given this case. Unless they’re hiding a ton of documents, or the emails are much worse then the indictment suggests, the D.O.J. is going to have a hard time proving their claims of racketeering and laundering. Given that, it’s stunning that New Zealand (who took a NZ$10 million bribe for granting Dotcom citizenship there – maybe they were pressured like Spain was) arrested him and several other members of the company, seized everything, and are preparing to extradite them all to the U.S.A. I’m sure these aren’t nice people, and they’ve probably committed some offense or other. However, no trial has been held, extradition hasn’t even occurred yet – no due process has been followed to the end! All of those assets were seized merely on the accusation of the U.S. government.
The hell with the arguments of infringement vs. theft. This is exactly the kind of nightmare scenario that many people have predicted SOPA/PIPA would bring about: an entire site taken down, instead of just the infringing content. And it’s already happening before the legislation has been voted on. (It’s actually been going on since at least June 2010). An entire site has been shut down wholesale, many people have lost legitimate content, and the effect is already having a chilling effect on all file-sharing sites, no matter their perceived legitimacy by Hollywood – which gives further strength to arguments about the current “intellectual property” regime having chilling effects on innovation.
A more important issue that also falls under the jurisdiction of I.C.E. is counterfeit drugs. 60 Minutes did a story about this growing problem. In it, David Elder, from the F.D.A, said their resources haven’t been able to keep up with the increase in volume of counterfeit drugs coming into the country through the mail.
“We don’t have the authority to actually destroy this on site. This product could very well come back into the country through a different mail facility. Maybe it gets through, maybe it gets stopped.”
“But they’re banking on one of these times, you’re going to miss.”
“Yeah. I think they are.”
FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said “40% of drugs taken in this country come from other countries. 80% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients in drugs takin in this country actually come from other countries.” The show then discussed Heparin, which once had one of it’s ingredients that comes from China replaced with a counterfeit ingredient. That resulted in over 80 deaths just in the USA. “Drug companies say they already have their own systems in place to protect their supply chains”. Yet “the company [that makes Heparin] told [60 Minutes] in a letter that the counterfeit ingredient so closely mimicked heperin that it was able to evade the quality control systems and regulatory oversight of more than a dozen companies and nearly a dozen countries.”
Now, I’m no fan of China, especially with their human rights record. But consider this: among the leaked wikileaks was one about Apple’s late attempts at dealing with piracy in China. The article described China’s priorities when it came to fighting various piracy and counterfeiting rings:
Chinese officials readily cooperated with pharmaceutical companies on their raids, but that hasn’t translated to software, as Microsoft has discovered, or electronics, as Apple is learning, said Nachum, the professor. Whereas a defective pill could cause sickness or death, a shoddy iPod has less dire consequences.
Our government has the wrong set of priorities: Instead of regulating the biggest pirates (the bankers) and the worst pirates (counterfeit prescription drug makers), they surveil an internet file-sharing company for years, on the say-so of the entertainment industry, and abuse all due process in their attempts to save $500 million in lost potential profits. Apparently, that $500 million is more important than justice for those 80 people’s lives, or preventing another incident like the one that killed them.
Tags: Piracy
