Megaupload Pushes Back

Megaupload is a provider of cloud storage services. The company's primary website, Megaupload.com, offered a popular Internet-based storage platform for customers, who ranged from large businesses to individuals. This storage platform allowed its users to store files in the Internet "cloud" and to use, if needed, online storage space and bandwidth. Through Megaupload, users were able to upload and store data securely, and to access data from any location via the Internet. Megaupload and cloud services of this kind have important and substantial non-infringing uses. − 3NewsNZ.com

Dominant Social Theme: This large man is a big criminal. Hollywood says so.

Free-Market Analysis: Megaupload's Kim Dotcom has recorded a video song protesting his arrest and Megaupload's apparent demise, posted at his MrKimDotcom YouTube user channel: "Kim Dotcom − Mr. President."

At Dotcom's website, www.kim.com, he explains what happened to his company from his point of view. He writes:

Megaupload is a provider of cloud storage services. The company's primary website, Megaupload.com, offered a popular Internet-based storage platform for customers, who ranged from large businesses to individuals. This storage platform allowed its users to store files in the Internet "cloud" and to use, if needed, online storage space and bandwidth.

Through Megaupload, users were able to upload and store data securely, and to access data from any location via the Internet. Megaupload and cloud services of this kind have important and substantial non-infringing uses.

For example, an individual user may use cloud storage for personal data storage and backup. Through a cloud storage service, the user's files—whether pictures, documents, music, or video—are available for his use from any location.

The user can send files to friends, business associates, and family via a unique link that are too large to transmit via email and has access to his files at any time. Businesses benefit from cloud storage by offloading data storage responsibility to a cloud service provider, allowing the organization to collaborate over the Internet.

Megaupload databases revealed that nearly every large corporation, organization and government used Megaupload - from the US Congress to folks in Hollywood. Of course, millions of individual users used Megaupload as well.

Megaupload, similar to other large cloud storage providers that rely on efficient data storage like Dropbox, was designed to store a single useable copy of each unique file uploaded to its servers. If multiple users uploaded identical files, Megaupload would retain one instance of the file, and generate a unique link for each individual user, called a Uniform Resource Locator ("URL"). One user might choose to keep his unique link private; another user might wish to share his link with others via email or by embedding it in a webpage such as a blog post.

The Government's case against Megaupload Limited ("Megaupload") rests on a host of novel theories of criminal liability for copyright infringement.

These theories extend U.S. copyright laws well beyond their intended reach, their territorial scope and the limits of the Constitution.

The Government, at its core, wants to hold Megaupload criminally responsible for the acts of third party cloud storage users and such mass secondary copyright infringement cannot be found in any federal criminal statute.

In essence the Government is attempting to use "civil law" claims in a criminal prosecution context which is not permitted.

You can see some of our articles here:

"Is the Case Against Megaupload Coming Apart?" 

"Megaupload's Planned Music Locker - Example of Private Justice?"

He has released an interview as well. 'I will fight this and win' ...

Watch that here:

(Video from 3NEWSNZ's YouTube user channel.)