Why is megaupload different from ford, dodge, chevy?

[Texashiker]

even when evidence is brought forth that your renters are crack dealers...

Depending on the law of the land, people are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Just because someone has been accused of breaking the law does not mean they are guilty.

Do you get to continue renting housing to crack dealers?

So you evict an innocent person?

Remember, innocent until proven guilty.

 

[biostud]

Cars would be illegal as well if 90% of usage was drug transport, but since it's probably .00001%, then the best way to prevent drug transport is not to make cars illegal.

 

[nonlnear]

Cars would be illegal as well if 90% of usage was drug transport, but since it's probably .00001%, then the best way to prevent drug transport is not to make cars illegal.

No. Case in point: dimebags.

 

[janas19]

OP, in my opinion it's all about public perception, power, and people.

If cars were only used by a tiny segment of the population for one specific demographic, as Megaupload arguably is, they would probably be the target of government wrath as well.

As it is, cars are such a fundamental and engrained segment of our civilization, that your argument is actually considered absurd.

Perception.

 

[woolfe9999]

Auto makers maintain no control of their product once it is off the show room floor. No control, and no knowledge of how the product is used. The opposite is true with Megaupload. Under the law, intent, knowledge and control matter. The analogy is a 100% fail.

 

[Tom]

Is there something wrong with knowingly renting a house to a crack dealer?
It may be a bad business move, but if it is illegal to provide a person lodging just because they break the law then the law is wrong.

no not really. there's a difference between the real world, which the law is part of, and pretending that people don't know what they are doling.

Who cares anyway ? They offered no legitimate service that isn't available from honest people.

 

[nonlnear]

no not really. there's a difference between the real world, which the law is part of, and pretending that people don't know what they are doling.

Who cares anyway ? They offered no legitimate service that isn't available from honest people.

I strongly disagree with the bolded clause.

 

[Texashiker]

Auto makers maintain no control of their product once it is off the show room floor. No control, and no knowledge of how the product is used.

Cigarette companies should not be held responsible when smoking contributes to cancer?

Asbestos companies should not be held responbile when asbestos contributes to lung disease?

Companies that produced agent orange should not be held responsible?

After all, those companies have no control of how their products are used.

 

[modestninja]

Cigarette companies should not be held responsible when smoking contributes to cancer?

Asbestos companies should not be held responbile when asbestos contributes to lung disease?

Companies that produced agent orange should not be held responsible?

After all, those companies have no control of how their products are used.

Wow, those are terrible analogies...

Anyway, there are internal memos showing that the management of Megauploads predicated their whole business model on being a haven for illegal downloads and that they actively encouraged such activity. AFAIK, none of the car companies depend on illegal drug smuggling to turn a profit and none of them go out and encourage smugglers to use their vehicles.

 

[gevorg]

Because Megaupload did not have a major lobbying group and connections in Washington, no unionized workers with their retirement taken care of, and barely payed any taxes to US government. Megaupload was a leach and a perfect target to be eaten alive. It doesn't matter whether it was right or wrong to take Megaupload down, might makes right.

 

[Texashiker]

Wow, those are terrible analogies...

woolfe9999 said that if its out of the companies control, then the company should not be responsible.

We can not apply one set of standards to one company, and another set of standards to another company.

~ EDIT ~

If megaupload contributed to piracy, and cigarettes contribute to cancer, when can we expect to see the CEOs of tobacco companies arrested?

 

[nonlnear]

Auto makers maintain no control of their product once it is off the show room floor. No control, and no knowledge of how the product is used.

This is still largely true, but it won't be for long. I give it 20 years tops and this will not be the case at all. Of course that depends on how privacy legislation shakes out, but I don't have much faith that it will come out in favor of individual privacy in the USA.

The opposite is true with Megaupload. Under the law, intent, knowledge and control matter. The analogy is a 100% fail.

I definitely prefer the landlord analogy to the car maker.

 

[DominionSeraph]

The closest I can see to make the comparison semi apples to apples is a leased vehicle.

Much better is a trucking company:
"Load whatever you want onto our trucks and we'll ship it anywhere -- no checking, and questions asked."
Of course it's going to be used for illegal transfers. It's actively set up to court them. For the company to maintain the practices which court illegal transfers when they know they're engaged in illegal transfers shows that they have no intention of coming in compliance with the law, so they really can't maintain that their focus is on legal shipping.

Megaupload knew that copyrighted works were being uploaded and so they knew their servers were being used to break copyright on download. They were breaking the law and they took no steps whatsoever to stop. They have no legal protections like ISP's do for through traffic, so they were reliant on a mere screen of privacy to shield them -- "You can't look into our servers so you can't catch us!" Too bad search warrants rip through that screen.

It's shitty that such a useful tool as free file sharing has no protections, so perhaps we should contact our congressmen. I think if a site were to be set up with a privacy policy that would allow the police access to its DB to track down copyright violations on its servers, it should be immune to its part in the infringing ring.

 

[Doppel]

There is some degree of validity to OP's question. I think the devil is in the details. Most cars are used for legal activities most of the time. Perhaps Megaupload was mostly copyrighted stuff and perhaps they knew it and perhaps they could have done something but didn't.

 

[ericlp]

The question you should be asking yourself is why target megaupload when there are TONS of other file sites just like them that move data just as fast. Why didn't they get shut down? They carry the same content. Why is bit torrent sites allowed to be in operation? 90% of the material carried is copyrighted BS. So....

I think this was a message sent to the rest of the world to show that America can do ANYTHING it wants and has the power to do it.

 

[dmcowen674]

The case with megaupload is that the site allowed people to break the law with copyright infringement.

Why is megaupload any different then say ford, dodge, chevy, toyota,,, vehicles that are used to transport illegal drugs?

I know we are talking about two different things here - copyright infringement vs a physical crime. But both are where people broke the law.

Why is copyright infringement held to a higher level then drug dealing?

If megaupload was shutdown because people used it to break the law, why isn't dodge, chevy, toyota,,,, shutdown because people use those vehicles to transport drugs?

When someone uses a chevy truck to try to smuggle drugs into the US, why don't the federal marshals arrest the CEO of GM?

Its not like megaupload was invented for copyright infringement, its not like ford was invented to transport drugs. But shouldn't the companies be held to the same standard?

You must be young

White collar crime is more of a threat to Corporate profits than blue collar crime.

It's always, always, always about the money.

 

[Texashiker]

You must be young

White collar crime is more of a threat to Corporate profits than blue collar crime.

I am 44 years old

 

[Mxylplyx]

You are searching for technicalities to dodge the truth which you very well know. Megaupload and it's founder willfully facilitated the distribution of copyrighted materials, which resulted in significant harm to the creators of said materials.