[148752] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Megaupload.com seized
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kevin Day)
Sat Jan 21 15:23:22 2012
From: Kevin Day <toasty@dragondata.com>
In-Reply-To: <20120121121149.GA14055@gsp.org>
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:22:33 -0600
To: Rich Kulawiec <rsk@gsp.org>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Jan 21, 2012, at 6:11 AM, Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 03:06:04PM -0500, Ricky Beam wrote:
>> Upon receiving notice a file is infinging, they know that *file*
>> is illegal, and must now remove all the links to it, not just the
>> one that was reported. =20
>=20
> But what -- *exactly* -- is an "illegal file"?
>=20
> As Leo Bicknell astutely pointed out in this thread:
>=20
> "Also, when using a hashed file store, it's possible that
> some uses are infringing and some are not."
This is a personal anecdote, and I'm not really trying to take sides in =
this. But I think what Megaupload's problem was that when they were told =
that a specific file was not authorized to be distributed at all, they =
claimed they couldn't stop their users from reuploading it, could only =
prevent distribution of the file if you were somehow able to give them a =
list of all their URLs that held identical copies, etc.
We had a client that had some data stolen - a laptop was physically =
stolen, and data from it uploaded to Megaupload. She jumped through the =
DMCA hoops to get them to take it down, they took more than 72 hours to =
finally remove it, and less than an hour later the same data was =
uploaded again. Another 72 hour wait to get them to remove it, rinse, =
repeat. We finally contacted someone there directly on our client's =
behalf, who insisted they had no ability to block specific =
files/hashes/etc -OR- locate additional identical copies on their =
system. If they didn't have this ability, it was because they were =
specifically trying not to, since they admitted elsewhere they hash =
everything that comes in to save space/time on their side, and writing =
something to block based on a hash they were already making would fall =
under pretty trivial work.
Which may have been the MPAA/RIAA/etc's issue with them as opposed to =
Dropbox/etc. With Megaupload it was like playing whack-a-mole trying to =
get something removed, they kept trying to say with a straight face they =
couldn't stop it from happening, and actually paid uploaders of popular =
files to keep doing it. I'm not defending the practices of the copyright =
nazis, but Megaupload was frustratingly difficult to deal with in what =
should have been a very simple "The owner/creator of this file has not =
authorized it to be distributed anywhere, don't allow it on your service =
again" request.
