The Theory behind Megaupload’s Shutdown

January 27, 2012 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services, Legal P2P News & Issues 

Not long after Megaupload was seized by the FBI, all sort of theories started to circulate the web, trying to explain the reasons of such a drastic action, and most of all to answer a simple question: Why Megaupload?

One of these theories makes the most sense. Digital Music News reported last December that Megaupload’s management was planning to release a new service meant to shake the world of music industry from its grounds, MegaBox. According to the article, MegaBox was about to be an cloud-based alternative music store, offering the artists a better deal in comparison to the record labels. At that time, Kim Dotcom told to DMN that the site will soon accommodate artists, offering them the possibility to sell their work directly to consumers while keeping 90% of the earnings.

Furthermore, Megaupload was about to pay the artists even if the content was downloaded for free. Kim also told DMN that the business model proved to be successful after being tested with a million users.

Such claims may be very well explaining why Megaupload had the support of many big artists prior to its abysmal fall.
If this is true, and it looks quite credible, then the seizure of Megaupload was just an attempt to stop an alternative business model that would have ended an era; and people, especially those with big money, don’t like such drastic changes.

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RapidShare Rolls Out iPhone App

January 26, 2012 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Digital Media, Mobile Phones, P2P technology, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services 

Earlier this week RapidShare has made available for all mobile filesharers out there its iPhone app. With it users will be able to manage their files on the go and have access to a number of multimedia features including the possibility to have directly displayed and played within the app  music, images and videos .

The announcement made by RapidShare CEO, Alexandra Zwingli, reads: „The iPhone app expands our supply of services onto the mobile sector. This app is only one further step in our process of continuously improving our service in the best interests of our customers.”

From the press release:

“An integrated file-manager as well as playlists and bookmarks help to manage data easily and fast. Furthermore, uploaded or saved data can be sent out from the application to e-mail contacts.

RapidShare offers two application versions: Customers with a RapidPro account receive a free version, users without a RapidPro account will be charged 3,99 €.”

For those who think they’ll install the app and download everything they want, the AppStore description might be clarifying enough:

” With this app your documents, pictures, videos and music files are always online accessible. Manage
your files quickly and easily. Send, play and/or display all common file formats directly on your mobile device.”

Next month the company will also launch a mobile application for the iPad.

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Swizz Beatz May Face FBI Questioning

January 26, 2012 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services 

As the file-sharing community mourns the passing of Megaupload, Swizz Beatz – husband of Alicia Keys and CEO of the former file-sharing website – may be questioned by the Federal Bureau Of Investigation. At this point it seems crucial for the current investigation to establish the rapper’s role into this whole business, as US officials claim $175 million in damage.

After Friday’s massive takedown operation (the largest criminal copyright case in U.S. history) seven Megaupload executives were indicted. Kim Dotcom – M.U.’s founder – has denied the charges and is fighting extradition claims after his arrest in New Zealand.

Albeit the company’s documents show that Beatz has no ownership whatsoever of Megaupload, he was listed as CEO on the site and had promoted the service through promotional videos. Last Saturday Ira Rothken – representing Megaupload – said that Beatz was “never involved in a meaningful way” and was simply “in conversations to be named CEO”.  But the New York Post begs to differ, claiming that the rapper was Megaupload’s CEO for almost a year.

“This appears to be a situation where Swizz agreed to be the CEO … without first doing his due diligence about the company,” a source told the paper.

The 33 year old artist “expects to be questioned by the FBI”, according to the Post, and may hire a criminal defense lawyer. Anyone that’s found guilty in this massive lawsuit faces 50 years sentence in prison.

Swizz Beatz, real name Kasseem Dean, is one of hip-hop’s shiniest stars, starting in the 90’s with producing tracks for DMX, Jay-Z and Busta Rhymes. He’s also released two solo albums, and produced tracks by Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z and Kanye West.

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Download Physical Objects?! Why not, Says The Pirate Bay

January 25, 2012 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, File-Sharing Programs, Networks & Services 

From the Piracy is Theft Series: ‘You wouldn’t download a car, would you ? Aaa…Yes, I would!‘

Despite recent rather unfortunate  events in the filesharing world (Megaupload being closed and Filesonic giving up on file-sharing ) ThePirateBay announced on Monday a new feature available for its users – the downloading of physical objects, Gigaom reports.

TPB has introduced a new content category called “Physibles”, where users are able to download digital designs that can be used with 3-D printers in order to recreate physical objects. The announcement was made through their blog and reads:

“We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare sparts for your vehicles. You will download your sneakers within 20 years.”

However, TPB is not the first website to offer such services as Thingverse has been doing this for quite some time. Nonetheless, TPB’s “Physibles” contains a handful of designs, and insiders think that this new development is big enough to even change the name of the portal into The Product Bay:

“We believe that the future of sharing is about physible data. We’re thinking of temporarily renaming ourselves to The Product Bay – but we had no graphical artist around to make a logo. In the future, we’ll download one.”

Whether “physibles” will have the same success as good old torrenting or not is to be seen. What’s certain is that this would complicate even more the copyright debates.

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Brazil Disclosed as One Of Megaupload’s Top Users

January 25, 2012 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Announcements & Events, Entertainment Industry, Legal P2P News & Issues 

The aftermath of Megaupload being shut down by the US Justice Department is rather cataclysmic, as the repercussions extend beyond MPAA’s wildest imagination.

Global attacks on the interweb were launched as a sign of protest and anger (read our article about Anonymous’ actions). A lot of these hacking actions took place in Brazil as well, where more than 100 government websites were blocked during the weekend, among whom Brazilian sites of Visa, Mastercard, and Paula Fernandes a rising pop singer and songwriter phenomenon.

As one may wonder why Brazil should be the target of these attacks, DomainTools – an internet analytics website – provided the answer by showing that Megaupload had 8,4% of its traffic coming from Brazil, after France with 10,3%. Yet another study, conducted by Sandvine, shows that the file-sharing website had 11,39% of all internet traffic from Brazil.

During the years Brazil has been harshly criticized for failing to protect intellectual property, despite some of the country’s efforts to curb piracy; reportedly,  CDs and DVDs are still to be found on the streets markets.

However, Brazil is facing its own version of SOPA, but recent events (SOPA and PIPA losing ground) had made the pubic think again about the issues of the legislation.

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