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ONE OF THE world’s biggest file-sharing websites has been shut down following a major action against piracy by the US Department of Justice and the FBI.
In another Hollywood versus the Internet row, the movie industry had claimed that the site was making money off pirated material.
According to the US indictment, the founder Kim Dotcom (formerly Kim Schmitz) earned $42 million last year. He was arrested in New Zealand last night, along with three of the site’s other operators.
MegaUpload’s subsidiary site MegaVideo has also been closed.
MegaVideo was particularly popular in Ireland as television shows that don’t air here until weeks (or months) after they are shown in the US could be watched as soon as they were broadcast.
Worldwide, MegaUploads sites had about 150 million users and 50 million daily hits.
Hosted sites
Although the company is based in Hong Kong, US prosecutors took action as some of the alleged pirated content was hosted on leased servers in Virginia.
The US told New Zealand authorities that those arrested facilitated millions of illegal downloads of films, music and other content. Prosecutors claim that the copyright holders could have lost at least half a billion dollars as a result.
During the raids at several properties, New Zealand police seized guns, artwork, $8 million in case and luxury cars.
Extradition proceedings have already started in New Zealand today. The presiding judge asked photographers to stop using their cameras but Dotcom insisted they were allowed to take photos.
He added that there was “nothing to hide”.
Hacking
Self-labelled internet protectors retaliated to the news of the shutdown by hacking into the Justice Department’s website. Anonymous claimed responsibility for the attack, which left the site down for hours.
The act is being treated as “malicious”, federal official said. The website of Motion Picture Association of America was also attacked.
The FBI, Universal Music, RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and Hadopi – a French government agency – were also on the ‘hitlist’.
Sky News reports that the anarchistic group has warned that it has launched what will be its biggest ever attack on US government sites and other European targets.
They are calling the loosely coordinated attacks #OpMegaUpload.
-Additional reporting by AP
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Bloody hell. It would be a shame to see Board Gais Theatre closed down :(
It’s the companies that own the bricks and mortar. The theatre is operated and managed by Live Nation.
As Brian said – the companies are only concerned with the ownership of the premises and not their operation.
Both companies are continuing to trade as normal.
Four Hundred and Fifty Million !!!
Hard to believe that 7-8 years ago these were numbers we were kind of used to hearing been branded around for this an that, now it just sounds like gizillions, you’d buy half of Dublin for that kinda money these days
You wouldn’t really
it really does sound like a lot of money
IRELAND RIP!!… Would the last one out please turn off the lights!!!
Well by the holy. I’ve never heard that one before.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
i remember watching an interview with Harry Crosbie bosting about the venues were fully funded and would not be affected by the downturn etc,etc.
guess it was all spin.
Thought the Point would have paid for itself many times over by now.
Again, just for the benefit of readers: The O2 (the former Point Theatre) is not affected by, or involved in any way with, these proceedings.
Nothing is ever what it appears when receivers are involved.
Are peoples tickets for upcoming shows ok ?
Yes – perfectly. All the operations are continuing their operations uninterrupted.
The low hanging fruit has been plucked and now the root’s are being attacked .
We have a bit to go yet by the looks of things
have your say