Re:Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year
by rtpg on Monday February 16, 2015 @08:27AM
(#9056782)
Megaupload was not your plausible deniability-sort of file upload service.
There is loads of evidence of the Megaupload team getting a bunch of copyrighted content and putting it up there. The team themselves. Can't really hide behind safe harbor with that.
If I were handing out burned DVDs of movies to people, I'd probably get arrested too (even if selling DVD burning equipment would be fine).
Re:Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year
by blowski on Monday February 16, 2015 @08:43AM
(#9056845)
I agree. There really is no question that the folks working on MegaUpload knew that it would be used predominantly for illegally sharing copyrighted material. The questions are whether that should be illegal, what it means to do something in one country that's accessible but illegal in another, and how it should be punishable.
As I see it, employees of Megaupload must have known the risks they were running, so we can't say it's unfair to punish them. We should be actively pushing for legal framework regarding the sharing of copyrighted material, instead of just whining about the punishment meted out to those who took advantage of the current chaos.
Re:Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year
by tomp on Monday February 16, 2015 @08:45AM
(#9056854)
That has nothing to do with my post. I just said that the damage Madoff did was an order of magnitude worse than what Mega did.
Re:Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year
by blowski on Monday February 16, 2015 @08:55AM
(#9056895)
And Madoff received a prison sentence that was greater by an order of magnitude. Nomm got 1 year, Madoff got 150.
Re:Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year
by easytiger on Tuesday February 17, 2015 @06:31AM
(#9061646)
That's revenge, not socially progressive justice. I'm sure there is something better that could have been done with BM to help society other than put him in prison. For instance serving elderly people tea and biscuits or such
One undermined the public's confidence in the strength, fairness and security of financial institutions, the other made some rich people not any richer.