Wednesday, January 25th 2012
Why Big Media Really Shut Down MegaUpload: To Kill The Competition
Judging by a report on TechCrunch reporting on a new (conspiracy?) theory why MegaUpload was really shut down, it appears that MegaUpload was on the verge of launching a new business model for artists, which would have blasted the likes of the RIAA and the big music companies they represent into irrelevance. That of course, they could not allow. The 'piracy' argument was a smokescreen.
MegaUpload, founded by Kim Dotcom, was about to launch a new music store and DIY distribution service called Megabox, which would have completely disrupted the established music industry. MegaUpload was in a legal war with the RIAA & MPAA, with MegaUpload having just sued Universal Music Group for wrongly blocking their recent star-studded YouTube campaign and things were getting very ugly indeed. However, it looks like the quiet launch of Megabox would have been a step too far, so they tore MegaUpload apart. TechCrunch explains how Megabox would have worked:
"Dotcom described Megabox as Megaupload's iTunes competitor, which would even eventually offer free premium movies via Megamovie, a site set to launch in 2012. This service would take Megaupload from being just a digital locker site to a full-fledged player in the digital content game.
The kicker was Megabox would cater to unsigned artists and allow anyone to sell their creations while allowing the artist to retain 90% of the earnings. Or, artists could even giveaway their songs and would be paid through a service called Megakey. "Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works," Kim Dotcom told TorrentFreak in December. Megabox was planning on bypassing the labels, RIAA, and the entire music establishment."
MegaUpload was not the first site to try this business model, one far more generous to the artists that actually produce this precious content than the established order that claims to be protecting them. However, they were huge, being the 13th most visited site on the internet, taking 4% of worldwide internet traffic and had a massive 180 million registered users with over 50 million visiting the site daily. Hence they were likely to have pulled it off. Bad news for the all-powerful established music businesses and something they couldn't let happen. Right now, Kim Dotcom and several other executives from the now defunct site and brand are awaiting trial on several charges, including various counts of piracy, racketeering and money laundering. TechCrunch described MegaUpload's demise beautifully:
"It seems they flew too close to the sun. High on success and a half a world away in New Zealand and Hong Kong, they attempted to take on the music industry head-on. Now they're in jail."
"Dotcom described Megabox as Megaupload's iTunes competitor, which would even eventually offer free premium movies via Megamovie, a site set to launch in 2012. This service would take Megaupload from being just a digital locker site to a full-fledged player in the digital content game.
The kicker was Megabox would cater to unsigned artists and allow anyone to sell their creations while allowing the artist to retain 90% of the earnings. Or, artists could even giveaway their songs and would be paid through a service called Megakey. "Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works," Kim Dotcom told TorrentFreak in December. Megabox was planning on bypassing the labels, RIAA, and the entire music establishment."
MegaUpload was not the first site to try this business model, one far more generous to the artists that actually produce this precious content than the established order that claims to be protecting them. However, they were huge, being the 13th most visited site on the internet, taking 4% of worldwide internet traffic and had a massive 180 million registered users with over 50 million visiting the site daily. Hence they were likely to have pulled it off. Bad news for the all-powerful established music businesses and something they couldn't let happen. Right now, Kim Dotcom and several other executives from the now defunct site and brand are awaiting trial on several charges, including various counts of piracy, racketeering and money laundering. TechCrunch described MegaUpload's demise beautifully:
"It seems they flew too close to the sun. High on success and a half a world away in New Zealand and Hong Kong, they attempted to take on the music industry head-on. Now they're in jail."
108 Comments on Why Big Media Really Shut Down MegaUpload: To Kill The Competition
Some of us still like to have all the facts before we pass judgment and not follow populous ideas like sheep.
when you get innocently accused of murder and the court says:
"well, there is no real evidence here, but because we don't like how you use the crapper, we'll just give you the death sentence!"
good times... :rolleyes:
Oh it's actually in force now, as the Copyright Amendment Act of 2011.
torrentfreak.com/kiwis-protest-new-anti-piracy-law-110421/
Then there's the cable from Wikileaks - US to NZ: "We'll fund anti-piracy campaign"
Unless of course those cables are false, eh MM? :laugh:
EDIT: inb4 MM says TorrentFreak is a biased source (as if there's a truly unbiased source)
actually the first line of the news tells you that he just forwards news.which is, what my first post in the thread was about... ;)
as for this: i don't know how much of it is true - but i DO know that they are much more afraid of competition than they are of piracy. the industry itself is corrupt and without you at least admitting that we can't have an actual conversation.it was perfectly clear - Frick was too busy ranting against Qubit to actually parse your words.
i'm no native english speaker, so sorry if i made it hard to understand...
oops, sorry for making a new reply instead of editing...
"Corporations have more power than the governments".
First is again, it wasn't a US based business. So whatever happened should have happened with the legal system in the home land of the mother country.
Second, illegal content or not the thing that bothers me is theh arrested and assume guilt first and make him prove his innocence, exactly the ideas the US is supposedly freeing other countries from.
Third, we have free speech on the internet, this means we CAN question and have these theories and talk about it. TNever question the correct"man" and soon it will be correct and right for him to enslave you.
it's just hypocritical that mostly only crimes get prosecuted that are based on what is currently on their agenda...
my impression was you're basically saying: "...because he's a dick!"
but maybe that's just my lack of linguistic ability...if so, i apologize...
maybe we should end this and focus on the topic at hand...
(ps: gawd, that's so awkward...i sound like a dad teaching his kids how to behave... :p )
@TheMailMan78 - man you are making preemptive PR here. Conspiracy theorist are RIAA, cause they conspire against a legit business, seeing it as a competitor. What they did is effectively killing that business and dragging people in court for some expensive years of proving their innocence. As a direct result of that millions of users lost their data on MegaUpload servers. Are they all pirates? Do RIAA have proof for that, and what kind of proof is that - stated in Court decisions or some hypothetical assumption of guilt. In my country , some 55 years ago 20 000 people were killed and then , 12 months after burial in unmarked graves, some of the were tried in Court post-mortem for conspiring against the state. Those are Dark Ages man... !