Swizz Beatz Defends Megaupload: Says It Was Taken Down Because It Was Too Powerful For RIAA To Control
from the and-it-was dept
One of the oddities concerning the Megaupload shutdown and indictment was the fact that the company had named famed producer (and husband to recording star Alicia Keys) Swizz Beatz as CEO just a few months prior. Beatz is extremely well known in the industry, and widely respected. After the shut down artists like Diddy and Busta Rhymes immediately spoke out in support of both Megaupload and Beatz. Beatz wasn't named in the lawsuit, but recent filings in the case have the US Justice Department noting that Beatz has not been cooperative with their lawsuit, suggesting he may get dragged unwillingly into the fight.We wrote about an interview with him a few months ago, where he talked about how greed from the labels explained their unwillingness to embrace new technology. In a new interview, as pointed out by TorrentFreak, Beatz is going even further and defending Megaupload. He touches on a variety of issues, but notes that the company was offering a system (not unlike BitTorrent's new offering) whereby artists could offer their work for free, paid for by ads... with 90% of the money going to the artist (more or less the flipped ratio of a traditional record deal).
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Filed Under: swizz beatz
Companies: megaupload
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No, more like cue the comments that point out that this guy misses the point entirely. It's not about control, it's about a scammer in New Zealand selling someone else's content without permission and racking up $150 million doing it.
That is money right out of the artist's pockets. That is money right out of the chain that produces new music, movies, and software.
He doesn't get it.
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Here is what you and your MAFIAA masters really say: "COMPETITION!!!???? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LAWS!!! BUT BUT LAWS CAN'T BE WRONG!!! THEY JUST CAN'T!!! PIRACY!!! WE HAVE TO MAKE IT OUT TO BE SOMETHING IT ISN'T SO WE CAN KEEP FLEECING THE PUBLIC!!! WAAAAHHHHHH!!!! ARMIES OF SHILLS AND TROLLS TO CONSUMER BLOGS!!!! NOW!!!! WE MUST TURN BACK TIME TO 1990!!!!! AAAHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! KILL THE INTERNET!!!! KILL THE INTERNET!!!! KILL THE INTERNET!!!! WE CAN'T ALLOW THE PEOPLE TO KNOW THE TRUTH!!!! WE CAN'T LET THEM COMMUNICATE!!! GAAAAAGGGHHHHHHH!!!!! WEEEE... AAAAAARE... OOOOOOOBSOLEEEEEEEEEEETE!!!!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
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Fact is Megaupload made 150 million, plain and simple, and people were not paying for access to their own files. They were paying to download, and the most popular downloads (apparently hidden from the top list) were copyright files.
The rest of your post is fucking disgusting. If that is how you think, I truly think you need to see a doctor or something.
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I guess you missed that entire part of the comment, huh?
He asked you for proof to back up your claims. Things are obviously not plain and simple if the "case" the U.S. said was a sure thing is falling apart before the public's eyes. Obviously, thing were not as clear cut and dry as you and others would have the rest of us believe.
Fact. Megaupload, A BUSINESS, made money. Plain and simple.
That fact alone is not enough to assume, which is what you are doing, that people were paying to download copyrighted material. What it says is that people were paying to use the services offered by Megaupload, namely, cyber locker storage.
That is the only fact that can be extrapolated from that figure. People paid money for file storage services. Nothing more, nothing less.
So again, as TDR already said, "Prove it, AC shill. Now. With documented, non-industry evidence. And prove as well that infringement causes any harm whatsoever, with the same conditions as the above. Otherwise, provide a complete retraction of everything you have ever said on this site."
Of course, you can dismiss this comment like you did TDR's but if you do so it does more harm for you than it does the rest of us. It goes to show that despite things being as "plain and simple" as you claim they are, you can't come up with anything even remotely resembling proof/evidence to support your FALSE claims. In which case, dismiss away.
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You're the one who's disgusting. You can't deal with facts and just get all emotional. I got no respect for rabid ideologues like you.
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No it isn't!
You provide no evidence - because there is none.
He doesn't get it.
No - YOU don't get it.
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2. If people went to megaupload for "free" content and MU still made money then it just goes to show that artists should offer up their contetnt megaupload style.
3. We even don't know if pirated content was the intent of the site. Content takedowns of things in violation of copyright law were done while MegaUpload was operational so that works in mega's favor on this point.
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They didn't get it for free. They paid for a "download pass" to get it. It wasn't free.
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You don't even have proof people were paying for a "download pass". Unless you do. In which case, present it. Otherwise, much like the rest of your comments, this one too is JUST YOUR OPINION, based on absolutely nothing even close to an actual fact.
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Try again.
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You didn't have to pay for anything to download from Mega. The free downloads worked fine and I got plenty of legal content from there.
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Care to explain that dichotomy?
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Stop. OMG. It hurts. I still can't stop laughing.
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Seriously?? I'd say given what he does, and has done for quite some time, he understands the workings of the the music business better than 98% of the people on the planet.
And quite frankly, I firmly believe that he is the real reason Megaupload was shut down. Because if it was really about infringement, and they really had enough proof, they'd had it for close to two years before they chose to use it.
The simple fact is that Beatz's knowledge of how the industry works, combined with his large circle of friends (because even if it's really half of what he'd brag about it's still a pretty large list) gives him enough clout to be able to pull some serious talent away from the major labels and away from their control.
Because in the end, their fight has nothing to do with money directly, but ultimately who controls the flow of money. And anything that disrupts their control of the flow is absolutely unacceptable.
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4% of all music consumed is unpaid and come from cyberlockers...
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120726/20131119853/riaa-knows-tried-to-hide-th at-most-unpaid-music-acquisition-comes-offline-swapping.shtml
Of the 236 lockers that were tracked in 2011, 75% of all unpaid material that was accessed could be attributed to a top ten list. On that list, Megaupload (the largest cyberlocker in the world at the time by leaps and bounds) came in 7th with around 3% of that 75%...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/dotcom-tells-ars-industry-stats-vindicate-megas -takedown-policy/
So that means Mega can be accused of facilitating roughly 2.25% of the downloads from all cyberlockers that facilitated only 4% of all music consumed. That would mean that Mega would be responsible for .0009% of the total music consumed, or .0014% of all unpaid music...
Let's contrast this with Fileserve, a much smaller locker service that was not targeted yet comprised roughly 46% of the 75% attributed to the top 10 locker services. This would equate to 34.5% of all unpaid music attributed to coming from cyberlockers, or 1.4% of all music consumed, or 2.1% of all unpaid music consumed depending on how you'd like to look at it. Fileshare, a much smaller locker service, could be said to have facilitated these downloads at a rate over 1500 times that of Mega...
So what were we talking about again? All that math made my brain hurt, so please feel free to double check it... If I'm not doinitwrong then it would seem like there's been a lot of demonizing and crying about something that seems statistically irrelevant and that there should have been much more lucrative targets to pursue...
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Opportunities for artists are threats to traditional business models.
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Who would invest in an industry that can be shutdown anytime and anywhere?
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ANY industry can be shut down if sufficient pressure is brought to bear by established interests.
Why do you think we don't have fully-electric cars instead of hybrids (and damned few of those)?
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Turns out that electric cars suck balls.
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I do not think that electric cars (as in plug and charge) are the solution. I believe a fuel cell (possibly with gasoline since it's safer and we already have an infra-structure to produce it) with a battery to act as a 'cache' (like cache in processors or DVD burners). Electric cars pose another problem in the long term: what will we do when the batteries die? Some proposed using these batteries to store solar power to feed a few houses during the night (and they can sustain a few households indeed) and it would be an wonderful source of distributed 'generation' that could lower the losses in the transmission lines but ultimately it doesn't solve the problem of what to do with the dead batteries. Recycle? Trash?
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Batteries the only responsible solution today unless people develop a non-toxic battery in the future, is to recycle them, maybe you get a rebate for bringing in an old battery.
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The future is here already.
LiPo batteries are already non-toxic
From http://www.bmfa.org/resources/lipobatteries.html
Disposal of LiPo batteries:
Put the pack in a safe open area and connect a moderate resistance across the cell terminals until the cell is completely discharged.
CAUTION: The pack may get extremely hot during the discharge.
Puncture the plastic envelope and immerse in salt water for several hours.
Place in your regular rubbish bin.
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The engine is still the same of a plug and run vehicle. And actually I strongly support electric equipment in general, with an efficiency that tops 99% in some cases it only poses the issue of how to produce the electricity to feed it while controlling the losses of the distribution system.
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I had one for a month, don't know why people complain about it, it is silent, drove me everywhere and it was always full, in the morning.
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Only because the oil industry holds the patents for the good batteries, which they won't allow manufacturers to use to replace gas guzzlers.
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I believe this is what you are looking for, Google is your friend.
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Nothing, but nothing annoys a troll more than being ignored, unless it's being ignored and having their sad personal attacks, constantly debunked 'points/arguments', and childish name calling hidden from view.
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Who's "they", boy?
Not the companies, boy.
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This guy got a preview of Megabox, which Kim Dotcom is still planning to move forward with. He is also set on getting artists paid either through direct transaction with the consumer or money from ads.
I think it sounds interesting considering the app is not just a music player but allows people to upload music with unlimited space, as well as offers a way to shop for goods.
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In other words, he's telling the DoJ the truth, rather than what they want to hear.
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Guild by disassociation, it seems. :-)
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Please read the tech dirt post ... Two-Cent Doughnuts Breed Decades Of Bad Blood: It's Not So Easy Going From Free To Paid
With the crap they have pulled over the past 10 years they will never recover their ... ehhhem .... customers.
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They are irredeemable scum.
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You mean the Swizz Beatz who has fathered four different children with four different women? That is the guy you say is "widely respected"?
You sure have a low threshold.
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How would you father four children all the same?
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And I realize that there's a huge difference between being a child molester and fathering a child with every woman who comes along, I think that one's personal life cannot be separated from one's professional life when it comes to being "widely respected". JMHO.
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Why hasn't the prosecution recused themselves, then? I'm pretty sure they committed SOME misdemeanour we can unreasonably exaggerate to completely disregard any point of respect they have despite it having no relevance to the issue at hand...
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You can't poke holes in what he said so instead you'll resort to insults and ad homs. [claps] Congratulations. Your own comment just basically shot down any possible argument you could have (but didn't) make.
Now people can see what you'll resort to. Rather than present facts to point out the flaws with what he said, you go for the cheap shot. Well done, sir. Well done.
Is it no wonder then that the majority of people who can read are realizing how full of shit you and your kind are?
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