Me.ga Domain Pulled Out From Under New Kim Dotcom Venture
from the well-look-at-that dept
As we've noted, we've been avoiding stories about whatever "new" service Kim Dotcom is launching, because it all sounds like hype and vaporware to us. Until there's something real, it's all just rampant speculation, and it's a little silly how much adoration people have for an idea whose details have not been released at all. However, we will cover factual information related to the effort, and as was widely reported by others, the plan had been to use the domain name Me.ga. This had a few useful "features." First, it plays on the "mega" prefix that is so closely associated with Dotcom's offerings. Perhaps more importantly (at least, it's a key thing that many in the press covered), the .ga domain is not technically subject to control or seizure by the US (though, of course, SOPA/PIPA were intended to deal with just that kind of situation).However, even without SOPA/PIPA, there is still the power of diplomatic pressure, and it didn't take long for the Communications Minister of Gabon to announce that the domain was being suspended:
"I have instructed my departments... to immediately suspend the site www.me.ga," announced Communication Minister Blaise Louembe, saying he wanted to "protect intellectual property rights" and "fight cyber crime effectively".Of course, that seems pretty presumptuous on a number of levels. Since the service has not been launched -- and the actual details have not been revealed -- it's a bit premature to declare that the site must somehow violate intellectual property rights or be useful for cybercrime. And if government officials are stepping in to kill off cyberlockers based entirely on rumor and innuendo, will .ga block any other cyberlocker as well? Considering how popular such services are -- including those run by well-established companies like Amazon, Google and Dropbox -- it makes you wonder how Gabon decides who gets to use a .ga domain.
"Gabon cannot serve as a platform or screen for committing acts aimed at violating copyrights, nor be used by unscrupulous people," the minister said.
There may also be a separate issue at play here. As some have noted, the .ga top level domain is administered by Gabon Telecom, which just so happens to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Vivendi... the same company who owns the world's largest music label, Universal Music. I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
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Filed Under: .ga, copyright, cyberlocker, gabon, kim dotcom, me.ga
Companies: mega, megaupload
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The slipper slope has slid
Let's just not let them even set up anything that we think that might in the future result in something that could in some way have anything to do with (maybe) a website that we think will have the possibility of involving pirated material.
That should prevent any future problems.
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Re: The slipper slope has slid
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Re: The slipper slope has slid
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Re: The slipper slope has slid
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I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
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Re: I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
r/heed/need/
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Business Models
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Coincidence
Yes, an incredible coincidence...
Also in unrelated news, note the preceding Techdirt post where an Author boosted sales by assisting in the piracy of his own book. Intelligent people can learn from the experience of others.
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It's about National Security
The US will do anything to stop Dotcom, to prevent him from defending himself, and to keep the contrived criminal law uncertain so they can continue to use it to shut down websites, particularly foreign ones that cannot easily afford to defend themselves in the US. The US dropped the criminal charges against rojadirecta.com just so they could keep the law uncertain ("contributory copyright infringement"), so they could continue to use this contrived law against Megaupload and other websites.
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Re: It's about National Security
I seriously doubt anyone thinks it's really a matter of national security. The various megacorps are just jealous of the extralegal activities that become possible by pretending it is.
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Re: Re: It's about National Security
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Re: It's about National Security
NOTE:
I Hate This Government and actively Boycott all MAFIAA for Life.
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Re: It's about National Security
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Re: It's about National Security
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Re:
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Re: Re:
Guilty until life+70yrs
FTFY
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Honest people call for justice when they see injustice, and the best of us for it even, maybe especially, when the person who has injustice done against them is unpopular, or a 'bad person'.
But even the best of us get will eventually fall prey to generalisations, and frankly I have yet to see one story about this whole affair that's made me want to say to myself "Well, to be fair to the US Government...", or "Yes, but the movie industry have some good points".
I'm in danger of picking a side here, rather than trying to make a fair judgement in each and every case, because it's been increasingly difficult to see two sides to this whole story.
I suppose this must be sort of what it's like to be a Copyright maximalist, only with less money and parties.
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So pirates get no safe harbor in Gabon...
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Re: So pirates get no safe harbor in Gabon...
I don't believe I've see that argued. Prior to the indictment Megaupload was complying with DMCA notifications, even though they didn't believe they were under US jurisdiction.
Now if you are talking about being safe from persecution from the US government, well, that's a different story, isn't it?
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Re: So pirates get no safe harbor in Gabon...
They get a raise and free artist's corpses.
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Re: So pirates get no safe harbor in Gabon...
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Re: So pirates get no safe harbor in Gabon...
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Diplomatic Pressure
So it's four more years of undemocratic behind-the-scenes dealings. I hope you're all happy.
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Re: Diplomatic Pressure
Spoilers:
he wouldn't.
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Re: Diplomatic Pressure
Who would have thought thought crimes would materialise like this?
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I keep thinking
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Everything that can be invented...
In 2012, I think a more apt (and possibly truer) statement would be, "Everything that can be invented with the MPAA/RIAA's permission has been invented."
Buckle up folks. As long as the copyright maximalists are running the show, our civilization's technological progress is going to plateau, then gradually decline until we reach the 1800's--or possibly the middle ages, depending on how they feel about the Gutenberg press.
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It even has a .com domain name. Why hasn't Biden just sent anti-terrorist forces to take that website offline as well?
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Test the waters with a release of a .GA site and wait and see what happens.
It gets closed down fast. Note one dollar of his money is lost. move on to the next domain
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It's a trap?
Seems like he may have purposely lured the governments of the world into jumping the gun and revealing themselves to be corrupt agents of big industry, to me. He can now point to this to cement his hold on the moral high ground, or use it to push for reform in the behavior of the US government in particular and even governments in general.
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Re: It's a trap?
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Re:
Excellent point. Only problem I see with that is that being a storage locker for presumably larger files, the necessary bandwidth wouldn't be available. Maybe he could provide a .onion service (and tor servers) in addition to whatever he's planning, and it may have the side effect of bringing tor into the mainstream. Not holding my breath, but until the number of tor servers online increases at least by an order of magnitude, a major bitlocker service on a .onion domain wouldn't really be viable.
Great idea none-the-less. I'd like to see it happen.
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http://torrentfreak.com/me-ga-hackers-were-real-pirates-well-sell-dotcoms-domain-to-universal -121107/
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Coincidences...
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