Me.ga Domain Pulled Out From Under New Kim Dotcom Venture

from the well-look-at-that dept

Wed, Nov 7th 2012 10:39am — Mike Masnick

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".

"Gabon cannot serve as a platform or screen for committing acts aimed at violating copyrights, nor be used by unscrupulous people," the minister said.

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.

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

43 Comments

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Skeptical Cynic (profile), 7 Nov 2012 @ 9:46am

The slipper slope has slid
Anybody that reads Techdirt regularly could have seen this coming. You go from seizing a domain for pirate activity, then for linking to pirated material, then for the possibility of allowing someone to store pirated material, then forget all that due process stuff.

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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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2012 @ 10:47am

I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
The real threat to the RIAA members is not piracy, which probably actually improves their sales, but alternative business models, which give musicians a better income, and eliminate the heed for the music labels.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2012 @ 10:48am

Re: I'm sure that's just a coincidence.
oops..
r/heed/need/
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Applesauce, 7 Nov 2012 @ 10:49am

Coincidence
"...I'm sure that's just a 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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Kenneth Michaels, 7 Nov 2012 @ 10:51am

It's about National Security
Copyright is now a matter of national security in the US - to protect jobs and economy from foreign criminals and thieves. The US is using the same tactics used in terrorism cases, including the application of extreme diplomatic pressure (on New Zealand and Gabon).

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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fb39ca4 (profile), 7 Nov 2012 @ 10:53am

Well that escalated quickly.
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Kenneth Michaels, 7 Nov 2012 @ 10:58am

Business Models
Yes, the MPAA/RIAA know that they cannot stop piracy. The RIAA/MPAA use piracy as an excuse to pass laws that make it more difficult for new comers to challenge their business models. The "Pirate Bay" is a perfect example - hard to think of a more evil sounding website to convince legislatures to pass new bad laws (that will be used to crush any new competition, not thepiratebay.se).
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John Fenderson (profile), 7 Nov 2012 @ 11:15am

Re: It's about National Security
I think that you mean copyright infringement is being treated as a national security issue, as it's not in fact a national security issue.

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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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2012 @ 11:19am

Re:
Guilty until proven innocent.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2012 @ 11:32am

thought crimes
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Quinn Wilde, 7 Nov 2012 @ 11:35am

Oh for goodness sake. This is how you lose a PR war, outright.

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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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2012 @ 11:37am

nooooooooooooooo
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out_of_the_blue, 7 Nov 2012 @ 11:38am

So pirates get no safe harbor in Gabon...
and pirates here whine that without being safe from US laws Megaupload can't operate.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2012 @ 11:39am

I bet Dot Com does not make this mistake again
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gorehound (profile), 7 Nov 2012 @ 11:52am

Re: It's about National Security
Pretty close explanation.
NOTE:
I Hate This Government and actively Boycott all MAFIAA for Life.
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MrWilson, 7 Nov 2012 @ 11:53am

Re: The slipper slope has slid
It's like witch hunts and red scares. Once you've been stained by an accusation, in the minds of the accusers and their two-minutes-hate-followers, you're are now a pirate and everything you do or plan to do is piracy, even if it involved curing cancer (pirating the business of pharmaceutical companies) or feeding the homeless (pirating the business of large agro businesses).
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Shmerl, 7 Nov 2012 @ 11:55am

Re: The slipper slope has slid
They have a long record of doing this. All DRM is about preemptive policing. It's just start spilling into more and more areas now.
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Gwiz (profile), 7 Nov 2012 @ 12:11pm

Re: So pirates get no safe harbor in Gabon...
and pirates here whine that without being safe from US laws Megaupload can't operate.

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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The eejit (profile), 7 Nov 2012 @ 12:19pm

Re: So pirates get no safe harbor in Gabon...
And the pirates at Gabon Telecom (wholly owned by those infamous thieves at Vivendi who run the biggest thieving MMO in the world, World of Warcraft and run the largest Imaginary Property cartel, NBC Universal?

They get a raise and free artist's corpses.
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Baldaur Regis (profile), 7 Nov 2012 @ 12:28pm

Re: So pirates get no safe harbor in Gabon...
What a good observation! Here's a cookie - go outside and play, now.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2012 @ 12:35pm

Diplomatic Pressure
I suspect the Obama Administration's direct involvement. Not content with just a lack of due process, they're now shutting down websites before there's even an alleged infringement.

So it's four more years of undemocratic behind-the-scenes dealings. I hope you're all happy.
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JarHead, 7 Nov 2012 @ 12:48pm

Re: Re:
Guilty until proven innocent

Guilty until life+70yrs

FTFY
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DH's Love Child (profile), 7 Nov 2012 @ 12:48pm

I keep thinking
that Iceland is looking more and more attractive every day....
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2012 @ 12:51pm

Everything that can be invented...
In 1899, the Commissioner of the US Patent Office famously remarked, "Everything that can be invented has been 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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Dotcom's website, 7 Nov 2012 @ 12:56pm

Since we now know that the US government doesn't care at all about silly little things like DCMA safe harbor, jurisdiction, due process or the rule of law in general, I'm starting to wonder why they allowed Kim to put up his new website after the raid.

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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Tunnen (profile), 7 Nov 2012 @ 12:59pm

Re: The slipper slope has slid
Or perhaps we get Kim Dotcom to announce he is going to attempt to register a .gov address and cause the DOJ/ICE/whoever to seize and disable all .gov domains... =P
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Kenneth Michaels, 7 Nov 2012 @ 1:20pm

Re: Re: It's about National Security
Yes, that is what I meant. Copyright infringement and enforcement is being treated as a national security issue. It is, of course, not a national security issue and just a special interest of a domestic industry.
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johnny canada, 7 Nov 2012 @ 1:41pm

I think DotCom is smarter than we give him credit for.

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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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2012 @ 2:49pm

He should consider starting his own alternative DNS system. Who wouldn't want a .mega domain name?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2012 @ 4:46pm

It's a trap?
Could this have actually been a clever trap set by Dotcom? First, the new venture is nothing but vague generalities and vaporware. Then he registers a domain name. And then, before there could *possibly* be any legitimate grounds for it, it's seized.

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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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 7 Nov 2012 @ 5:36pm

Re: It's a trap?
When faced with an opponent who told a Grand Jury that a company paying its bills is money laundering, it doesn't take much to get the high ground.
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lucidrenegade (profile), 7 Nov 2012 @ 6:19pm

Re: Re: So pirates get no safe harbor in Gabon...
Preferably in traffic.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2012 @ 7:29pm

Re: It's about National Security
protecting 30,000 U.S. jobs and ignoring 300,000 or so that are shipped overseas. Yup. That sounds like MAFAA ownership.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2012 @ 7:38pm

I hoped the fiasco with New Zealand would have swayed other nations not to follow U.S. instructions without questioning. I guess Gabone doesn't care about their own sovereignty.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2012 @ 7:41pm

I don't know why Kim is wasting his time with tlds other than ".onion" ;)
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Keii (profile), 7 Nov 2012 @ 7:50pm

Re:
You have to wonder if it was legitimately a mistake or a tactical effort to get more people on his side.
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Alana (profile), 7 Nov 2012 @ 9:06pm

Re: Diplomatic Pressure
You say that as if Romney would have been any better.

Spoilers:

he wouldn't.
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F!, 7 Nov 2012 @ 9:07pm

Re:
I don't know why Kim is wasting his time with tlds other than ".onion"

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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techflaws (profile), 7 Nov 2012 @ 10:50pm

Re: So pirates get no safe harbor in Gabon...
Don't worry. Dotcom will register elsewhere, like Venezuela, add let Chavez stick it to the man.
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techflaws (profile), 7 Nov 2012 @ 10:52pm

Re: Diplomatic Pressure
they're now shutting down websites before there's even an alleged infringement.

Who would have thought thought crimes would materialise like this?
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Nov 2012 @ 1:15am

Re: It's about National Security
If Megaupload is indeed another rojadirecta.com then Dotcom should sue. If the US government did act illegally in seizeing and shutting down Megaupload then surely they would dismiss the case as they did with rojadirecta.com.
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Bas Grasmayer (profile), 8 Nov 2012 @ 1:31am

Did you notice that shortly after the .ga gov't seized the domain, some hackers managed to get a hold of it?

http://torrentfreak.com/me-ga-hackers-were-real-pirates-well-sell-dotcoms-domain-to-universal -121107/
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relghuar, 8 Nov 2012 @ 5:38am

Coincidences...
Or maybe Gabon learned from Cambodia's example? If there haven't been any large international aid to Cambodia lately, I'll certainly watch for one in near future....
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