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[Loud Whispers]

Oh, right, THIS is an aggressively styled black eagle

I mean, seriously >________________>  When you're more threatening than Third Reich symbolism, you're doing it wrong.

What's worrying is they probably know what they're doing.

[sneakey pete]

Mediafire, Dropbox, and Rapidshare are all intact and unchanged by this whole scam by the DOJ

Don't listen to this man. Its the end times. the end times!!!

Seriously though, sites who aren't purposefully flouting DMCA takedown requests etc aren't going to be prosecuted.

[Starver]

I would love to know which inventions and products he is referring to.

Well, it wouldn't be supersonic technologies, among many other IPs that the US hasn't been historically too keen to uphold the tit-for-tat about...

[Starver]

(the way it works is that they have hash-tags for files, and the same file is only actually stored on the computer once, someone else adding the same file will result in another link being added to the original file, it would be fairly simple for them to stop anything with the same hash-tag as something removed for copyright reasons from being added, it wouldn't completely stop ALL IP violations, but once a file was reported it would stop it from being added again by anyone)

If that's what they do (or did, at least) then they can't prevent someone else uploading either a different source (e.g. other codec for the same video data) or uploading it after archiving with a different compression program, or even uploading exactly the same compressed format of exactly the same file with exactly the same compressor, but with a different time-stamp recorded within the archive.  Or just find a 'junk bit', somewhere in the file (compressed or otherwise) that wouldn't change the user experience but would provide a completely different hash for the 'same' file.

Really, though there are other things that can be done[1] to mitigate the issues, but for every counter-measure to piracy their's a counter-counter-measure.  I don't know exactly how complicit or bone-idle the Mega management might have been, but even as a layperson I'm quite sure that there's enough technical difficulties to become pitfalls for even the most scrupulous of data managers of their ilk that it actually becomes fairly moot.  You either allow such possibilities of IP infringement, or you strangle the Internet to death.  And neither answer is particularly satisfactory.

[1] Even though the archives might be password-protected, their file-contents are usually discernable without cracking this.  Obviously if it's double-archived with a subtly differing internal archive-name (or intentionally identical to a whole lot of other stuff, legitimate or not) then that doesn't work, but it's a possible start...

[Vector]

Seriously, why can't someone upload something and then give the name and PW for their account in a forum thread?

[SalmonGod]

Any system that requires people not to be selfish and exploit/harm his fellow man is flawed, no matter how perfect it would be if the condition were actually met.
Ideal=/=Reality

Sorry to drag this out further, but I have to say that I agree with this.  Any system that requires anything of anyone is going to be wronging someone, who doesn't fit the criteria it's looking for.

I don't think whatever system we base our society on should require anything, but it should reward behavior that is widely beneficial.  What we have now is exactly the opposite.

[Canalan]

Any system that requires people not to be selfish and exploit/harm his fellow man is flawed, no matter how perfect it would be if the condition were actually met.
Ideal=/=Reality

For instance, I believe that if we stay on this planet, we will, well, die on this planet, soon, and leave nothing for others to remember us by.  If we get into space, we will forge a legacy for mankind that will outlast this planet.  However, this will not happen as long as we are bound by the petty, dangerous notion of "nationalism" and nation-states in general.  So I'm a supporter of one-world government.  Would it work?  Yes.  Will it ever happen?  No.
And as our dear corporate overlords keep trying to restrict basic human rights, and as long as our government is ran by the people who have always ran it, and as long as people stay superstitious, badly informed, apathetic, and stupid, we drift further and further away from exaltation.

[Realmfighter]

Just want to point out that even if we colonize the entire universe we'll still die and be forgotten.

Death is patient.

[Canalan]

Death can wait.  If we put aside our petty feuds, we may even find a cure for it.

[jester]

Death can wait.  If we put aside our petty feuds, we may even find a cure for it.

And we all end up writhing under a carpet of yet more filth encrusted humans in a friendly way.

  I for one heartily support death and all its products and/or political affiliates

[olemars]

Here's something to sign if you want the white house to have to say something about MPAA threatening politicians they'll stop bribing them if they don't support SOPA.

[Starver]

Yep.

There are quite a few laws that often seem unfair but are there simply because otherwise it wouldn't work.

For example the 8 year exclusive use of a drug to the company that creates it. It is there because creating new drugs is so expencive that without exclusive use very few ones would be made (and even then. the VAAAAST majority of drugs are cheap immitations or 'renamed' drugs repurposed)

Not perfect, though.  I actually worked in an associated industry attached to the pharmaceutical one, so know the length of time it takes to bring a proposed drug to market (all the way from "Hey, we have a new molecule that we can call our own, I wonder if it does anything?" conversation through to the dispensation stage).  Many of the discoveries (or happenstances, or sometimes products re-investigated for something new after they'd been looked at for something else) don't get to market, so Big Pharma is keen to make as much wonga as they can out of those that do...

But they're also not going to spend time on something that (say) totally cures "slight sniffles" in people, if they can only end up selling it for pennies for the entire course of treatment, and most of that being the packaging.  But having seen the industry from (more or less) the inside and out I can't work out how to provide the necessary reward that allows effective and beneficial 'trivial' treatments to be considered worthwhile while at the same time not penalising the end user for the very basic ability to recover that lost 50% of productivity on the one week out of the year they're "not feeling their best".  (Figures totally snatched out of mid-air, there, I hope you realise.)

Erm, what was I trying to say?  You're probably well beyond that point, now, so perhaps best to ignore me.

[SalmonGod]

Tried to download a couple mods for a game tonight.  This stuff is really hurting the modding scene already.  One of the two that I finally settled on trying had 8 mirrors on different file-hosting services, and only one was functioning.  The others were... well... megaupload... or gave notices that they were somehow suspending or limiting their services, which made an innocent game mod inaccessible.  Thankfully, the other was hosted on moddb.

[kaijyuu]

It actually did get in my way of ripping off some TV show episodes recently. Got links to megaupload and a couple other ones that suspended downloading any files you didn't upload yourself.

Then I found some torrents for said episodes 10 seconds later. Totally worth a huge lawsuit over, right?

[Sheb]

Starver: I guess public-funded research would work best. Especially in countries with state-funded healthcare it makes sense to me that have state-funded companies. And they can still charge for drugs abroad.