Megaupload — Wikipédia

Megaupload was a website, created in 2005 by Kim Dotcom and closed the January 19, 2012 Through the courts of the United States, which offered a file accommodation service in one click. Based in Hong Kong, he owned or rented servers in the United States (in Ashburn and Washington, D.C.), the Netherlands, Canada and France ^{[ first ] , [ 2 ]} and stored 25 After of data. According to the creator, Kim Dotcom, the site will be reopened: it would then be « indestructible » , with some “Encryption on the fly” ^{[ 3 ] , [ 4 ]} . Megaupload allowed a user to put any type of file online within the limit of 1 Go For free users, and limitless for premium users. The file was then available at any user by means of a link that was attributed to the file. Non Premium users could not download files of more than 1 Go . Megaupload did not have an internal file search system.

Accused of having violated the laws on copyright ^{[ 5 ] , [ 6 ]} , the site was closed on January 19, 2012 by the United States Department of Justice ^{[ 7 ]} , as part of an anti-pirate campaign launched in June 2010 and in parallel with the “operation in our sites (in) Which led to the cessation of hundreds of sites considered illegal ^{[ 8 ]} . Certain sources say, however, that the real reason for the closure was mainly due to the lobbies of the music industry, for fear of competition from a free and legal download system that Megaupload would have been ready to set up ^{[ 9 ] , [ ten ]} .

Kim Dotcom presents in October 2012 The successor to Megaupload: Mega, the service has been available from the January 19, 2013 .
The Initial Me.ga domain name has been suspended by the government of Gabon, a country of belonging of the extension .ga ^{[ 11 ]} .
A new domain name mega.co.nz was created the November 12, 2012 . This domain name in .nz is an extension linked to New Zealand and governed by the laws of this country ^{[ twelfth ]} . Kim Dotcom has left Mega since August 2013 .

Kim Dotcom announces the July 7, 2016 On its Twitter account that the site would reopen its doors under the name of “K.IM” five years after the announcement of its closure by the FBI, more precisely in January 2017 . Unfortunately, due to a difficulty encountered with the Canadian stock market authorities, which block a transaction amounting to nearly $ 100 million intended to finance the new platform, the reopening of it is postponed in late 2019.

The use of the full capacities of servers required the subscription to a paying subscription. Its free version was notably characterized by:

1. The possibility of downloading only one file at a time;
2. A storage space of 200 Go ^{[ 13 ]} is assigned for registrants, and unlimited for its users « Premium » ;
3. Download can be slower since the site gives priority to its users « Premium » ;
4. The site offered a bonus system to its users: one point is given to the user if the downloaded content is less than 100 For .

The services offered by Megaupload included:

• Megaupload.com, a click accommodation service;
• Megapix.com, an image accommodation service;
• Megavideo.com and Megalive.com, video hosting services;
• Megabox.com, a musical accommodation service (the official release of Megabox was scheduled for the day after the arrest of the founder of Megaupload, it also coincided with his birthday) ^{[ ten ]} ;
• Megamovie.com, a legal film accommodation service (was in development) ^{[ ten ]} ;
• Cum.com, a pornographic content accommodation site (formerly Megaporn, Megarotic and Sexuploader).
• Megaporn a hosting and pornographic video accommodation service still active after the creation of CUM.com

Megaupload also offered financial services (Megafund, Megapay) and advertising (Megaclick, Megakey). Two additional services, Megabackup and Megamovie, were in development when the sites were closed.

Megaupload provided Mega Manager, a download manager who included a links for site links as options to control downloaded files, and to access the online control box which is also on the Megaupload site. Mega Manager made it possible to resume the interrupted downloads.

The use of the Megaupload toolbar was controversial by some users, they suspected that the bar refers to sites containing spy software, or was available to functions likely to follow the habits of the internet user on the web ^{[Ref. necessary]} .

Megaupload used MD5 to avoid storing the same files several times. A server stores the MD5 keys to files accompanied by their server number. When a file has the same MD5 key as another already present on the server, only the old one is kept. In order to optimize the bandwidth, a check is made using partial keys on the data already transferred. Download can thus be stopped prematurely.

The exploitation of this system is known as Metaupload in the French -speaking streaming community ^{[ 14 ] , [ 15 ]} .

The site offered users who used the free version two hours of happy hour without bandwidth or waiting limit, every day between 12 and 14 h (UTC). This option was only available if the user had already installed the toolbar of Megaupload or Megakey.

In order to retain its users, Megaupload has set up a reward points system. Whenever a file is downloaded, the person who posted this file on the servers of Megaupload can receive a reward point under certain conditions. Watching a video on Megavideo in its entirety also reports a reward point to the person who proposed the file. The reward points thus assimilated can be converted into a reward according to the number of points acquired ^{[ 16 ]} .

Non-numerous gains (gain of a month of premium account for example) are automatically assigned the request made immediately. Only people who bought a premium account via the PayPal online payment service can claim a cash reward. Payments are paid directly into their Paypal account within 60 days.

The allocation of points is done under certain conditions:

• The downloaded file must make less than 100 For ;
• Only downloads made from certain countries are counted ^{[ 17 ]} ;
• A single download by file per IP address and per day is recognized;
• A video must be seen in its entirety (up to the message “completed”) in order to report a point.

New sites ^{[ 18 ]} have emerged to facilitate the gain of reward points on Megaupload.

The reward system has been temporarily disabled since the end July 2011 . The reason invoked is a recast of the award program.

END November 2011 , American cinema unions and video distributors have decided to tackle illegal download. Thus, French operators are assigned to block “illegal streaming and direct download sites”.

The film industry seems, from this date, determined to put the streaming into play. In question, the slingshot launched by the American cinema and video distributors to French operators. Google France and Orange confirm the reception of such a request. “We have received the document from around a hundred pages, our lawyers are peeling it and we are not for the moment,” says Orange operator to the press. A document that all the other actors (Bouygues, France Telecom or SFR) also received and by which they are invited to block the referencing sites of illegal content.

If the cinema industry has been in this witch hunt for a few years and seeks an alternative solution, sites of this type have not ceased to exploit traffic estimated at 21 billion visits per year. In addition, many similar sites have emerged and the possibility is offered to users to add files that have previously been deleted. THE Majors Cinema could this time find major support in the person of the French government. The latter made the fight against illegal streaming his workhorse.

Nicolas Sarkozy estimates in mid-November that “on streaming sites, the ideology of sharing, it is the ideology of money: I fly on one side, I sell on the other” ^{[ 19 ]} .

Since Thursday January 19, 2012 , the site is inaccessible ^{[ 5 ] , [ 6 ]} , having been closed by the United States Department of Justice ^{[ 7 ]} .

Reactions [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

In response, the Anonymous movement launched the protest operation #Opmegoupload A quarter of an hour after the official announcement from the United States government. The denial attack of service blocks access to the websites of American justice, Universal Music, Recording Industry Association of America, of the Motion Picture Association of America, of the U.S. Copyright Office , Hadopi, Utah Chiefs of Police Association, Broadcast Music Incorporated, Warner Music Group, FBI and Sony ^{[ 20 ] , [ 21 ]} .

Many Internet users around the world express their disagreement, especially on social networks: for example, Internet users are posting thousands of protest messages on the FBI Facebook page ^{[ 22 ]} .

The former President of the French Republic Nicolas Sarkozy salutes the closure of the Megaupload site and “invites the ministers concerned as well as the Hadopi, which has just engaged a consultation on this subject, to quickly study the usefulness of completing [the] legislation [French] by new provisions ^{[ 23 ]} ». In retaliation, it was then revealed that the Elysée website would be threatened by the Anonymous movement. This threat is implemented ^{[ 24 ]} : Friday night January 20 , the Élysée website is briefly unavailable while the websites of the Ministry of Justice and Hadopi are blocked. The Vivendi Universal website is also blocked by supporters of Anonymous.

For the UMP MP Muriel Marland-Militello, “It was thanks to the initiatives of our President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy that the international community decided to no longer give in to a certain fatalism which could exist in the matter. This court decision is an illustration. […] The history of culture will remember Nicolas Sarkozy as the man who said no ^{[ 25 ]} . »

The European Commission has disapproved of the closure of Megaupload: “Internet regulations must be effective, proportionate and preserve the profits from an open network,” said Neelie Kroes, European commissioner in charge of new technologies ^{[ 26 ]} .

For the environmental candidate in the French presidential elections of 2012 Eva Joly, “the closure of Megaupload and the arrest of her leaders is an additional symptom of the incapacity of the public authorities to project themselves XXI ^{It is} century and to design an overall ethical project associating the remuneration of authors and fluidity of culture on the Internet. In the absence of intelligent public strategy and international reflection independent of lobbies, we will continue to attend a copyright industry war against the creatures it has generated ^{[ 26 ]} ».

For the Director General of the National Union of Phonographic Editing, “this is a very strong signal to all those who think they are playing justice”, because it shows that “the internet is not a space of ^{[ 26 ]} ».

Some associations underline the American stranglehold on the Internet: according to Loïc Damilaville, deputy director general of AFNIC, “the American authorities are clearly the stranglehold on all the digital extensions which are managed by American providers or located in the United States”. Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder of the netture of the net, says that “the United States clearly does interference in Internet architecture to go to other countries ^{[ 27 ]} »; He also explains that the FBI was able to easily investigate because the emails from Megaupload were accommodated on an American site ^{[ 28 ]} .

That said, the August 15, 2012 To 11 h 42 , the founder of Megaupload, continues to taunt the American authorities: he promises the arrival of a new site ” bigger. More efficient. Faster. 100% secure ” , the January 20, 2013 under the name “Mega” ^{[ 29 ]} .

Consequences [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Following this closure, sites similar to Megaupload, such as Fileserve, Filesonic, Wupload, Uploadstation, Furk, delete the remuneration of uploaders and the sharing of files, serve their servers of any file suspected of illegality, block accounts or Still block access to download for the United States ^{[ 30 ] , [ thirty first ]} . On the other hand, Rapidshare does not consider any change in its activities ^{[ 32 ]} . In Quebec, Allostreaming.com decides to definitively stop its services January 20, 2012 ^{[ 33 ]} . The February 5 , the search engine for peer-to-peer btjunkie (in) announces its closure and is no longer accessible ^{[ 34 ]} .

The closure of Megaupload also benefited some of its competitors, in particular the legal vod services provided by television channels, direct competitors who have chosen not to modify their services like Mediafire, Hotfile or Rapidshare, newcomers like Rapidgator who saw his traffic explode ^{[ 35 ]} , as well as at the peer to peer ^{[ 36 ] , [ 37 ]} .

Many moviegoers and music lovers who broadcast, sometimes with the agreement of artists, works that have not been forgotten, decide to close their specialized sites, most often blogs, following the abolition of A large part of the content they redirected (video and audio files stored on Megaupload) ^{[ 38 ]} . In France, some of these sites also close for government action similar to that of Americans ^{[ 39 ]} .

ORON.COM, specialized in adult content accommodation, is banished by Google which withdraws all the corresponding direct links referenced in its search engine ^{[ 40 ]} . The site is the subject of a lawsuit and closes the August 2, 2012 .

Deletion of user data [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The January 30, 2012 , the US public prosecutor announces that all user files will soon be deleted, the American authorities having copied the data useful to which they could have access thanks to their mandate ^{[ 41 ]} . Hosts (Cogent ^{[ 42 ]} , Carpathia Hosting et LeaseWeb  (nl) ) have the authorization to delete data from the February 2 ^{[ 43 ]} .

Controversy [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Some sources say that intellectual property offense is not the main reason for the closure of Megaupload. Thus, reproducing the interview with a site developer, the counterpoints.org site says that it would be the lobbies of the majors of the music industry that would have made the site close in order to eliminate the potential competition from a system provided by Megaupload allowing to download free and legally music without compromising the remuneration of artists ^{[ 9 ]} .
Indeed, in this interview ^{[ ten ]} , Emmanuel Gadaix, technical manager of Megaupload, says that this musical project called Megabox should have been accessible for the birthday of Kim Dotcom, the day after his arrest. Many artists (Kanye West, Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg …) had displayed their support for Megaupload in a video posted on the online video December 9, 2011 . Indeed, the Megabox system had to allow the legal distribution (that is to say in accordance with artists) of music, while transferring 90% of the profits to the latter (in particular thanks to advertising), against the 5% that the majors are currently granting to the artists. According to some rumors and assumptions, the discs of the disc would therefore have put pressure on the F.B.I. To prevent indirectly (via the closure of Megaupload) the implementation of an economic system to which all the artists would mostly have turned.

Procedural irregularities [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Following several procedural errors before and during the arrest of Kim Schmitz (the latter was not formally accused of criminal offenses, a necessary condition for the course of a trial ^{[ 44 ]} ), the American judge Liam O’Grady declared to the New Zealand Herald that he “did not know if the trial would one day take place ^{[ 45 ]} ».

In August 2012 Kim Dotcom announces on his Twitter account a possible resumption of the services of the file host, with a new “revolutionary” version of the site which would allow non -American hosts to encrypt files in one click ^{[ forty six ]} . The Megabox service should also emerge, it is a music download platform funded by advertising and which promises a 90% remuneration of artists. This return could be done in the coming weeks ^{[ 47 ]} .

The October 23, 2012 , Kim Dotcom announces that the new site, renamed Mega , will open the following week, including, in addition to the features available to Megaupload, a system of messages as well as an audio and video chat ^{[ 48 ]} .

This new site has been available from January 19, 2013 , a year to the day after closing the previous service ^{[ 49 ]} . The next day, Kim Dotcom will give a press conference to officially present her new site from her mansion located in New Zealand ^{[ 50 ]} .

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