By Andrew Wallenstein and Ted Johnson
Daily Variety
WASHINGTON — As the debate over antipiracy legislation rages on in Congress and cyberspace, the feds are taking aim at a website alleged to be one of the world’s most popular sources of online piracy.
Megaupload.com was shut down by a federal indictment issued Thursday. The FBI, which led the investigation, characterized the indictment as “among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States.”
The timing of the FBI’s action was notable, as opponents and proponents of the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act are in a pitched battle cast as a fight between freedom of expression on the Web and copyright protection for content creators. Megaupload.com is accused of the kind of copyright infringing activities that the two bills are designed to police, giving law enforcement tougher tools to curb such illegal distribution.
Hours after the indictment went public, the notorious hackers known as Anonymous claimed to be behind an attack on the websites for Universal Music Group, Department of Justice, MPAA and RIAA, which were all rendered inaccessible. Anonymous explained via Twitter that the attack was in retaliation for the crackdown on Megaupload.
Megaupload enables file-sharing said to be teeming with movies, music and TV shows for as many as 50 million daily visitors a day. Megaupload.com has been measured as the 13th most popular website on the planet.
The indictment targets seven individuals including Kim Dotcom, aka Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor, the alleged ringleader of the operation. He and three others were arrested in Auckland, New Zealand, on Thursday.
The indictment hits the ring with a raft of charges including racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering that each carry anywhere from five to 20 years of prison time. All told, the Megaupload empire is spread across 18 different domains with servers in Ashburn, Va., Washington, D.C., the Netherlands and Canada.
The indictment says the site’s backers have generated revenues totaling $175 million.
The legal action against Megaupload added fuel to the fire over SOPA and the Protect IP Act, which has rattled the cages of some lawmakers who previously supported the legislation.
On Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) called on the Protect IP Act to be shelved for the foreseeable future. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid still plans to bring the legislation to the floor on Tuesday, but the defection of Republicans has raised doubts on whether he will have enough votes to overcome a threatened filibuster.
“While we must combat the online theft of intellectual property, current proposals in Congress raise serious legal, policy and operational concerns,” McConnell said. “Considering this bill without first doing so could be counterproductive to achieving the shared goal of enacting appropriate and additional tools to combat the theft of intellectual property.”
Internet giants including Google and Wikipedia have led a tidal wave of protests that the legislation overreaches in its attempt to protect the interests of the entertainment industry, which has largely supported these measures.
Copyright 2012 Reed Business Information