> There is no such conflict in the Mega emails. Kim Schmitz is show repeatedly to be concerned solely with maximizing the value of the content Mega stores to users. The operators of Megaupload are repeatedly shown to be aware of specific infringing content --- sometimes because they themselves used it, sometimes because their users pointed it out, and in some cases because they paid to have it put there.
Agree with everything you wrote except the above. Basically the disagreement is on the source materials - one is a naive Viacom and the other is an indictment. So I think the indictment is cherrypicked "better" than Viacom managed.
If e.g. the FBI/DOJ were going after youtube I think they would have quoted more selectively than Viacom did.
Unless the full text of Mega's emails are out there - I can't be sure there's no conflict, I'm sure someone could dredge up him ordering something taken down.
Again with "repeatedly" and "specific" - the youtube emails, for all their conflict are repeated and specific, many times. There's also instances of youtube employee's grabbing stuff from other sites and putting it there themselves, which mega are accused of. I'm pretty sure with youtube's channel system, copyrighted content is paid to be put there in the same manner, though I'm not sure how youtube's early users were compensated.
I doubt the thought occured to them to bring a criminal case against youtube - that's one of the points I'm wildly speculating on - or if it was the case, lobbying stemmed it.
The full text of Mega emails are included in the indictment. If Viacom could have quoted anything of a similar magnitude, they absolutely would have. You should read the indictment. It's damning. And fun reading!
I remember enjoying reading the indictment, but I don't recall all of Mega's emails being there, that's what I was getting at. Given a sufficiently large sample - I'm sure you could find exonerating material.
How do you exonerate the guy who has one of his users complain that a pirated Dexter video has poor quality and then complains to his team about the low quality of the pirated Dexter videos on his site? He's been caught red handed.
The only argument I've ever heard that could exculpate Schmitz is that "perhaps the video uploads could have been authorized." But that beggars belief. No reasonable person on a jury would buy that Schmitz seriously entertained the idea that those videos were authorized uploads.
Well I've set the bar low to mean exonerate the guy to the extent that he's only as bad as the youtube crowd:
"On September 23,2005, YouTube co-founder
Chad Hurley emailed YouTube co-founders
Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, stating: "can we
remove the flagging link for 'copyrighted'
today? we are starting to see complaints for
this and basically if we don't remove them we
could be held lìable for being served a notice.
it's actually better if we don't have the lìnk
there at all because then the copyright holder
is responsible for serving us notice of the
material and not the users. anyways, it would
be good if we could remove this asap."
Their only mitigating behaviour is the moral dilemma they exhibit, I'm sure something similar could be pulled from Mega's email archives - again my point being the FBI/DOJ are better at making a case than Viacom.
Agree with everything you wrote except the above. Basically the disagreement is on the source materials - one is a naive Viacom and the other is an indictment. So I think the indictment is cherrypicked "better" than Viacom managed.
If e.g. the FBI/DOJ were going after youtube I think they would have quoted more selectively than Viacom did.
Unless the full text of Mega's emails are out there - I can't be sure there's no conflict, I'm sure someone could dredge up him ordering something taken down.
Again with "repeatedly" and "specific" - the youtube emails, for all their conflict are repeated and specific, many times. There's also instances of youtube employee's grabbing stuff from other sites and putting it there themselves, which mega are accused of. I'm pretty sure with youtube's channel system, copyrighted content is paid to be put there in the same manner, though I'm not sure how youtube's early users were compensated.
I doubt the thought occured to them to bring a criminal case against youtube - that's one of the points I'm wildly speculating on - or if it was the case, lobbying stemmed it.
I'll have a read of the ruling: (PDF) http://www.legalbytes.com/uploads/file/Viacom-YouTube%20%28G...