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Megaupload

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Megaupload Limited
Type of businessLimited
Type of site
one-click hosting
Available inEnglish, Arabic, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Vietnamese
FoundedMarch 21, 2005 (2005-03-21)
HeadquartersHong Kong
Founder(s)Kim Dotcom
Key peopleKasseem Dean (CEO) Finn Batato (CMO)
Employees155
URLwww.megaupload.com
Registration180+ million
LaunchedMarch 21, 2005 (2005-03-21)
Current statusUnavailable since January 19, 2012.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Megaupload is an online Hong Kong–based company established in 2005 that ran a one-click hosting online service of the same name, along with its sister services. The site was shut down by the U.S. Justice Department on January 19, 2012, during an investigation into alleged copyright infringement.[2]

Services

The company services included a one-click hosting service known as MegaUpload, image hosting and video hosting services known as Megavideo, Megalive, Megapix and Megabox as well as CUM.com (formerly Megaporn, Megarotic, and Sexuploader) which specialized in hosting pornographic contents. (Megaupload itself also allows such content). Other services included Megaclick, Megafund, Megakey and Megapay, all of which were advertisement and financial services. Two additional web sevices, Megabackup and Megamovie, were in development before its closure.[3]

MegaUpload.com

MegaUpload, the file-sharing service of the company, allowed all users to upload files to the service. After a successful file upload, the user was given a unique URL which allowed others to download the file.

The service was available in two flavors: Basic and premium. The basic service was available for free and allowed users to upload files of up to two gigabytes. Free users could not download files larger than one gigabyte, however. Registered free users were offered 200 gigabytes of total file storage. Premium users had unlimited file storage.

Any file uploaded anonymously expired if there were no downloads for at least 21 days. For the registered free accounts, the file expiration period was 90 days after the date the file was last downloaded. Premium accounts had no expiration period as long as the user remained a premium member.[4]

Non-registered and registered users had to wait a few seconds in the download queue and a certain amount of time between transfers after a certain number of megabytes had been downloaded.[4]

Paying premium members also had the benefit of hotlinking: They were able to share a direct link to a file they owned on MegaUpload so that anyone could download the file with a single click on that link. The links given to the free users however, were not direct: They were taken to MegaUpload website, where they had to wait their turn and possibly respond to a CAPTCHA challenge.

MegaVideo

MegaVideo was an associated, ad-supported video hosting service. For non-members, it was time-limited; it blocked itself after 72 minutes, and then allowed users to resume watching after a 30 minute period.

MegaPix

Launched in late 2010, MegaPix allowed for the uploading of images, competing with other image-hosting services such as Photobucket, ImageShack, TinyPic and others.

MegaLive

Megalive was a live video-streaming service; it competed with Ustream, Justin.tv and Livestream.

MegaBox

Megabox was a music/audio-hosting service for the uploading of whole music libraries and playlists.

Statistics

  • Unique visitors: 81,000,000
  • Page Views: 490,000,000
  • Reach: 4%[5]

Software

Mega Manager

Mega Manager screenshot

Megaupload also released its upload/download manager, Mega Manager,[6] a download manager which featured a link-checker for Megaupload links as well as options to manage uploaded files, and to access the online control box that is also on the Megaupload site. Mega Manager bore striking resemblances to Conceiva DownloadStudio version 5, self-evident in its "Options..." dialog box and some other aspects of the program. Mega Manager allowed users to automatically resume interrupted up- and downloads, which was especially important when transferring large files or transferring several files unattended.

Megakey

Megakey was an adware application which removed premium limitations on Mega services during "happy hour" periods.[clarification needed What/when is it?] In return, the users running Megakey agreed to supply some personal identification and demographic data and to allowed the substitution of ads on third party websites they visit with those of MegaUpload.

Filebox

FileBox was a Flash applet which can be embedded onto any external webpage. It allowed users to upload content to Megaupload without having to visit the website itself or download the Mega Manager.

Reception

Unavailability

Although its incorporation was located in Hong Kong, the company did not operate in Hong Kong. From 2009 onward, users with Hong Kong IP addresses were banned from accessing the site. Not even the homepage was accessible by them. Any purchased premium accounts were still able to access the Megaupload site in Hong Kong until the last membership day. Some third party download managers could circumvent this, for example, JDownloader, but only if a proxy was set up and enabled in the program. IPs from Mainland China were blocked as well. The reason for the block remained unclear.[7]

As of 23 May 2010, access to Megaupload was intermittently blocked by the internet authorities in Saudi Arabia by their regulator Communications and Information Technology Commission.[citation needed] Megavideo was also intermittently blocked in the United Arab Emirates due to pornographic content being accessible through the service.[citation needed]

From 9 June 2011 onward, the Malaysian government through Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission ordered all ISPs in Malaysia to block Megaupload and Megavideo. Some ISPs reportedly blocked all the sites on the list while other ISPs have been throttling connection speeds.[8]

In July 2011, access to Megaupload and Megavideo was blocked in India, along with RapidShare, MediaFire and a range of other file hosting sites.[9] The blocking occurred after Reliance Entertainment obtained a court order, citing illegal copies of its 2011 film Singham on file hosting sites.[10]

On 19 January 2012, Federal Prosecutors in Virginia closed down Megaupload and charged its founder and others for breaching anti-Piracy laws[2].

Criticism

In January 2011, MarkMonitor published a report entitled "Traffic Report: Online Piracy and Counterfeiting", which claimed that Megaupload and Megavideo were, along with RapidShare, the top three websites classified as "digital piracy".[11] Megaupload responded by stating: "Activity that violates our terms of service or our acceptable use policy is not tolerated, and we go to great lengths to swiftly process legitimate DMCA takedown notices".[12]

Megaupload Toolbar was claimed to redirect users to a custom error page when a 404 error occurs in the user's browser. It was also claimed to contain spyware.[13] However, FBM software claimed that the Megaupload toolbar is free of spyware.[14]

Megaupload song controversy

On December 9, 2011, Megaupload published a music video titled: "The Mega Song", showing artists including Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Alicia Keys and will.i.am endorsing the company.[15] The music video was also uploaded to YouTube[16], but was removed following a takedown request by the record company Universal Music Group (UMG). Megaupload said that the video contained no infringing content, commenting: "we have signed agreements with every featured artist for this campaign".[17] Megaupload requested an apology from UMG, and filed a lawsuit against the company in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, on December 12, 2011.[18][19] UMG denied that the takedown was ordered under the terms of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and said that the takedown was "pursuant to the UMG-YouTube agreement," which gives UMG "the right to block or remove user-posted videos through YouTube's CMS (Content Management System) based on a number of contractually specified criteria."[20] The video was subsequently returned to YouTube, with the reasons for the UMG takedown remaining unclear.[21] YouTube stated: "Our partners do not have the right to take down videos from YT unless they own the rights to them or they are live performances controlled through exclusive agreements with their artists, which is why we reinstated it."[22][23] Lawyers for will.i.am initially claimed that he had never agreed to the project, but on December 12, he denied any involvement in the takedown notice.[24]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Megaupload.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2 January 2012.
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference apindictment was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "MegaWorld". Archived from the original on 23 July, 2011. Retrieved 19 January, 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |archivedate= (help)
  4. ^ a b "Megaupload FAQ".
  5. ^ Google.com
  6. ^ Megaupload.com
  7. ^ Is Megaupload dead in Hong Kong?
  8. ^ "SKMM Meminta Penyedia Internet Menghalang Akses ke 10 Laman Perkongsian Popular (Malay)". 9th June, 2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ India starts blocking file storage websites in a move against piracy ZDNet, July 20, 2011. Retrieved December 14, 2011.
  10. ^ Update: Files Sharing Sites Blocked In India Because Reliance BIG Pictures Got A Court Order Medianama, July 21, 2011. Retrieved December 23, 2011.
  11. ^ Traffic Report: Online Piracy and Counterfeiting January 2011. Retrieved December 14, 2011.
  12. ^ Megaupload FAQ Retrieved December 14, 2011.
  13. ^ Megaupload Toolbar is a Spyware which Changes Browser Settings, TheCredence.com, 13/08/08
  14. ^ "Megaupload Toolbar on Spyware-Net". Retrieved 8 November 2009.
  15. ^ RIAA Label Artists & A-List Stars Endorse Megaupload In New Song December 9, 2011. Retrieved December 13, 2011.
  16. ^ Megaupload Mega Song December 7, 2011.
  17. ^ Universal Censors Megaupload Song, Gets Branded a “Rogue Label” December 10, 2011. Retrieved December 13, 2011.
  18. ^ Megaupload threatens to sue Universal over YouTube video The Guardian, December 13, 2011. Retrieved December 13, 2011.
  19. ^ Megaupload to Sue Universal, Joins Fight Against SOPA December 12, 2011. Retrieved December 13, 2011.
  20. ^ UMG claims "right to block or remove" YouTube videos it doesn't own Ars Technica, December 16, 2011. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  21. ^ Mystery surrounds Universal's takedown of Megaupload YouTube video CNET, December 17, 2011. Retrieved December 18, 2011.
  22. ^ YouTube Apparently Gives Universal Music Group Direct Access to Videos for Easy Removal (Update) TIME, December 16, 2011. Retrieved December 17, 2011.
  23. ^ File-Sharing Company Sues Record Label, for a Change New York Times, December 13, 2011. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  24. ^ UMG, MegaUpload Case Gets Even Stranger; Will.i.am Says He Didn't Authorize A Takedown Techdirt. December 15, 2011. Retrieved December 17, 2011.

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