[hengli]

Notice that when asked about the content provider's direct delete access he was very careful to say that he would remove any link they requested.

I'm sorry, but there's only 1 reason why you would remove a link to an infringing file but not the actual file. Aiding piracy.

[Sumaso]

"It’s like mail, it’s private, we cannot just go in there and police what these users are uploading."

This has been mentioned before, but I'll say it again.

If I upload Batman to my personal storage locker, and never share it with anyone else, and then a pirate uploads Batman and shares it with everyone, why should I lose my digital copy of Batman due to the actions of someone else?

Maybe I don't have a thorough understanding of now Hashes work, but if we both rip the same movie with the same software, won't that file have the same hash?

[rasur]

It depends on the hashing method, above all.

A cheap-and-nasty MD5 (for example) of the exact same film stored in different file formats will yield different hashes.

A more sophisticated hashing methodology (for example something akin to the audio-fingerprinting tech used by Shazam) might yield a match.

[Sumaso]

Might doesn't sound like I have the right to remove someone's potentially pirated movie.

Could have MegaUpload have done more to prevent pirated movies from being uploaded on their servers? Maybe, maybe not.

Should they still be protected by the DCMA? IMHO, I think so.

[rasur]

I agree - "might" does not cut it for me either, but these are political games being played, not technical.

Could MU have prevented "piracy" by blocking uploads of copyrighted material? Again, I'm inclined to agree with you and say "DMCA", there are too many privacy issues involved for sites to go jack-booting their way through everyones files (which again, Kim D-C mentioned in the video), especially when he's holding out an olive branch to the content companies by allowing them to delete millions of "illegal" files without any due-process.

[unseen]

Most people wouldn't ever upload anything illegal directly anyway. They compress it, split it up and then put a password on the whole thing. Theres no way to tell whats in the files then. MegaUpload was already going way beyond DMCA by letting them delete everything per their wishes.

[hengli]

Because it's not going to be the same file as Batman.Haxxors.Xvid

[RyanMcGreal]

Not so. AFAIK their server design was to store a single copy of each identical file with multiple links to it. There are certainly circumstances in which one person has a legitimate right to a file but someone else does not. By deleting the link and not the file, MegaUpload can preserve the legitimate access while denying the illegitimate access.

[vidarh]

If you run a file storage system with a deduplicating filesystem and you "delete" a file, you'll end up only deleting links.

There is no guarantee that another copy of the same file is infringing.

[hengli]

You don't need a guarantee, Megaupload is already passing the buck to the content provider who requested the takedown. Megaupload has a TOS to protect them in the event that they takedown a legitimate file.

I estimate the chance of a legitimate file being deleted by this process at 1% or less.

[vidarh]

> I estimate the chance of a legitimate file being deleted by this process at 1% or less.

That's not very comforting for customer who might want to pay to store files there.

Especially not given the long stream of high profile cases of mistaken takedowns at sites like Youtube.

[zotz]

Then he should have been sued. Megaupload was never brought to court by the copywhiners. They went straight to use of force for a non-violent issue.

It's barbaric.