>You can DMCA them, but they are given a "reasonable" time to take it down, and per the article, they never even removed the actual content, but created duplicate URLs over and over again.
The article is failing to mention the actual reasoning behind that. The 'duplicate URLs' were people taking a file and making their own completely independent upload-instance, with an assertion that they had permission under copyright regardless of the first uploader.
So megaupload argued, reasonably I think, that just because X file by Alice was a violation, that doesn't mean X file by Bob is a violation, so they only deleted Alice's copy.
Indeed, but when don't limit how much people can upload, but then you limit how many DMCA take downs you will comply with, it is physically impossible to keep up. They've created a one -way street basically, however, they can then go and argue in front of a judge "we've implemented a 'reasonable' DMCA take down policy." - the word "reasonable" is very much up for interpretation, so Mega will argue they are complying with the law, but in reality, they are opening the floodgates to piracy, and they basically know exactly what they are doing.
Really, the bottom line is this: People know what his sites were used for. They didn't blow up to immense popularity because of the non-pirated material. He hides behind DMCA, he says his service is for legitimate purposes only and the illegitimate is just a side effect. There are legitimate services that are big, like 'YouSendIt', and those services aren't known for piracy the way his services were. It's not random, unlucky, undeserved, etc.
He's a criminal, operating internationally, trying to exploit loopholes in the law for his own financial gain. He is not a good guy, he is not noble. He is a risk-taker who tried exploiting loopholes between the law and technology. For every action there is a reaction.
His action was to use unfairness in the law to exploit it for his own financial gain. What the big companies did was use their unfair advantage with politics to pull some strings and do things that are arguably legal or illegal? What is the one takeaway? The laws are unfair. What Kim Dotcom did should not be legal, and there should be effective tools to have him comply or actually give a shit about the piracy on his websites, without "stifling innovation" around the rest of the internet for actual legitimate services that aren't built on piracy.
From what I understand they didn't limit DMCA compliance, which would be an obvious violation. They limited the use of a custom takedown tool.
> People know what his sites were used for.
Yeah, but how do you decide responsibility? Outside of a minority of incidents he's only providing infrastructure. Trying to enforce legality there is a can of worms. How many steps away do you go? What about his ISP? Surely they noticed the huge amount of traffic, and have some idea what the site is for. What about the people that sold him servers? They're contributing even more than the ISP to the ability of the site to run.
>His action was to use unfairness in the law to exploit it for his own financial gain. What the big companies did was use their unfair advantage with politics to pull some strings and do things that are arguably legal or illegal?
In my mind, unaccountable political manipulation is worse than exploiting a loophole in a law. It's much easier to fix a law.
The article is failing to mention the actual reasoning behind that. The 'duplicate URLs' were people taking a file and making their own completely independent upload-instance, with an assertion that they had permission under copyright regardless of the first uploader.
So megaupload argued, reasonably I think, that just because X file by Alice was a violation, that doesn't mean X file by Bob is a violation, so they only deleted Alice's copy.