Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
In 2008 the US Congress passed the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellec-
tual Property (PRO-IP) Act. The PRO-IP Act gives federal law enforcement agencies the
authority to seize the domain names of Web sites that are allegedly facilitating copyright
infringement or trafficking in counterfeit goods.
In June 2010, the US Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
launched Operation In Our Sites, seizing the domain names of 10 Web sites that were
making available first-run movies, “often within hours of their theatrical release” [105].
Over the next year and a half, several hundred more domain names were seized, includng
sites that were streaming live broadcasts of the National Football League, the National
Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, World Wrestling Entertainment,
and the Ultimate Fighting Championship [106].
Megaupload Limited, based in Hong Kong, was a prominent cyberlocker. It had more
than 180 million registered users, and at one point it was the world's 13th most popular
Web site, accounting for “approximately four percent of the total traffic on the Internet”
[107]. A substantial percentage of the network traffic to and from the cyberlocker was
associated with the sharing of copyrighted movies, television programs, songs, and
computer games. The founder of Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, lived in Auckland, New
Zealand.
In January 2012, the FBI worked with police in New Zealand and Hong Kong to shut
down the Megaupload cyberlocker and arrest Kim Dotcom and three associates for vio-
lating the Pro-IP Act [108]. According to the grand jury indictment, Kim Dotcom and
his codefendants were part of “a worldwide criminal organization whose members en-
gaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale with
estimated harm to copyright holders well in excess of $500,000,000 and reported income
in excess of $175,000,000” [107]. The indictment claimed that the defendants had paid
millions of dollars to its premium subscribers for uploading popular copyrighted works
to the cyberlocker, as a way of increasing the number of paid subscribers.
Other cyberlockers responded quickly to the news. A few days after the shutdown of
Megaupload, FileSonic posted the following announcement on its Web site: “All sharing
functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload
and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally” [109]. The FileServe site posted
a similar message [110].
Subscription music-streaming services, such as Napster, Rhapsody, and Spotify, are an
alternative to illegal file swapping. These services charge a monthly fee for legal access
to millions of songs. Depending upon the plan, subscribers may or may not pay extra to
download songs. However, a common feature with subscription services is that they all
have a form of digital rights management: subscribers who drop their subscription lose
the ability to play the songs they've downloaded.
