The organization, which American officials have accused of being a crime syndicate, is expected to argue that they're protected by the Safe Harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Act, which was passed in 1996, protects websites that feature user-uploaded content.
"They ability to provide a forum for public discourse without being liable for the content is as necessary to the free Internet as it is to free society," said KeepAnimeAlive.com analyst Arthur Babinsky Friday. "The DMCA protects that forum, so long as copyright infringing content is brought down when requested by ... an authorized agent."
But that protection only goes so far. Prosecutors are expected to argue that the site was based entirely around piracy: users who uploaded the most-downloaded files were given cash prizes, encouraging users to race to have the most-downloaded content, the most common of which, the Justice Department says, was copyright infringing material.
And chat logs and email records have shown that the site's operators not only knew about infringing material but made use of it, downloading illegal content from the website. According to The Boston Globe:
In another instance, one of the defendants allegedly laments in colorful language that an episode [of] HBO's "The Sopranos" has been uploaded to site, but the dialogue is in French, limiting its appeal.
Hong Kong officials seized some $42 million in what AFP calls "suspected crime proceeds" during raids in that city on Friday.
MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom appeared before a court in New Zealand along with three other men on Friday. Dotcom, 37, and the others were denied bail.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a statement that the arrests set "a terrifying precedent. If the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim, what is next?'
KeepAnimeAlive.com founder Colin Harvie disagrees. "Dotcom held citizenship in Germany, Finland, lived in New Zealand and Hong Kong, and operated a website specifically designed to make money from American-made products. The idea that it is bad for the US to go after a foreign citizen for conspiring to make millions off someone else's work, but it isn't bad for a foreign citizen to create a network to allow people to steal US products, is ludicrous.
"We've decided on some other standard for entertainment. If this was iPads or cars or even illegal drugs, everyone would be against this guy. But here he is making $50 million a year by stealing movies and selling them - this company genuinely sold 'fast downloads' and 'over 70 minutes of streaming video' - and we're upset that our government had the willingness to stop him."
