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Megaupload Drops Mega Song Lawsuit to Focus on “Nonsense” US Charges

The troubled Megaupload will drop its lawsuit against Universal Music Group who allegedly deleted the immensely popular Mega Song from YouTube last December. While the cyberlocker still believes the “sham takedown” was unlawful, Megaupload’s lawyer informs TorrentFreak that they will focus their efforts on defending themselves against the US criminal charges and similar “copycat” suits.

megaA month before its shutdown Megaupload pulled off one of the biggest file-sharing related marketing coups in recent memory.

The file-hoster released a pro-Megaupload song featuring stars such as P Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Mary J Blige, Kim Kardashian and even boxer Floyd Mayweather all publicly endorsing the site.

Within hours the ‘Mega Song’ was watched by hundreds of thousand of people, but the fun stopped when Universal Music Group (UMG) took down the video from YouTube. In response, Megaupload filed a lawsuit against UMG and after several days YouTube finally reinstated the video.

Why the video was taken down has never been made clear. However, UMG did reveal that it had a deal with YouTube to take down content even if it doesn’t infringe their rights, which raised the eyebrows of many legal experts.

The lawsuit had the potential to turn into a landmark case, but it was quickly overshadowed by the criminal indictment against Megaupload. This is one of the reasons why Megaupload’s legal team has now decided to voluntarily dismiss the case.

“The sham takedown notice case will be dismissed without prejudice,” Megaupload attorney Ira Rothken told TorrentFreak. “Megaupload will be permitted to refile the case if it chooses to do so,” he added.

Megaupload still believes the Mega Song takedown was illegitimate, but its legal team needs to direct all of its resources towards defending Megaupload against the criminal charges of the United States Government, as well as the troll lawsuits currently being filed.

“Megaupload is shifting its litigation resources to defending against recent US copyright related actions across the world and opportunistic copycat civil suits,” Rothken told us.

The current priority for Mega is to file a motion in response to the US indictment. Earlier this week Megaupload’s Kim Dotcom exclusively revealed some of the evidence they will use to refute the allegations that they were operating a piracy haven, including friendly partnership requests from major entertainment industry companies.

But there is much more to present, according to Dotcom.

“These are just a few hints,” he told TorrentFreak. “Our upcoming court filings will reveal the full nonsense dimension of the indictment.”


The Mega Song (uncensored)

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  • http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

    This is a GOOD move :)

    Coz once MU wins it’s case against the most recent and more serious attack on them and OUR liberties to share freely, they can go back to the more trivial shit of unlawful take-down of a lone vid.

    I agree with the advice of MU’s lawyers. All the best guys, and thanks.

    • gollu

      Hell yeah, it got millions views, I want MY royalties… ;-) . Good advertising but maybe MegaDays are gone and we waiting TeraUpload to come!

      • Anonymous

        Or, as a step in between, GigaUpload ^^

        • Danny

          Or a couple of steps further ExaUpload

        • DannyUfonek

          Googolupload, here I come!

        • http://www.bbgamer.co.uk/ Ben

          GeopUpload!

          · 1 Bit = Binary Digit
          · 8 Bits = 1 Byte
          · 1000 Bytes = 1 Kilobyte
          · 1000 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte
          · 1000 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte
          · 1000 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte
          · 1000 Terabytes = 1 Petabyte
          · 1000 Petabytes = 1 Exabyte
          · 1000 Exabytes = 1 Zettabyte
          · 1000 Zettabytes = 1 Yottabyte
          · 1000 Yottabytes = 1 Brontobyte
          · 1000 Brontobytes = 1 Geopbyte

        • Guest Station

          Reminds me of 1997.. where best upload was 3.5kb/s then using a 28k dial-up modem. I remembered it’s dial tone created some sort of music. It was epic.

  • MadAsASnake

    Yup – Megasong is meaningless if the company no longer exists.

    • FinalApokylypse

      Well I wouldn’t say meaningless.. As a matter of principle UMG should never have been able to get away with intentionally taking down content that didn’t belong or infringe upon them. But compared to the current case it’s far less important to the MU crew

      • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

        I am wondering if that was the point of the total takedown of MegaUpload, to get them to retract this case.

        If so, a criminal indictment was one of the worst ways to go around it because the public prosecutors office is now open for liability if they lose this case.

      • Anonymous

        well, they own the artists, so it is infringing ;)

        • Gfdhgfd

          The own the music they produce but they do not own the artist! Legally anyway.

  • Armand D

    With MU or without , with ACTA , and even actual interenat will stop to exist , people will find new methods to avoid your stupid rules and will going share , nothing can stop millions people to share , so wake up trolls you already fail , just your shitty minds can belive people will stop sharing becouse your treats or becouse is “illegal” , is easy to see you are outdated , we are in 2012 not in 1900 , instead trying to fight with millions people and spend lot of money , much better is to adapting , change and update your buisness model
    If you will not understand that , keep on dreaming ,…

  • Anonymous

    Well this seems sad news to me when false DMCA take-down notices, or whatever UMG did, should certainly be punished. I can however understand Mega’s need to focus on more important cases though.

    If UMG had any morality they would use this opportunity to apologize for their false Mega Song take-down and offer Mega some form of compensation. This would allow both sides to close this matter and to remove the chance of this case resuming in later years.

    Since UMG in my opinion is the most nasty music company around then I highly doubt they have it within them to admit a mistake.

    Good luck to Mega anyway in the challenges they now face.

    • Trustnoone

      “if UMG had any morality” hahahhahaa that’s the funniest thing i heard all day, UMG having morality!! But all that aside, I completely agree with you.

    • http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman

      I highly doubt you’d get any morals from umg they are full of scumbags.

    • Anonymous

      Fat chance they would ever admit to any wrongdoing. They were perhaps poking Dotcom, knowing well what was coming up and wanted him to focus his attention over here . Simple misdirection. If not by Dotcom, they will get what’s coming to them. Karma has a very odd sense of humour.

  • Anonymous

    That whole thing sounds kinda crazy to me dude. Seriously.
    Anon-Works.tk

  • Anonymous

    Was UMG aware of the impending FBI raid on MU and that is where they got the balls to issue a takedown of the Mega Song on YouTube?

    • Anonymous

      I would say the UMG take-down of the Mega Song and Mega’s aim to take them to court was the ONE KEY EVENT that lead to this Mega raid.

      The time between the Mega Song removal on YouTube and this raid happening is just long enough to pull off a sloppy international raid. Glue together some crap, take it to court, fool the jury on zero defence, then fuck over a lawful business.

      American justice hard at work.
      American ruthless punishment of Hollywood’s rivals using tax payer funds hard at work.

  • Anonymous

    i only hope that, if the entertainment industries/US government get their way with the main case, this abuse of the take-down process will not only be forgotten about or ignored, it will be used as an example of what can be done by powerful industries simply because they are that, ie, powerful, not because they are right.

  • http://twitter.com/Anime4PSP Anime 4 PSP

    Win against current big charges, then go refill lawsuit against umg. Win again :)

  • Anon

    Meh…the fat potato will go to jail anyway, so why bother?

  • MegaCorruption

    Kim Dotcom’s decision to drop the lawsuit against UMG is hardly surprising, considering the dire circumstances he suddenly found himself in since filing suit.

    One question remains — was that one of the reasons for the massive FBI raid?

    Because even if the FBI were not getting their marching-orders directly from UMG, the timing of the MegaRaid still seems very suspicious.

    • Anonymous

      Close… That was one of the reasons UMG said: You can’t touch us.

      MegaCorruption is right.

    • Anony

      Yes, you could say it was. In the indictment claiming money laundering, they (UMG or DOJ) listed a transfer of $185k by the “Mega Consipiracy”. That was what the “Mega Conspiracy” paid for the Mega ads. How do they claim that is money laundering? I guess that’s not required. The whole indictment is questionable. There’s been a number of legal acacemics scratching their heads about it. I doubt if the DOJ even read the document. It’s that bad. Like Dotcom or not, this shouldn’t be a trial about personality. That’s the DOJ’s biggest mistake.

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  • http://twitter.com/icanhazsake Ninja

    Smart move and I do hope they win against the Corporate States of America. And after they win and are back in tack they can deliver the full hammer of justice by prosecuting the US in international courts for the damages suffered (months without operating, any1?) and UMG for abusing the law. Ah, I will admit this is a wet dream but if it happens I’m signing for a PERMANENT premium account (even though I’m not going to use it that much) just to give them money.

    • Guest

      If they come back to business but don’t reinstate my Lifetime Premium account, I will be the one go hammer and tongs on them.

  • Anonymous

    Kim is always out to cover his own ass. You think he cares about his other employees such as Bram, Finn and Mathias? Ya right. He will throw these guys under the bus faster than you can say “traitor”.

    Let’s see what he says.

    • http://www.facebook.com/ValhallaLegend Andrew Lee

      LOL really? Come on most people in the world only care about their own personal interest. I don’t care if Kim is an asshole or not what was done to him is fucking wrong. I’m an asshole and I’m much nicer here on the internet mainly for the reason I hate people around me. It’s perfectly legal for me to be like this as it is for Dotcom.

      I would personally throw a big percent of the world under the bus for no reason if it would benefit me in the slightest way. When I say that I mean all the morons that’s standing by doing nothing while our rights are getting closer and closer to being nonexistent.

      I know options are limited but I mail my congressman every damn week. Even if they don’t read it at least I’m doing something. I don’t have time to worry about if someone is an asshole and their out for themselves because it’s irrelevant.

      I worry about my damn rights,my freedoms,my privacy, and more. The best their going to do is cause more innovation for the underground and probably start the third world war.

      In other news is MPAA CEO Christopher Dodd sacrificing babies to Satan? I’m still waiting on a reply till I get one I’ll assume yes he is.

  • anon

    UMG took down the mega song under some provisions in its VEVO (music video) contract with Youtube/Google. UMG says that since they didn’t use DMCA protocols, DMCA remedies that Megaupload might have don’t apply in this case, which is a loophole defense. They also say that Megaupload filed against the parent holding company of UMG and not UMG which had the agreement with Youtube, which is another loophole defense.

    The reason that UMG took the video down was out of vindictiveness against Megaupload. This is evident in their court filing (link to pdf: http://www.archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.248875/gov.uscourts.cand.248875.14.0.pdf ) where they rant against alleged copyright violations by Megaupload.

    Perhaps Megaupload’s plans to create a music distribution system which would compete against them also had something to do with the song takedown.

    • MadAsASnake

      I can’t imagine the agreement between youtube and umg permitting umg to takedown anything they like is compatible with anti-trust law…

      • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

        It’s not compatible with that and it’s not compatible with the DMCA either.

        The DMCA has been SOOOOOOO overstretched by the big name TV and music publishers, that it snapped a long time ago.

        I don’t understand why the ragged end hasn’t come back and hit them in the eye, metaphorically.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Black-Dragon/100001900463859 Black Dragon

    Go Megaupload

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  • Exelbirth

    Megaupload just got taken down. Pissed now, cause I had a few files on that site for safe keeping, and along comes the US government shutting it down. according to the notice, it’s due to Conspiracy to commit Racketeering, Conspiracy to commit copyright infringment, Conspiracy to commit money laundering, and Criminal copyright infringement. I’m pretty sure that all of these charges are complete bull. First of, they’re getting charged twice for copyright infrinement, one for conspiring, and one for doing. That’s like saying you were thinking about if you were going to eat or not while you’re shoveling food into your mouth. And completely shutting down the site is a really bad idea. To me, that’s like bombing a city to take care of a smuggling operation.

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  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_KKY5QEQ4AX3EZ5IEDY5UTB6OOQ TheMan

    After shutting MegaUpload down, as well as several other file-hosting websites, has there been an increase in album sales? I highly doubt it.

  • Cyo59454

    I suggest to mention in every thread about megaupload why this all happened.

    https://plus.google.com/u/0/111314089359991626869/posts/HQJxDRiwAWq

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  • Anonymous

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  • Anonymous

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  • Anonymous

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