MegaUpload SHUTDOWN!

Megaupload was shutdown by federal officials today and all of its executives around the world have been arrested. Kim Schimtz, Megaupload's founder claims that he was arrested without any sort of notification. “We’re looking into what’s going on,” Rothken said in a telephone interview.  A list of the other people arrested includes

*Finn Batato, 38, a citizen and resident of Germany, chief marketing officer.
*Julius Bencko, 35, a citizen and resident of Slovakia, graphic designer.
*Sven Echternach, 39, a citizen and resident of Germany, head of business development.
*Mathias Ortmann, 40, a citizen of Germany and resident of both Germany and Hong Kong, chief technical officer co-founder and director.
*Andrus Nomm, 32, a citizen of Estonia and resident of both Turkey and Estonia, software programmer.
*Bram van der Kolk, aka Bramos, 29, a Dutch citizen and resident of both the Netherlands and New Zealand, programmer.

The government also said it contained infringed material, up to a net worth of OVER 500 Million dollars! Holy shit! There are even claims of money laundering against the website. Well pirates, it appears as though a port has been closed today. 

The stats on the people who support/oppose SOPA

As it currently stands, SOPA has 63 supporters, and 117 opponents. But what may surprise you very more is the stats on these people. Among the Democrats, 40 support it and 51 oppose it. That means that almost 2/3 of the people supporting SOPA are Democrats. I was simply shocked when I saw this number but I then realized. Who desires for SOPA to pass? The Movie industry. And who has the movie industry bought more? The Democrats. That is why there is always a claim that Hollywood is liberal. Therefore the film industry is using their pocket Democrats to push this bill. Among of the Republicans, 22 support it and 66 oppose it. Much better numbers than the Democrats. Not surprisingly, 26/63 supporters of SOPA have had over $50,000 of donations come from the media. Whereas only 5 of the opposing ones have over $50,000. It becomes quite clear that the mass media is pushing this legislation in order to give them more power and control over the movie industry.

What exactly is SOPA/PIPA?

Welcome to the SOPA blog, a blog where you are updated on the status of the bill and other very important things. The bill entails long legal mumbo-jumbo but here's the basic ramifications. The legislation would allow copyright holders and the justice department to seek court orders against websites, both foreign and domestic. Sounds like a good, fair bill right? WRONG! The court may shut down the website WITHOUT any sort of trial by jury, thus effectively any site can be shut down, without any trouble. Not so good anymore huh? By legal standards, it violates the precedent set in NY Times vs US and Near vs Minnesota. Effectively these cases said that you can't restrain the press before they publish anything, which is what this bill does. But even worse, movie studios can take private action against websites which they BELIEVE to be in copyright infringement, and BAM, the website is effectively dead! Now let me take you to a scenario, a scenario in which say someone posted a link to a pirated movie on facebook/google/twitter/etc. Facebook/google/etc CAN be shutdown because of that. IMAGINE the sheer ramifications of this! We live in a democracy, not a media controlled totalitarian government! For the love of god, don't less this bill pass.