Moje nowe hobby: Kim Kardashian charged for piracy

all artickle - foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/19/feds-shut-down-file-sharing-website/

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Kim Kardashian and other celebrities star in a promotional YouTube video for Megaupload. On Thurs., Jan 19, federal investigators charged 7 foreigners (not including Kardashian or the other endorsers) connected to the site with piracy.
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McLEAN, Va.
– Federal prosecutors have shut down one of the world's largest file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, on charges of violating piracy laws -- a day after a 24-hour blackout of popular websites such as Wikipedia drew national attention to the issue.

The indictment accuses seven individuals and two corporations -- Megaupload Limited and Vestor Limited -- of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. It was unsealed on Thursday, and claims that at one point Megaupload was the 13th most popular website in the world.

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Anonymous' hackers take down Justice Department site
over Megaupload shutdown
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A promotional video for Megaupload.com added to YouTube in December 2011 features celebrity endorsements from Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, and other popular musicians.

Megaupload was unique not only because of its massive size and the volume of downloaded content, but also because it had high-profile support from celebrities, musicians and other content producers who are most often the victims of copyright infringement and piracy. Before the website was taken down, it contained endorsements from Kim Kardashian, Alicia Keys and Kanye West, among others.

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Relieved users welcome Wikipedia's return
after 24-hour blackout
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The individuals in the criminal enterprise each faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on racketeering charges, five years for conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, 20 years on money laundering charges and five years on related charges.

Megaupload was led by colorful Australian Kim Dotcom -- aka Kim Schmitz, or Kim Tim Jim Vestor. He is a a resident of both Hong Kong and New Zealand, and a dual citizen of Finland and Germany, who legally changed his last name to "Dotcom."

The website's founder and "chief innovation officer" was once convicted of a felony but has repeatedly denied engaging in piracy, according to CNET.com -- and he made more than $42 million from the conspiracy in 2010 alone, according to the indictment.

A group called Anonymous announced the demolition of the popular social networking site Facebook.com. This group is very powerful and has collapsed the best-kept government computer systems such as the CIA, NATO and some well-known corporations such as Sony.

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SOPA
-- What It Is and Why It’s Bad

The Truth
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The indictment comes the day after a 24-hour "blackout" of Wikipedia, a protest doodle on the homepage of Google, and numerous other protests across the Internet against proposed anti-piracy legislation that many leading websites -- including Reddit, Google, Facebook, Amazon and others -- contend will make it challenging if not impossible for them to operate.

Online piracy from China and elsewhere is a massive problem for the media industry, one that costs as much as $250 billion per year and costs the industry 750,000 jobs, according to a 2008 statement by Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

.....hmmmm