Why Kim Dotcom chose the Me.ga domain

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom seems to have found a legal loophole that will allow him to relaunch Megaupload under the new domain Me.ga. And it is precisely this kind of loophole that the now-defunct SOPA anti-piracy bill was trying to close.

You may have heard by now that Internet superstar and enemy of the U.S. entertainment industry Kim Dotcom announced today the URL for his forthcoming relaunch of Megaupload. The website will be, simply, Me.ga. Clever – but not just clever. This is a shrewd move by Dotcom, made in an attempt to avoid a repeat of Megaupload’s doomed fate.

Me.ga uses the .ga country code top-level domain (ccTLD), which is intended for domains registered in the small, central African state of Gabon. The domain registrar for all .ga ccTLDs is Gabon Telecom, which is a key detail in all this.

All .com, .net, .cc, .tv, .name, and .org domains are issued through a company called Verisign (you’ve probably heard of them), which is based in the United States. And because Verisign is based in the U.S., the federal government claims that it has the right to seize any domain that ends in any of the TLDs listed above – a practice that has increased significantly over the past couple of years. It was because of the U.S. government’s asserted jurisdiction over Verisign that the FBI was able to seize Megaupload.com. On top of that, Dotcom foolishly hosted Megaupload content with Carpathia Hosting, a Virgina-based hosting company. This too gave the U.S. government claim to Megaupload. For Me.ga, however, Dotcom says he will not use any hosting companies based in the U.S.

From Dotcom’s placeholder site for Me.ga: “Unfortunately we can’t work with hosting companies based in the United States. Safe harbour for service providers via the Digital Millenium [sic] Copyright Act has been undermined by the Department of Justice with its novel criminal prosecution of Megaupload. It is not safe for cloud storage sites or any business allowing user generated content to be hosted on servers in the United States or on domains like .com / .net. The US government is frequently seizing domains without offering service providers a hearing or due process.”

From the way it looks now, Me.ga will be accessible to users in the U.S., but will not have any business relationship with companies based in the U.S., putting it much further out of reach from the hands of American law enforcement.

This is precisely the loophole that the ill-fated Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was trying to close. If you’ll remember, SOPA specifically targeted “foreign rogue websites” — not U.S.-based websites — by requiring search engines to remove them from their index, and Internet service providers to block access. BitTorrent king The Pirate Bay is a prime example of a “foreign rogue website,” and Me.ga would, had SOPA passed, fall into this category as well.

Me.ga is currently scheduled to relaunch on January 20, 2013, one year after the FBI shut down Megaupload. Whether or not the U.S. government will find another way to kill off Me.ga, or to block access for U.S. Web users, remains to be seen.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

The Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg arrested in Cambodia

After skipping bail in January of this year, The Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg has been arrested in Cambodia.

After a global search, The Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg was found in Phnom Penh and taken in handcuffs by Cambodian police on Thursday.

The founder had skipped his 12-month jail term and the responsibility of paying off his $1.1 million share of the $6.9 million fine in Sweden after being found guilty of copyright infringement in 2009 for operating The Pirate Bay. His two co-founders, Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde, and the site’s financier, Carl Lundstroem, were also sentenced by Swedish court, but an appeal in 2010 reduced their one-year jail sentences to between 4 to 10 months.

Warg was the only sentenced member to have failed to appear during the appeals hearing, with his lawyer citing an illness that prevented Warg from leaving his hospital bed in Cambodia. After not turning up for the beginning of his sentencing on January 2, he was placed on an international wanted list. He was eventually found by Cambodian authorities in the apartment he has lived in since fleeing Sweden to the Southeast Asian country.

“[Warg's] arrest was made at the request of the Swedish government for a crime related to information technology,” Cambodia’s police spokesman Kirth Chantharith told the AFP news agency.

The Cambodian government is reportedly working with Swedish authorities to determine the next course of action. “We don’t have an extradition treaty with Sweden but we’ll look into our laws and see how we can handle this case,” Chantharith said. However, Warg’s lawyers deduced that he would eventually be sent back to Sweden, pending some paperwork and legal documents that the Cambodian government is waiting upon.

The Pirate Bay was founded in 2003 as a file-sharing site and has long been a target of the MPAA and RIAA. Weeks earlier, the United States government sought recommendations for strategies that would influence an updated copyright enforcement policy. Among the organizations submitting strategies included a joint filing by the MPAA and RIAA in the hopes that their efforts will step up the fight against illegal file sharing sites.

Despite international efforts to rid of the site from threats, and arrests and bans in the United Kingdom, The Pirate Bay has amassed more than 31 million users and continues to operate today.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Gears of War: Judgment studio loses three creative leads

5 years after People Can Fly was acquired by Epic Games, co-founder Andrian Chmielarz and two artists have left the studio.

These are rambling days in the video game industry. Around 4 years ago when the game industry began contracting, major publishers bought up independent studios in record numbers, with designers seeking the relative financial security of the larger corporate body. Today though, more and more of those same developers are striking out on their own, many leaving behind the studios that they helped found. Painkiller and Bulletstorm studio People Can Fly was acquired by Epic Games during that rush in 2007. On Sunday, three of People Can Fly’s key staff left the studio to pursue new opportunities.

Polygon reported that creative director and studio founder Andrian Chmielarz, lead artist Andrzej Poznanski, and principal artist Michal Kosieradzki have all left People Can Fly. Chmielarz said on Twitter that People Can Fly’s current project, spinoff Gears of War: Judgment won’t be hurt by their departure. “Gears fans, you’re going to love Judgment. It’s in great hands. And don’t worry, you’ll hear about my plans soon enough.

Epic president Mike Capps confirmed the staff changes and spoke fondly of all three. “Andrian Chmielarz, Andrzej Poznanski, and Michal Kosieradzki have parted ways with People Can Fly and Epic Games in order to pursue other opportunities, which they will announce of their own accord,” said Capps, “Over the past decade, they have been instrumental in building People Can Fly into the talented team that it is today. We wish them well in their future endeavors.”

Gears of War: Judgment is in development at both People Can Fly and Epic Games proper, unlike People’s last game Bulletstorm. Bulletstorm, published by EA, was well received by critics for its swift, cartoonish violence and satirical tone but the game was considered a commercial disappointment. It’s been hinted that this is why the studio is working on Epic’s most popular property rather than another new IP. Chmielarz and the others’ leaving the studio makes sense then; if they can’t pursue the creative goals the most want to at People Can Fly, it’s wise to seak out new opportunities.

These are only the latest major departures from Epic. Director of production Rod Fergusson, one of the stewards behind the entire Gears of War franchise, left the company last week to join BioShock Infinite studio Irrational Games.

Rambling days indeed. Many players from the world of Epic are hitting the road, even as the company is expanding.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com