page_title: Megaupload
section_title: Legal case
hierarchical_section_title: Megaupload / Legal case
caption_attribution_description: English: Kim Schmitz also dotcom or Kim Kimble, Megaupload. Taken in September 1996 in Kim's loft in Munich-Giesing. Deutsch: Kim Schmitz auch Kimble oder Kim Dotcom, Megaupload. Aufgenommen im September 1996 in Kims Loft in München-Giesing. Erstveröffentlichung der Fotografie in: Der Spiegel, ISSN: 0038-7452, Nr. 39/1996, S. 122: Wie unter Drogen – Der Hacker Kim Schmitz
context_page_description: Megaupload was a website that allowed people to upload and download files. It had several sister websites including Megavideo, Megapix, Megalive and others. It is based in Hong Kong.
  It allowed users who do not have an account to upload and download files up to 1 GB. People with free accounts got 200 GB of space. People with paid accounts had unlimited space. After uploading a file, a URL can be used to access and download it.
  It would stay there for
  Users without accounts - 21 days.
  Free accounts - 90 days
  Paid accounts - forever
  The website was supported by advertising. It gave incentives to people who uploaded the files that were downloaded the most. The website displayed advertising as users downloaded the files.
context_section_description: On 19 January 2012 the United States Department of Justice seized and shut down the file hosting site Megaupload.com and commenced criminal cases against its owners and others. Worldwide, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Kim Schmitz (Founder), Finn Batato (CMO), Mathias Ortmann (CTO and co-founder), with Bram van der Kolk arrested by the Organised and Financial Crime Agency of New Zealand.  Their bail request was denied in New Zealand court as it was opposed by US authorities on the case. On January 20 Hong Kong Customs froze more than HK$300 million (US$39 million) in assets belonging to the company.
  The case drew particular public attention because the arrests were on the day after a large protest of proposed legislation to expand United States legal authority against foreign piracy websites. Shortly afterward, the Department of Justice's website and a number of other organisations' websites were taken offline following concerted denial of service attacks from activist group Anonymous.
  A group spokesperson described the attacks as "the single largest Internet attack in [the group's] history" in an interview, adding that it was "a terrible case of happenstance that federal agents went after Megaupload only hours after the thousands of sites protesting in an anti-SOPA blackout went back online. Web surfers were by-and-far ready to defend an open Internet ... the feds 'could not have chosen a worse time to take down Megaupload'."  He noted that from commencement until the point the government's web servers were offline was a mere 70 minutes.
  Besides the Department of Justice's justice.gov, the Denial of Service attack included Universal Music Group, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), and the website of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Even without SOPA having been passed yet, the federal government always had tremendous power to do some of the things that they want to do. So if this is what can occur without SOPA being passed, imagine what can occur after SOPA is passed,” Brown told RT. Anonymous also attacked the website of France's anti-piracy organisation. 
  On 19 January 2012 Anonymous released a statement on Pastebin.com accepting responsibility of the mass attacks on websites including those of RIAA, MPAA, BMI, FBI and others.
caption: Kim Schmitz in 1996
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