mega

Two members of a group that wanted to be known for being first to release the latest Hollywood films to the Web were sentenced to prison today, the U.S. government says.

Willie Lambert, 57, of Pittston, Pa., was sentenced to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $449,514 in restitution, according to a press release from Neil MacBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. MacBride is also the man who's pressing a separate criminal copyright case against MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom.

Sean Lovelady, a co-defendant from … Read more

Kim DotCom, the flamboyant founder of the now defunct MegaUpload, made news today by announcing the coming of Mega, a new cloud storage service that is similar to MegaUpload.

But with the launch of a service similar to MegaUpload, set for the first of the year, officials in the United States said that DotCom will have misled a New Zealand court and possibly violated the terms of his bail and opened himself up to new charges.

Last January, DotCom and six others linked to MegaUpload were accused in an indictment filed by the U.S. Attorney of operating MegaUpload as … Read more

Kim DotCom is once again making news and thumbing his nose at authorities.

DotCom told Reuters today that he will launch Mega, the son of MegaUpload, near the first anniversary of the police raid on his home and the shutdown of MegaUpload, a storage service accused of hosting millions of pirated movies, music and other digital media.

Police in New Zealand arrested DotCom last January at the request of the U.S. government, which has alleged in an indictment that DotCom and six associates are guilty of criminal copyright violations, conspiracy, and money laundering. DotCom and the other defendants deny … Read more

MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom has proven to be unstoppable. After the U.S. government's major takedown of the cloud-storage service, which came with charges of racketeering, copyright infringement, money laundering, and more, DotCom has escaped extradition to the U.S. for now and was given a formal apology by New Zealand's prime minister.

Emboldened, DotCom has announced that he is building a new file-sharing site called Mega. According to Wired, this new site will work slightly different than MegaUpload but will still let users upload, store, and share data files. DotCom also intends to make it raid-proof.

"… Read more

Imagine the attention you'll command from higher-ups when you enter the boardroom sounding like a giant hydraulic robot crushing everything in its way. Or a zombie dragging a bunch of arms and legs. There is simply no way you will be ignored.

Just in time for Halloween -- or that big meeting where you really need to make an impression -- ThinkGeek is out with the new Mega Stomp Panic, an "audio reality costume" that lets you forgo masks and makeup and "dress up" in sound alone.

Just clip the two-piece gadget to your boring khaki pants, turn it on, and turn yourself into a monster, gunslinger, coin-collecting 8-bit gaming hero, or medieval knight. If you really want to mess with your pals, saunter up on a sunny day sounding like you're splashing in puddles during a rainstorm. … Read more

Harvey Weinstein, the tough-talking indie-film producer, has strongly condemned the pirating of movies and TV shows via the Internet and has accused Apple and Google of being part of the problem.

During a keynote speech in London at the BFI Film Festival, Weinstein attacked Internet companies that profit from the distribution of movies, music and other content but don't compensate the creators, according to a report in the British publication The Register.

Weinstein, who with his brother Bob founded the legendary indie studio Miramax, called for the creative community to band together and fight the infringement of intellectual property … Read more

MegaUpload has been on a winning streak in court, but last week a U.S. district judge denied the company's request to dismiss a criminal indictment against it.

The U.S. Attorney's office has accused MegaUpload and its leaders of operating the cloud-storage service as a criminal enterprise. U.S. officials allege that founder Kim DotCom and six other associates encouraged users to upload pirated movies, music, and other media to MegaUpload's lockers so managers could get rich on advertising revenue and premium subscription fees.

MegaUpload's lawyers asked the court to throw out the indictment against … Read more

U.S. District Judge Liam O'Grady will hold another hearing to help him determine what to do with the digital files owned by MegaUpload users.

O'Grady is responding to a motion filed by Kyle Goodwin, an Ohio-based sports videographer. Goodwin has sought the return of the video files, mostly of high school sports action, that he stored at MegaUpload, the Internet storage locker that was taken offline by the U.S. government.

In January, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia accused MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom and six other company managers of criminal copyright violations, … Read more