RIAA Files A Near Word For Word Copy Of MPAA Lawsuit Against Megaupload

Copyright

from the because-that's-not-infringement dept

Earlier this week the MPAA filed a very questionable lawsuit against Megaupload, recognizing that the statute of limitations would run out in a few months. And just days later, the RIAA has followed suit with a nearly identical filing. While they’re done by two different law firms, the similarities between the lawsuits are uncanny — including the numerous defective (to dangerous) attempts to reinterpret copyright way beyond what the law actually says. We already covered why most of these theories are defective, but let’s look at some similarities between the filings. I mean, honestly, if the RIAA and MPAA weren’t so close, and if it were possible to claim copyright on legal filings (as some do assert), you’d think that the MPAA attorneys might have a claim on the RIAA’s attorneys for copying their work. One wonders how much the RIAA’s lawyers charged to basically rearranged some words in the MPAA’s filing.

Let’s start at the beginning. Here’s how the MPAA describes what Megaupload does:

Megaupload amassed the millions of popular content files that it hosted on its servers and offered to the public for download by openly encouraging and paying users to upload these files. Any Internet user who went to the Megaupload website could upload a computer file, whether or not the user registered as a member. When the upload was completed, Megaupload reproduced the file on at least one computer server it controlled and provided the user with a Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”)”link” beginning with “megaupload.com.” The uploader could then propagate the link broadly over the Internet, so that anyone interested in downloading or otherwise accessing a copy ofthe file could easily find it on Megaupload’s servers.

Any user who had the URL link could access and download the associated content from Megaupload’s servers. By “clicking” the URL link (or copying it into any web browser), the user was taken to a “download page” on the Megaupload website that allowed the user to download a copy of the file from a computer server controlled by defendants.

And the RIAA’s version:

Beginning in late 2005 and continuing at least to January 2012 when Defendants were indicted, Megaupload amassed the millions of popular content files that it hosted on its servers and offered to the public for download by openly encouraging users to upload these files. Until mid-2011, Megaupload went so far as to actually pay its users to do this. Any Internet users who went to the Megaupload website could upload content files, regardless of whether the users registered as members. Upon completion of the uploads, Megaupload reproduced each file on at least one computer server it controlled and provided the users with a Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”) “link” beginning with “megaupload.com” for each uploaded file. The uploading users could then propagate the links broadly over the Internet, so that anyone interested in downloading or otherwise accessing copies of the files could easily find them on Megaupload’s servers.

Users in possession of the Megaupload URL links could access and download the associated content from Megaupload’s servers. By “clicking” the URL links (or copying them into any web browser), users were taken to a “download page” on the Megaupload website that allowed users to download the content, including Plaintiffs’ recorded music, from computer servers controlled by Defendants.

Yeah. That’s pretty damn similar, including numerous identical phrases. Someone’s copying something. Okay, how about the lack of a search (which, as we noted previously, is ridiculous, since Napster got in trouble for having a search, and now everyone’s saying that not having a search is just as damning). Here’s the MPAA:

To conceal the scope of infringennent occurring on the Megaupload website, defendants did not provide users with a searchable index of files available for download from the Megaupload website (although defendants themselves had access to such an index). Instead, defendants relied on numerous third party “linking” sites to host, organize, and promote URL links to Megaupload-hosted infringing content, including plaintiffs’ copyrighted works. Such linking sites made infringing content broadly and easily accessible to users by maintaining an index of links to content files organized by category and/or alphabetically by titles of the copyrighted work; some such linking sites also offered search boxes where users could enter queries quickly to find the content they wanted. Many of these linking sites were blatant pirate sites, hosting thousands of links to infringing material. Any visitor could quickly see the widespread availability on many linking sites of links to infringing content on Megaupload. Defendants knew of this open infringement on pirate linking sites and closely tracked the traffic from those sites to Megaupload. Furthermore, defendants provided financial incentives for premium users to post links to these sites through the Uploader Rewards program.

Okay, and the RIAA version:

To conceal the scope of infringement occurring on the Megaupload website, Defendants did not provide users with a searchable index of files available for download from the site (although Defendants themselves had access to such an index). Instead, Defendants relied on numerous third party “linking” sites to host, organize, and promote URL links to Megaupload-hosted infringing content, including Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works. Such linking sites made infringing content broadly and easily accessible to users by maintaining an index of links to content files organized by category and/or alphabetically by titles of the copyrighted work; some such linking sites also offered search boxes where users could enter queries quickly to find the content that they sought. Many of these linking sites were blatant pirate sites, hosting thousands of links to infringing material. Several of these linking sites exclusively offered Megaupload links. Any visitor could quickly see the widespread availability on many linking sites of links to infringing content on Megaupload. Defendants knew of this open infringement on pirate linking sites and closely tracked the traffic from those sites to Megaupload. Defendants also knowingly interacted with users of linking sites and have visited such sites themselves. Defendants also provided financial incentives for premium users to post links to these sites through the Uploader Rewards program.

Right. So those two paragraphs are identical, except the RIAA adds in two extra sentences about the linking sites. It goes on and on like this, with both filings clearly working off of either each other or the DOJ indictment, which they’re copy/pasting into their own filing and fussing with a word or two here or there. Here’s just one more example. Both filings claim that Megaupload can’t be considered a “cloud storage” site because it would delete unpopular files. Here’s the MPAA’s version of this:

Contrary to some of defendants’ public assertions, Megaupload was not designed to be a private data storage provider. Users without premium subscriptions were restricted not only in their downloading capabilities, but also in their ability to store files on the site. Any content they uploaded would be deleted if it was not also downloaded within a certain period of time — after 21 days in the case of unregistered, anonymous users and after 90 days in the case of registered users who were not premium subscribers. Only premium subscribers (estimated to be 1% of users) could use Megaupload for long-term file storage.

And the RIAA’s nearly identical text:

Megaupload was in no respect designed to be a private data storage provider. Users without premium subscriptions were restricted not only in their downloading capabilities, but also in their ability to store files on the site. Any content that users uploaded would be deleted if it was not also downloaded within a certain period of time–after 21 days in the case of unregistered, anonymous users, and after 90 days in the case of registered users who were not premium subscribers. Only premium subscribers (estimated to be one percent of users) could use Megaupload for long-term file storage.

Of course, Kim Dotcom has now refuted this claim, saying that content that was unpopular was not deleted from Megaupload.

However, even beyond that, I fail to see how having a service like this that deletes unpopular content suddenly disqualifies it from being a legitimate service. Lots of other legitimate services have similar terms. While it appears to have recently changed this, the popular image sharing site Imgur (which we use at Techdirt) used to have a very similar clause, saying that “images that are not viewed for 6 months may be removed. However, images with pro accounts can only be removed by you.” That doesn’t mean they were not a legitimate service.

Nor does it mean it’s not a “cloud” service. Different cloud services serve different markets, and services like Megaupload (and Imgur) tend to be more focused on the immediate sharing of content (not necessarily infringing content). In fact, if you look back at the origins of Megaupload, it initially resembled services like the old “YouSendIt,” which were focused on making it easier for people to move any file from one person to another. That’s not encouraging infringement, it’s encouraging being able to transport a digital file it’s completely neutral to whether or not the content is or is not infringing.

Either way, the RIAA’s lawsuit is a near carbon copy of the MPAA’s, and is just as faulty in its reasoning. It’s nothing more than a blatant pile on in the attempt to twist copyright laws to their liking.

Filed Under: copyright, kim dotcom, lawsuits
Companies: megaupload, mpaa, riaa