Reuter site - U.S. shuts Megaupload.com, hackers retaliate

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U.S. shuts Megaupload.com, hackers retaliate

Fri, Jan 20 10:33 AM EST

By Jeremy Pelofsky and Jim Finkle

(Reuters) - The U.S. government shut down the Megaupload.com content sharing website, charging its founders and several employees with massive copyright infringement, the latest skirmish in a high-profile battle against piracy of movies and music.

The Department of Justice announced the indictment and arrests of four company executives in New Zealand on Friday as debate over online piracy reaches fever pitch in Washington where lawmakers are trying to craft tougher legislation.

The movie and music industries want Congress to crack down on Internet piracy and content theft, but major Internet companies like Google and Facebook have complained that current drafts of the legislation would lead to censorship.

A Justice Department official said the timing of the arrests was not related to the battle in Congress.

New Zealand police on Friday raided a mansion in Auckland and arrested Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz, 37, a German national with New Zealand residency.

About 70 police, some armed, raided 10 properties and also arrested the website's chief marketing officer, Finn Batato, 38, chief technical officer and co-founder Mathias Ortmann, 40, both also from Germany, and Dutch national Bram van der Kolk, 29, who is also a New Zealand resident.

New Zealand police seized millions of dollars worth of assets, which included luxury cars such as a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe, from the group, dubbed the "Mega Conspiracy" by prosecutors. They also seized more than NZ$10 million ($8 million) from financial institutions.

"The FBI contacted New Zealand Police in early 2011 with a request to assist with their investigation into the Mega Conspiracy," said Detective Inspector Grant Wormald from the Organised & Financial Crime Agency New Zealand.

"All the accused have been indicted in the United States. We will continue to work with the U.S. authorities to assist with the extradition proceedings," Wormald said in a statement.

The men appeared briefly in an Auckland court on Friday and were remanded in custody until Monday for a bail hearing.

"We have nothing to hide," Kim Dotcom said from the dock after his lawyer opposed media cameras in the court, reported New Zealand media.

HACKERS RETALIATE

Vocal critics of the U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, and Protect IP Act (PIPA), quickly showed their opposition to the shutdown of Megaupload.com, with hackers attacking the public websites of the Justice Department, the world's largest music company Universal Music, and the two big trade groups that represent the music and film industries.

"The government takes down Megaupload? 15 minutes later Anonymous takes down government & record label sites," a member of Anonymous said via Twitter.

Representatives with the Justice Department and Recording Industry Association of America declined comment on the attacks. Officials with Universal Music could not immediately be reached.

Motion Picture Association of America spokesman Howard Gantman said his group was working with law enforcement to identify the attackers.

The Mega Conspiracy group was accused of engaging in a scheme that took more than $500 million away from copyright holders and generated over $175 million in proceeds from subscriptions and advertising, according to the indictment unsealed on Thursday.

"In exchange for payment, the Mega Conspiracy provides fast reproduction and distribution of infringing copies of copyrighted works from its servers located around the world," the indictment said.

U.S. Justice Department officials said that the estimate of $500 million in economic harm to copyright holders was on the low end and likely significantly more.

The allegations included copyright infringement as well as conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit racketeering.

RACKETEERING, MONEY LAUNDERING

If convicted, the maximum penalties are 20 years for conspiracy to commit racketeering and to commit money laundering and five years for each count of copyright infringement and five years for conspiracy to commit copyright infringement.

The companies charged, Megaupload Ltd and Vestor Ltd, were both registered in Hong Kong and owned either in large part or solely by Dotcom. A lawyer who has previously worked with Megaupload was not immediately available for comment.

Megaupload has boasted of having more than 150 million registered users and 50 million daily visitors, according to the indictment. At one point, it was estimated to be the 13th most frequently visited website on the Internet.

Users could upload material to the company's sites which then would create a link that could be distributed. The sites, which included video, music and pornography, did not provide search capabilities but rather relied on others to publish the links, the indictment said.

Users could purchase memberships to the site to obtain faster upload and download services, the primary source of revenue. Material that was not regularly downloaded was deleted and financial incentives were offered for popular content, according to the charges.

The web page with the link to the copyrighted material would include advertisements, another source of revenue.

If copyright holders complained about a specific link to the website, prosecutors said that Megaupload.com would remove that link but scores of others existed to the same material, according to prosecutors.

Other material found uploaded included child pornography and terrorism propaganda videos, according to the indictment. The U.S. government's investigation began in March 2010.

(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky and Jim Finkle in WASHINGTON; Additional reporting by Diane Bartz and Yinka Adegoke, and Mantik Kusjanto in Wellington.; Editing by Gary Hill, Phil Berlowitz, Michael Perry and Mark Bendeich)

Reuter site - Rick Perry to drop presidential campaign: report

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Rick Perry to drop presidential campaign: report

Thu, Jan 19 09:40 AM EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Texas Governor Rick Perry was poised to drop his run for the Republican presidential nomination later on Thursday, CNN reported, and he scheduled a news conference in South Carolina for 11 a.m. EST.

Perry entered the race in August and briefly was at the front of the pack of Republican candidates, but a series of gaffes and controversial statements during the campaign undermined his standing in polls. CNN cited two unnamed sources in saying Perry would drop his candidacy later on Thursday.

Perry's reported decision comes ahead of Saturday's Republican primary in South Carolina. Perry's poll numbers remain low in that conservative Southern state where he had hoped to revive his campaign.

Perry had roared past former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney to take the lead in polls of the Republican candidates after entering the race.

His conservative views and support from the grassroots Tea Party movement had seemed to position him as a top contender in the race for the Republican nomination to take on Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.

But Perry, who had never previously lost an election, foundered after several poor debate performances in which he was hammered by his rivals over his immigration policies and for ordering that young girls in Texas be vaccinated for a sexually transmitted virus.

He was ridiculed after a major debate stumble in November when he could not remember one of the three government agencies that he had repeatedly said he would eliminate if elected president.

Turkey condemned as "unfounded and inappropriate" on Tuesday comments by Perry this week that the country, a close U.S. ally, is ruled by Islamic terrorists and questioning whether it should remain in the NATO alliance.

(Reporting By Will Dunham)

Reuter site - Asian firms may eye RIM platform; Samsung denies interest

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Asian firms may eye RIM platform; Samsung denies interest

Wed, Jan 18 00:51 AM EST

By Alastair Sharp and Miyoung Kim

TORONTO/SEOUL (Reuters) - Research In Motion is not on Samsung Electronics Co's immediate shopping list, but the ailing Blackberry maker may still be attractive to Asian smartphone makers looking to compete against Google's Android, the world's fastest growing mobile platform.

Samsung said on Wednesday it has no interest in buying RIM or licensing its operating system, refuting a tech blog report that Canada-based RIM was looking to sell itself to the South Korean technology giant.

Shares of RIM, which has long been the subject of takeover speculation with its stock valuation lingering at multi-year lows, jumped more than 10 percent on the blog report, but fell back after Samsung's denial.

Product delays and profit warnings have eroded confidence in RIM, once at the cutting edge of smartphone technology for business users, and its management.

But RIM, still valued at above $9 billion, may hold enough allure to interest Asian vendors like LG Electronics Inc, HTC and ZTE, which don't have their own platform, said a source at a major Asian handset maker.

"As we don't have our own platform, it's (RIM) an attractive option to look into and we're flexible about anything," said the source, who has direct knowledge of the matter, but who declined to be named as he is not authorized to talk to the media.

Samsung has its own platform called bada and is seeking to boost its presence by merging it with a platform backed by chipmaker Intel.

"We haven't considered acquiring the firm and are not interested in (buying RIM)," said Samsung spokesman James Chung, adding that Samsung had not been approached by the Canadian firm for a takeover and was not interested in licensing RIM's mobile platform.

The Boy Genius Report website cited an unidentified source as saying RIM co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie was meeting with companies interested in either licensing its software or buying a part or all of RIM, with Samsung leading the pack.

After Samsung's denial, Nasdaq-listed RIM shares tumbled 5.3 percent to $16.55 in extended trading, after closing up 8 percent at a 6-week high of $17.47. The stock rose as much as 11.1 percent.

LICENSING DEAL?

Samsung may not be interested in buying RIM outright, but some analysts say that adding BlackBerry software may be a good fit with its strategy of bolstering software capability and adding corporate subscribers.

"We see RIM licensing BlackBerry 10 and charging $10 per device," Jefferies analyst Peter Misek said in a note, referring to RIM's operating system.

"Samsung and HTC would do this to gain access to RIM's subscriber base, diversify away from sole dependence on Android and create more enterprise exposure. BlackBerry 10 is effectively an Android derivative and, therefore, many bridges are possible."

Samsung has traditionally focused on growing its business from within and has no track record of major deals in recent years. In 2008, it withdrew a $5.9 billion unsolicited bid for flash memory card maker SanDisk due to the U.S. firm's deepening losses and uncertain outlook.

But it has since become more flexible on M&A as the hardware-focused firm seeks to boost its software capabilities to counter Apple and Google.

"It'd be helpful for Samsung or HTC to license BlackBerry OS so they can gain access to the corporate space," said Vincent Chen, an analyst at Yuanta Securities.

Shares in Samsung slid 1.1 percent in Seoul on Wednesday, underperforming the main KOSPI share index, which slipped 0.3 percent.

Jefferies' Misek said RIM could announce a deal within three months, and the appointment of a new chairperson could speed up the process. A spokesman for RIM declined to comment on the blog report.

Balsillie and fellow co-CEO Mike Lazaridis also share a role as board chairman, but, after pressure from investors, a committee made up of the rest of RIM's board is due to report this month on possible changes to the unusual structure.

RIM already turned down takeover overtures from Amazon.com Inc and other potential buyers because it prefers to fix its problems on its own, people with knowledge of the situation told Reuters recently.

RIM's shares have jumped nearly 40 percent since December 21, when Reuters reported such interest, but the stock is still down almost 75 percent from a year ago.

(Additional reporting by Clare Jim in TAIPEI; Editing by Frank McGurty, David Chance and Ian Geoghegan)

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Reuter site - Hulu challenges cable with first original drama

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Hulu challenges cable with first original drama

Sun, Jan 15 16:05 PM EST

By Yinka Adegoke

(Reuters) - Hulu, the popular online video service, has taken another step to becoming a full-fledged alternative to cable television by commissioning its first scripted original TV show to go live next month.

The new political documentary-style drama "Battleground" is set in Wisconsin and executive-produced by JD Walsh, Hagai Shaham and Marc Webb. It follows Hulu's first original documentary series Morgan Spurlock's "A Day In The Life."

The majority of Hulu's programming to date has been licensed from its parent companies, News Corp, Walt Disney Co and Comcast Corp's NBC Universal, as well as other program makers.

Andy Forsell, Hulu's programming executive, said Spurlock's show had been a success based on data it collected on its audience, but he declined to reveal the program's view counts.

Spurlock's series is being followed up with a second season and being joined by another six-episode documentary series called "Up to Speed" by Richard Linklater, who is perhaps best known for movies "Dazed and Confused" and "School of Rock".

The challenge for Hulu is to ensure it can generate a return on investment in expensive content like scripted drama, which is typically more costly than producing a documentary or reality show.

"We can make the economics work, I've got a budget for originals but there's not the same pressure as a traditional network since we don't have worry about filling airtime," Forsell said.

The original shows will be available on Hulu's free Web service rather than just to its paying Hulu Plus subscribers as the start-up increases its user base and builds its reputation for original programming. But Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar said the dual revenue model of advertising and subscription fees is key to Hulu's future.

"At scale, our model allows us to profitably pay content owners approximately 50 percent more in content licensing fees per subscriber when compared to other similarly priced online subscription services," Kilar said in a blog post on Friday.

PAYING SUBSCRIBERS

Hulu said on Friday it had more than 1.5 million paying subscribers at the end of 2011, and revenue grew 60 percent to $420 million.

Early last year, Kilar forecast that Hulu would generate around $500 million in revenue during 2011. The revenue miss was indirectly blamed on a "soft advertising market" in the second half of the year.

Like other Web companies trying to bring more TV shows and movies online, Hulu is in a race with rival Netflix Inc to buy and develop more content to add to and maintain its subscriber base.

Kilar said the company will spend around $500 million on content in 2012 covering new content acquisition, re-licensing existing content on the service and originals. It is an increase from the $375 million it said it spent last year.

Netflix, which has some 23 million U.S. subscribers, said last March it had secured exclusive rights to the 26-episode television series "House of Cards" a political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher.

It was reported last year that Netflix would spend around $100 million to produce the show.

Services like Netflix are increasingly being recognized as direct competition or replacements for premium cable channels such as Time Warner Inc's HBO and CBS Corp's Showtime.

(Reporting By Yinka Adegoke, editing by Maureen Bavdek)

I blog, I tweet, I rock. I think I'm Rupert Murdoch.

Here ye here ye, Rick Perry says Pee Pee

Reuter site - Rupert Murdoch turns to Twitter to attack Obama

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Rupert Murdoch turns to Twitter to attack Obama

Sun, Jan 15 13:11 PM EST

By Ilaina Jonas

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Media baron Rupert Murdoch used his new Twitter account this weekend to attack the Obama administration's opposition to parts of proposed legislation designed to combat Internet piracy.

"So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery," News Corp's chairman and chief executive officer posted on his personal Twitter account Saturday.

Murdoch, whose media empire includes Fox TV, The Wall Street Journal, Fox Studios and the Sun newspaper in Britain, continued with several tweets, attacking Google as the "Piracy leader" for streaming movies free. In later tweets he called Google a "great company."

Google could not be reached for an immediate comment. The White House declined to make any other comment beyond their statement issued Saturday.

At issue are the concerns White House officials raised on Saturday about elements in the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) pending in Congress.

Google and Facebook already have decried as heavy-handed and Hollywood studios and music labels say is needed to save U.S. jobs.

In a blog posting, three advisers to President Barack Obama said they believed the act and similar bills could make businesses on the Internet vulnerable to litigation and harm legal activity and free speech.

"Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small," said the officials, including White House cyber-security czar Howard Schmidt.

The House of Representatives' SOPA bill aims to crack down on online sales of pirated American movies, music or other goods by forcing Internet companies to block access to foreign sites offering material that violates U.S. copyright laws.

U.S. advertising networks could also be required to stop online ads and search engines would be barred from directly linking to websites found to be distributing pirated goods.

Those who support stricter piracy rules reacted strongly to Saturday's White House statement, which darkened prospects for legislation already expected to struggle to clear Congress in an election year.

Schmidt and the other advisers said the Obama administration was ready to work with lawmakers on a narrower, more targeted approach to online piracy to ensure that legitimate businesses -- including start-up companies -- would not be harmed.

Murdoch, who opened his Twitter account this year, has used it to colorfully opine on a number of topics. Tweeting last week, Murdoch praised New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's latest proposal to overhaul the city's public schools, but referred to New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo as "chicken Cuomo."

He also admitted in a post to his company's mishandling of social network MySpace, which News Corp bought in 2005 for $580 million. Today the site is nearly irrelevant.

"...we screwed up in every way possible.." Murdoch posted last week.

(Reporting By Ilaina Jonas, editing by Maureen Bavdek)

Reuter site - Perry defends Marines accused of urinating on corpses

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Perry defends Marines accused of urinating on corpses

Sun, Jan 15 15:14 PM EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Texas Governor Rick Perry, scrambling to keep his U.S. presidential bid alive, accused the Obama administration on Sunday of over-reacting to a videotape that shows four Marines appearing to urinate on dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

"These kids made a mistake. There's not any doubt about it. They shouldn't have done it. It's bad," Perry told CNN's "State of the Union" program.

"But to call it a criminal act, I think, is over the top," said Perry, who faces a possible make-or-break performance in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary on Saturday.

The U.S. Marine Corps named an investigative officer last week to decide what, if any, charges to bring against the four Marines shown in the widely circulated videotape.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other members of the Obama administration have denounced the action by the Marines.

"Defiling, desecrating, mocking, photographing or filming for personal use insurgent dead constitutes a grave breach of the (law of armed conflict)," Lieutenant General Curtis Scaparrotti, who heads day-to-day Afghan operations, wrote the troops last week.

Perry, a former Air Force pilot, said the four Marines should be appropriately punished. "But going after them as a criminal act, I think (is) really a bad message," he said.

Suggesting that armed conflict can alter personal behavior, Perry noted that "there is a picture" of legendary Army General George Patton urinating in the Rhine River in Germany near the end of World War Two.

"Although there's not a picture," Perry added, British Prime Minister Winston "Churchill did the same thing on the Siegfried line," a massive wall of German defenses.

(Reporting By Thomas Ferraro; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Reuter site - Hacker says to release full Norton Antivirus code on Tuesday

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Hacker says to release full Norton Antivirus code on Tuesday

Sat, Jan 14 13:12 PM EST

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A hacker who goes by the name of 'Yama Tough' threatened Saturday to release next week the full source code for Symantec Corp's flagship Norton Antivirus software.

"This coming Tuesday behold the full Norton Antivirus 1,7Gb src, the rest will follow," Yama Tough posted via Twitter.

In the past week Yama Tough has released fragments of source code from Symantec products along with a cache of emails. The hacker says all the data was taken from Indian government servers.

(Reporting By Frank Jack Daniel)