Megaupload’s New Plan: Will It Fly, Legally?

In an article on Wired.com today, Kim Dotcom and Mathias Ortmann outlined their vision for a new service, called simply “Mega,” including an approach to file-hosting that the pair believes will render their service legally bulletproof with respect to the sort of prosecution they are currently facing.

As described by Dotcom and Ortmann, Mega would allow users of the air max 95 femme service to encrypt files as they upload them, and provide the user with unique keys for decryption purposes. The users would control access to any uploaded file, and since the encryption key would not be stored by Mega, the company would have no means of viewing the files uploaded to their servers.

As it is put in the Wired article:

Dotcom’s belief is that even the broad interpretation of internet law that brought down Megaupload would be insufficient to thwart the new Mega, because what users share, how they share it, and how many people they share it with will be their responsibility and under their control, not Mega’s.

Dotcom says that according to his legal experts, the only way to stop such a service from existing is to make encryption itself illegal.

I’m not so sure Dotcom and Ortmann’s vision really comports with the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA. Why? Because §512(i), in pertinent part, states the following:

Conditions for Eligibility.
Accommodation of technology. — The limitations on liability established by this section shall apply to a service provider only if the service provider….accommodates and does not interfere with standard technical measures.

Does encrypting every file “accommodate” technical measures like the spiders used by services such as DMCA Force to ferret out possible online infringements on our clients’ intellectual property?

Ortmann apparently doesn’t see that as a concern, telling Wired “If the copyright holder finds publicly posted links and decryption keys and verifies that the file is an infringement of their copyright, they can send a DMCA takedown notice to have that file removed, just like before.”

Ultimately, the answer to my question will probably come from the courts — and my hunch is that if Mega follows through on its plan, the courts will be given the opportunity to weigh in on the question sooner rather than later. Major rights-holders aren’t likely to simply take Dotcom and Ortmann’s word for it that Mega is legally bulletproof, after all.http://www.yeezyboostadidas.fr