This week in Piracy: 14 April – 20 April

Top 10 most pirated movies

1. Contraband
2. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
3. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
4. We Bought a Zoo
5. Bad Ass
6. The Grey
7. Shame
8. Men in Black: The Dark Watchers
9. The adventures of Tintin
10. Wrath of the Titans

Megaupload’s hosting company could be sued next

The US Government’s attorney has said that Carpathia, Megaupload’s host, might be responsible for the copyright infringements that the site committed. The attorney stated that the host made $35 million off the cyberlocker and that Carpathia might be open to a civil suit. This was all said during a meeting between Carpathia, the US Government’s attorney and the Judge ruling over the Megaupload case. The meeting was held to find out what Carpathia should do to the servers holding all the data from Megaupload which Carpathia says costs $9,000 a day (Megaupload was renting 1,103 servers every month).

Megaupload was planning multi-billion dollar IPO

Before Megaupload was shut down by US authorities it was discussing going public on the US stock market. The cyberlocker was in talks with auditors, accounting firms and banks to get the company listed with an initial stock offering that would have seen the company valued in the billions of dollars.

“Megaupload management had discussion with a number of the ‘Big Four’ largest international professional accountancy firms , which handle the vast majority of audits for publicly traded companies. These Big Four firms were invited to be the auditor and to work together with management to build out a road map to prepare Megaupload for an IPO,” Robert Lim, corporate advisor, explained.

“This included any management and corporate restructuring to enhance efficiency and management of the group, and to review and enhance internal controls and corporate governance processes in the company as needed. Basically, some of the essential key things private companies need to do to prepare for public listing.”

Irish anti-piracy group disappears

INFACT is an Irish anti-piracy group which fought the good fight on behalf of the MPAA against the evil pirates in Ireland. But now the group seems to have dropped off the face of the planet. No announcement, no statements, no website, there is simply nothing left of the group and no one (who is talking) seems to know why.

OZ ISP not responsible for piracy

The Australian High Court has upheld a previous ruling that the ISP iiNET was not responsible for the activities of its users, including BitTorrent pirates. The legal battle started in 2008 when the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) took iiNET to court in an attempt to get it held accountable for the piracy committed by its users. After years of rulings and appeals the case found itself in front of the Australian High Court. According to cables leaked by Wikileaks in November 2011 AFACT took iiNET to court because it was a small ISP and wouldn’t put up a fight. The ruling by the High Court will not be passed down to the lower courts and will set a precedent for any cases of a similar nature.

Source : Torrentfrat