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Comment by OutOfHere | Hacker News Reader

Google has had a massive lobbying effort for a long time, and donating to Congress is a part of it. If not for it, how is it that a takedown process wasn't sufficient for Mega, but it is sufficient for Google? How is it that the rights-holders didn't engage Mega into having such tooling?

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I suggest you read the indictment for Megaupload (Wikipedia summarizes it, but they cite the actual document you can view): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload_legal_case#Basis_of...

The indictment explicitly answers your questions about why Megaupload was different from other file sharing services.

Quite simple really. Merely having a takedown process isn't enough to comply with the law. It must actually be complied with. YouTube went above and beyond in this, not only complying with DMCA requests, but not even requiring them. Megaupload's takedown process was a sham. Yes, they had a page where DMCA requests could be submitted, but actual compliance was poor, and intentionally so.

Compliance is a critical part of the DMCA. Once a site knows about infringing content, they lose safe harbor provisions.

Also, how do you think lobbying Congress would even hypothetically help YouTube in court? The DMCA doesn't have any different provisions for YouTube than it does for Megaupload.

> how do you think lobbying Congress would even hypothetically help YouTube in court

With regard to Megaupload, this much is simple. The Justice Department can freeze an investigation under pressure from Congress. Whether an investigation comes to its conclusion or not is strongly under the influence of Congress.

YouTube was found to be in compliance with DMCA in federal court due to Viacom's case years before the DOJ bought a case against Megaupload. I don't know why YouTube would be worried about DOJ investigating something they had case law to support them on.

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