This month both the MPAA and RIAA filed civil lawsuits against Megaupload and its founder Kim Dotcom for massive copyright infringement. What they failed to mention, however, is that many of their members' employees were actually sharing files on the site. In addition, Disney, Warner Brothers and Fox were all eager to set up content distribution or advertising deals with Megaupload.

The entertainment industry groups have always been quick to brand Megaupload as a pirate haven, designed to profit from massive copyright infringement. The comment below from MPAA’s general counsel Steve Fabrizio is a good example.

“Megaupload was built on an incentive system that rewarded users for uploading the most popular content to the site, which was almost always stolen movies, TV shows and other commercial entertainment content,” Fabrizio commented when the MPAA filed its suit.

However, data from Megaupload’s database shared with TorrentFreak shows that employees of MPAA and RIAA member companies had hundreds of accounts at the file-storage site. This includes people working at Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal Music Group, Sony, and Warner Music.

In total, there were 490 Megaupload accounts that were connected to MPAA and RIAA members, who sent 181 premium payments in total. Together, these users uploaded 16,455 files which are good for more than 2,097 gigabytes in storage.

Remember, those are only from addresses that could be easily identified as belonging to a major movie studio or record label, so the real numbers should be much higher.

MPAA / RIAA member accounts

But there’s more. The same companies that are now asking for millions of dollars in damages due to massive copyright infringement were previously eager to work with Megaupload and Megavideo.

As we noted previously, Disney, Warner Brothers, Fox and others contacted Kim Dotcom’s companies to discuss advertising and distribution deals.

For example, Shelina Sayani, Digital Marketing Coordinator for Warner Bros, offered a deal to syndicate “exciting” Warner content to Megaupload’s Megavideo site.

Subject: Warner Bros. – Looking for Content Manager

Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:55:50 -0800

From: Sayani, Shelina

To: [email protected] Dear Megavideo, I’m writing from Warner Bros., offering opportunities to syndicate our exciting entertainment content (e.g. Dark Knight, Harry Potter, Sex and the City clips and trailer) for your users. Could you please pass on my information to the appropriate content manager or forward me to them? Thanks so much for your time. Shelina Sayani

WB Advanced Digital Services

3300 W Olive Ave, Bldg 168 Room 4-023

Burbank, CA 91505

818.977.4668

Similarly, Disney attorney Gregg Pendola reached out to Megaupload, not to threaten or sue the company, but to set up a deal to have Disney content posted on the Megavideo site.

Subject: Posting on Megavideo.com

From: “Pendola, Gregg”

Date: 8/13/2008 10:06 AM

To: [email protected] My name is Gregg Pendola. I am Executive Counsel for The Walt Disney Company. Certain properties of The Walt Disney Company have content that they would like to post on your site. However, we are uncomfortable with a couple of the provisions of your Terms of Use that we feel may jeopardize our rights in our content. We were hoping that you would be amenable to reviewing a 1-page agreement we have drafted that we would like to use in place of your Terms of Use. Is there someone I can contact to discuss this? Or someone I can email the Agreement to for review? Thanks. Gregg Gregg Pendola

Executive Counsel

The Walt Disney Company

For Fox, the interest in Megaupload wasn’t necessarily aimed at spreading studio content, but to utilize Megaupload’s considerable reach by setting up an advertising deal. In this email former Senior Director Matt Barash touts FAN, the Fox Audience Network.

Subject: Fox Ad Partnership

Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:09:14 -0800

From: Matt Barash

To: [email protected] I’m reaching out to see if you have a few minutes to discuss the recently launched Fox Audience Network. FAN is now up and running and fully operational, utilizing best of breed optimization technology to bring cutting edge relevancy to the ad network landscape.

We are scaling rapidly and seeking the right 3rd party publishers to add as partners to our portfolio. Please let me know if you have some time to chat this week about how we can work together to better monetize your inventory. Best,

Matt Matt Barash

Director, Publisher Development

Fox Audience Network

The above are just a few examples of major industry players who wanted to team up with Kim Dotcom. Now, several years later, the same companies accuse the site of being one of the largest piracy vehicles the Internet has ever seen.

If the MPAA and RIAA cases proceed, Megaupload’s defense will probably present some of these examples to highlight the apparent double standard. That will be an interesting narrative to follow, for sure.