(Photo: twitter.com)

Alicia Keys was having a pretty annoying Wednesday afternoon. Right before Betabeat was set to talk to Ms. Keys, she ran off to the bathroom, seemingly to escape  the incessant schedule changes a Flatiron PR firm kept throwing at her. The company had set up a series of interviews with the R&B songstress to promote her new iPad and iPhone app, The Journals of Mama Mae & LeeLee, but the junket wasn't proceeding quite as planned.

The app is storybook adventure, filled with interactive narratives, piano playing and journal writing--fit for any kid with a little creative flair, or what we imagine Ms. Keys must have been like as a little girl.

After a short break, Ms. Keys returned, seeming genuinely thrilled about her new creation and the experience of developing a mobile app. She took special care to note how fun it was to work without boundaries. "That's one of the reasons we chose to make this an app and not a TV show or a book," she said. "I think that's what people really love about the digital space. It's just no rules to it. It's amazing that we were able to create this whole universe and Mama Mae & LeeLee and really do it exactly how we envisioned it."

The app came to fruition after Ms. Keys was recruited to help out by her "colleague and partner" DJ Walton and his wife Jessica Walton. The three of them teamed up with Bento Box Interactive, which created the app itself.

We asked if Egypt, Ms. Keys's 2-year-old son with Swizz Beatz--an entrepreneur himself--would get his hands on the new app. She said that Egypt has an iPad of his very own, and that he loves it. "I love an iPad; I think it's a really amazing tool. And it's a great learning tool, too. Everything that we have on for him that he uses engages his mind to learn something," she said, adding that there were "one or two Angry Birds on there," as well.

Ms. Keys's iPhone was sitting next to her on the couch, and she let us take a little peek around. She's not a huge downloader, but she did have a folder dedicated to camera apps, which she expressed particular fondness for. "I love my photography apps," she said. "I like this Vintage Cam one, Snapseed, Hipstamatic--” Her brows perked up when she noticed that one. "I was on that for a minute, but then I hopped off." You and and everyone else!

After just a few short questions, we decided to leave Ms. Keys to the rest of her interviews. She looked mentally exhausted, but still pretty damn flawless, of course. When she realized we were ending the interview early, she grabbed our hands, said thank you repeatedly and told the PR people we were "the man." With that bit of breathing room, Ms. Keys's face perked up, kind of like a kid getting her hands on an iPad for the first time.

The Beatz goes on.

The saga of Megaupload is really earning Betabeat's "SOPA Opera" slug. To wit: Earlier this week, the New York Post reported that Swizz Beatz was the CEO of the rogue file-sharing company Megaupload. (The news was in the context of Megaupload's lawsuit with Universal Music Group for using its clients, namely Kanye West, Will.i.am, and Sean "Diddy" Combs in promotional video called "Mega Song".)

A few hours before the feds arrested four Megaupload executives and shut down the "cyberlocker," Betabeat got confirmation from Swizz Beatz's publicist, Phylicia Fant from the Purple Agency, that he was the CEO of the Megaupload. Betabeat also reached out to his agent at Universal Attractions, who did not respond directly to that question. However, as VentureBeat reports today, Attorney Ira Rothken, Megaupload's "top lawyer," says, “To my knowledge, Swizz Beatz was never involved in any meaningful way. He was negotiating to become the CEO, but it was never official.”

Swizz Beatz, born Kasseem Dean, was not named anywhere in the 72-page indictment, which was unsealed yesterday and revealed that founder Kim Schmitz, aka Kim Dotcom, owns 68 percent of the company, with the remainder divided between other (non-celebrity) executives. However, by the Post's account it seems Mr. Beatz, whose wife Alicia Keys, has also promoted Megaupload, was involved in getting fellow celebrities like Serena Williams, Ciara, and Kim Kardashian to participate in the "Mega Song" commercial.

As to why Mr. Beatz would be negotiating to take on the chief executive role of site in the crosshairs of the FBI and the music and movie industry, where they sometimes referred to the 300 lb. founder Mr. Schmitz as "Dr. Evil," remains to be seen. But if we were him, we'd probably place our money-making bets on a freemium file-sharing site over the relic of a record industry too.

Mr. Schmitz from the "Mega Song" video

The Associated Press is reporting that federal prosecutors in Virginia have shut down Megaupload.com, one of the world's largest file-sharing sites. The indictment accuses the company's founder and six others of violating piracy laws.

Earlier today, we reported confirmation from Swizz Beatz's publicist that the recording artist is indeed Megaupload's current CEO, but he did not found the company, which was started out of Hong Kong in 2005. [UPDATE: Megaupload's lawyer now says Swizz Beatz was merely negotiating to be the CEO.] Kim Schmitz, a German entrepreneur and hacker, is the company's founder.

Mr. Schmitz, whose aliases are listed as Kim Dotcom and Kim Tim Jim Vestor in the indictment, has run afoul of the law before. Authorities say Mr. Schmitz and three other suspects, including senior executives, are already in custody.

As CNET reported earlier:

"According to legal documents filed in California, where Schmitz, 37, is engaged in a copyright battle, he rents cyberlockers to the masses, and nobody disputes that many millions of people from across the globe use Megaupload to store or access unauthorized copies of TV shows, feature films, songs, porn, and software."

In the indictment, Megaupload is accused of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. The AP says the indictment was unsealed Thursday, following wide-spread protests against SOPA and PIPA, pending Congressional legislation that aims to censor such sites.

The indictment (below) calls the defendants members of the “Mega Conspiracy,” which the feds describe as "a worldwide criminal organization whose members engaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale," with reported income of more than $175 million.

The company has presented itself as steadfast in responding to complaints about pirated material.

According to the indictment, Megaupload was once ranked the 13th most popular Web site in the world. In a promotional video called "Mega Song," the company claims that Megaupload has 1 billion users. The indictment clarifies Megaupload's stipulation, citing 1 billion visitors over the course of the company's history with 180 million registered users to date and 50 million visits per day.

The "Mega Song" commercial is currently the subject of a lawsuit. In it, Mr. Schmitz (who sings a verse in the song) appears alongside celebrities like Sean "Diddy" Combs, Kanye West, and Will.i.am. Universal Music Group issued a take-down notice when it appeared in December, removing the commercial from YouTube on the grounds that the latter three recording artists (all UMG clients) gave unauthorized performances. Megaupload countered that it had signed contracts with the artists, and sued UMG.

This post has been updated to reflect new information as the story breaks. We have reached out to Swizz Beatz's representatives and will update you as soon as we hear back. In the meantime, check out a mock-up of Swizz Beatz's resume, courtesy of Billboard.com.

Mega Indictment

Incriminating evidence?

UPDATE: Federal Prosecutors Shut Down File Sharing Site Megaupload for Piracy Violations

UPDATE 2: Megaupload Lawyer: Swizz Beatz Was Merely 'Negotiating to Become the CEO'

With all the blackouts and SOPA? PIPA? NOPA! chanting yesterday, we missed this exquisite gem of a revelation: Swizz Beatz, husband to Alicia Keys and producer-in-residence at NYU, also happens to be the CEO of Megaupload.com. [Ed note: Megaupload's lawyer now says Mr. Beatz was only negotiating to the CEO.]

For the uninitiated, Megaupload is a service that lets users send and share large media files. It also happens to the site Betabeat used just last night to watch a, um, free version of the latest episode of "New Girl" since the ad-supported version was unavailable on Hulu. Under SOPA's strict guidelines, we believe the punishment for such impudence is being drawn-and-quartered.

According to the New York Post, which "outed" Mr. Beatz as the company's chief executive, the musician has gotten his celebrity friends in trouble by asking them to promote the site. Everyone from Kim Kardashian to Chris Brown to Serena Williams appears in the company's catchy new "Mega Song" commercial. But Sean "Diddy" Combs, Kanye West, and Will.i.am, in particular, caught heat for it because their label, Universal Music Group, issued a take-down notice last month for unauthorized performances when the promo appeared on YouTube. Guess it didn't help that Kanye appeared sorta blazay blah to be participating.

Megaupload's Crunchbase page says the company was launched in Hong Kong in 2005. Wikipedia, that patron saint of lazy students everywhere, lists Kasseem Dean (Swizz Beatz's given name) as the company's CEO without a citation, which means if the Post is correct, he came in at a later stage in the company's history. Betabeat has reached out to Mr. Beatz's agent and publicist and will update you when we hear back. UPDATE: His publicist just confirmed to Betabeat that Swizz Beatz is the CEO of Megaupload.com. [Ed note: Megaupload's lawyer now says Mr. Beatz was only negotiating to the CEO.]

Back in December, Megaupload sued Universal alleging that its service had signed contracts from the performers, including Will.i.am, reported Wired.com. Although Universal admitted to using YouTube's content filers to have the $3 million production removed, UMG argued it wasn't an abuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and maintained that Megaupload had no grounds for a lawsuit.

Yesterday, a representative for Megaupload told the Post:

“We have never received any word that any artist has [individually] filed a take-down . . . [we have] legally binding agreements with the performers that appear in the video . . . They promised that they had the rights to enter into that agreement and it’s not interfering with any third-party rights.”

The record industry, of course, has been engaged in a heated battle with file sharing sites like Megaupload and lobbied Congress on behalf of SOPA and PIPA to censor their growth. In the commercial, Megaupload claims to have 1 billion users overall and 50 million per day.

As Fact Mag notes, "The fact that one of hip-hop’s leading producers holds such a high position in a site like this could represent the final nail in the coffin for record sales as a valid part of the genres’s economy – if that nail hasn’t been hammered in already." So much for that without-SOPA-there-is-no-Adele argument, huh?

Here's the offending commercial, we promise its at least as good as anything to come out of the Black Eyed Peas canon:

MEGA UPLOAD SONG!!!! HTTP://OKFOC.US from OKFocus on Vimeo.