Today one of the biggest file sharing site was shut down by the feds today. The founder and several company executives were also charged for violating piracy laws. The accusation that started the criminal case was unsealed a day before globally used sites like Wikipedia, Reddit and Craigslist blacked out to show their support for their opposition against SOPA and Megaupload are accused of costing copyright holders over $500million (£322 million) in lost revenue from pierated films and other content.
The interesting fact about this site was that it was only a few weeks ago when Megaupload posted their infamous music video featuring celebrities such as Kanye West, Alicia Keys, P.Diddy and even Snoop Dogg, who all endorsed their site! And these are people who are ‘allegedly’ affected by file sharing sites such as Megaupload.
Kardashian in the Music video. Been busy with tape finding lately?
Hours before the site was taken down megaupload posted a statement out saying how “grotesquely overblown.” the accusations were against the company.
The main people who will be affected are those legitimate customers, (hey, not every file sharing site is used for pierating!) those people who have important family photos/videos, work related documents and other important files will be heavily affected as they find out that the site refuses to load for them anymore. As well as court fees if any, this will cost Megaupload a lot of money in lost revenue.
No doubt that supporters of SOPA and the likes will use this to their advantage in future nonsense videos. We’ll be keeping an eye out for any more development on this matter.
So what do you guys think? Will other file sharing sites start getting shutdown? Will Megaupload make it through the court of justice?
I hope it does a PirateBay and comes back. Like the reference to PIErating I think they won’t go after other sites they’re going after the one that made them look like fools and is well known. The Mega-upload song and it’s win against is Copyright claim I think has made them a little bit but hurt.
It will not work, even if they do close down MegaUpload, it will not change anything. And even if they succeeded in closing down all the US sites, what would happen is that China would start hosting them and take yet another little step in destroying western civilization.
This is the case for a lot of warez sites! The one i USED to LIEJKLOL actually uses servers from china. So if every warez site did that sopa would affect them in no way.
Anon have been taking down sites (DOJ / FBI / MPAA) – http://www.zdnetasia.com/us-govt-entertainment-sites-attacked-after-piracy-arrests-62303573.htm
It has made an impact, a lot of sites have reacted to how file sharing can be used and mostly by restricting use.
The less legal ones however seem to be reacting by making the users more anonymous.
So basically the only people that have been effected are the people who were using the services legitimately.
A well struck blow indeed. Well done media companies, well done. Continuing to isolate your customer base is a strong marketing method which has no down side!