Megaupload activity has closed and 4% of internet virtual goes up in smoke

The Megaupload, largest file-sharing site from the internet, suddenly came to an end today, after an FBI action that took the site down and arrested several officials from the site.

The investigation began after several content producers indicted for hacking the site, which caused a loss of 500 million dollars just for movies. The site was already on the ropes after the Universal Music Group threatened to withdraw its advertising featuring various artists known air.

In New Zealand, the creator Megaupload, Kim Dotcom, was arrested and responds to various crimes, includingextortion and conspiracy to launder money, and other three. The lawsuit says that Megaupload is a "global criminal organization whose members participate in copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale." The lawsuit says they earned at least $ 175 million promoting criminal acts.

Upload to me today? I do not think more ...

The site was revealed to the Associated Press and says:

The fact is that the vast majority of traffic is legitimate Megaupload. If the content industry wants to take advantage of our popularity, we will be happy to talk.

I have a sneaking feeling that this had to do with the SOUP / PIPA, but it has not been approved yet. The questions that hang in the air are: And the other sharing sites? Will be victims? This is connected with the SOUP / PIPA?

Since its appearance, Megaupload quickly became one of the most commonly used for content sharing, largely due to the ease in providing and download files. For those who provided it was easier, since it was enough to upload once, without leaving a seeder to feed on bittorrent, and who also lowered, as was enough to download, without depending on a number of users are sharing each file as in P2P networks.

Although many use Megaupload to provide legitimate content (including many artists and producers), you can not deny that most, if not most of the content and the site's income came from subscriptions pirated content. To make matters worse, the site actually hosting the files (other than piratebay, for example) and on top profiteer Subscription plans. For many it was just another case Napster waiting to happen, and yesterday it really exploded, with the U.S. court seizing domain names, freezing bank accounts and getting hold of the four founders of the site, with the cooperation of the New Zealand police.

Even if one argues that the 175 million claimed by the promoters to be exaggerated, there is no doubt that Megaupload is a business that earned much money, Julius Bencke point, it was just a graphic artist responsible for the design part have received $ only 1 million in 2010. In addition to various properties (including 14 Mercedes) the group had $ 50 million in banking applications.

On the one hand the very site actually hosting pirated material: software, movies, music and almost anything else that someone might want could be easily found using the Google search. On the other, there was an apparent effort to keep the business within the law, creating mechanisms that allow copyright holders to remove content from the site relatively quickly (or at least one of the links pointing to the file, since the files themselves were still hosted and available through other links). The big problem is that with so much material is available daily, would be almost impossible for any company to monitor and remove pirated material in a timely manner, as even a staff dedicated solely to monitor the site would need to compete with dozens or hundreds of anonymous uploaders in practice, since the information requested in the registration could be easily distorted.

The investigation brought out several e-mails from employees, not only confirming that they were aware that the site was used for distributing illegal content (something obvious enough as a quick look at the lists of most popular downloads or more active users to view DVD rips, warez, pornography, etc..), but in fact the site these users rewarded with cash payments through the program rewards uploader.

Having all this in mind, it's no surprise that the RIAA and other media cartels have managed to strike a ball so fulminating against the site with the support of American justice. The central issue is that despite all Megaupload was based on formulas applied by most storage sites file sharing, to reward the most active users, offer premium subscriptions, selling ads, etc.. The jury will judge the case will have a difficult job to identify exactly which points Megaupload crossed the line of legality. For our part, will remain to see how this will affect other sites and the hosting industry as a whole.

Although the case has already been through the courts is important to note that this is a fight that is far from over. Although the domain has been seized, as well as many servers and equipment, most of which kept the site up have retained employees, founders and members of the community, promising to fight to keep the site up in a way or another. This means that it tends to resurface using other domain names, while offering much of the content previously hosted. This is a fight that still goes on.

The effectively as the site was taken down, involving an effective coordination with police from other parts of the world also weakens the SOPA / PIPA, since it shows that the current system already provides more than enough power for large companies.