MegaUpload Users Plan to Sue the FBI over Lost Files. In most reports following the MegaUpload shutdown, the site is exclusively portrayed as a piracy haven. However, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people used the site to share research data, work documents, personal video collections. As of today, these people are still unsure whether they will ever get their personal belongings back. In a response, Pirate Parties worldwide have started to make a list of all the people affected by the raids, and they are planning to file an official complaint against the US authorities.
“The widespread damage caused by the sudden closure of Megaupload is unjustified and completely disproportionate to the aim intended,” they announce. “For this reason Pirates of Catalonia, in collaboration with Pirate Parties International and other Pirate Parties, have begun investigating these potential breaches of law and will facilitate submission of complaints against the US authorities in as many countries as possible, to ensure a positive and just result.” Pirate Parties Organizing Lawsuit Against FBI Over Megaupload Takedown.
The Megaupload troubles make for interesting discussion because there is much to be said on both sides. Whether the illegal aspects of the network “outweigh” the legal aspects is a question that will be discussed for months and perhaps years. But one thing can’t be disputed: after the two-year investigation by the FBI, the site’s takedown was swift and perhaps over-thorough. Thousands and thousands of users who had legitimate and often critical files hosted on the site have been left behind, their legal files hosted on a simple file-hosting service. A coalition of Pirate Party organizations, led by Pirates of Catalonia, are planning to sue the FBI over what they say are “huge personal, economic and image damages to a vast number of people.” The group leading the charge contends that the FBI may have violated Spanish Law, and at any rate, The point is it’s not much of a stretch to suggest that files hosted on Megaupload will never again be accessible.
MegaUpload Alternatives See Surge in Traffic After Shutdown. After losing access to their favorite file-hosting service last week, millions of former MegaUpload users have fled to the many alternatives available. Filefactory, Depositfiles and many of the other top cyberlockers have seen an unprecedented surge in traffic in recent days, showing that people haven't stopped sharing even though the authorities have closed one of the main players in the business. With a self-proclaimed 50 million users a day, MegaUpload was one of the largest file-hosting sites on the Internet. Last week the feds shut down the popular site accusing its founder and six others of money-laundering and several copyright related crimes.
The site’s former users, meanwhile, are left without their files and forced to find a new place to share. The big question is, where do these millions of people go now? The RIAA hopes that the people who used MegaUpload to share copyrighted music are turning to iTunes, but this is not the case for everyone. Filesonic Kills File-Sharing Service After MegaUpload Arrests. Filesonic, one of the Internet's leading cyberlocker services, has taken some drastic measures following the Megaupload shutdown and arrests last week. In addition to discontinuing its affiliates rewards program and not yet paying accrued money to members, the site has disabled all sharing functionality, leaving users only with access to their own files. To users of systems like BitTorrent, file-sharing means just that – the sharing of files with others. But this weekend users of Filesonic, one of the Internet’s leading cyberlocker services, sharing files is currently a thing of the past.
According to a shock announcement by the site, all file-sharing functionality has now been disabled, leaving current users only with access to files that they have personally uploaded. But the bad news for the site’s users doesn’t end there. However, there is the matter of what will happen to the reward money that was sitting in uploader’s accounts before the rewards program was discontinued. Cyberlocker Ecosystem Shocked As Big Players Take Drastic Action. In the wake of last week's Megaupload shutdown, some of the biggest names in the market are taking drastic action. During the last 48 hours many sites have completely withdrawn their systems for paying uploaders when their files are shared with others, but one of the most dramatic moves came first from Filesonic and today Fileserve.
Both services now forbid people from downloading any files they didn't upload themselves. While the shutdown last week of Megaupload and the arrest of its founder and management team was certainly dramatic, a situation of perhaps even greater gravity is beginning to emerge. Over the past 48 to 72 hours, the operators of many prominent cyberlocker services have been taking unprecedented actions that can not simply be explained away by mere coincidence. The details in the Megaupload indictment clearly have some players in the file-hosting world spooked. Although Megaupload stopped paying out rewards in July 2011, that didn’t stop the site from getting raided. R.I.P. FileSonic & Uploaded.to. Anti-Piracy Warnings Have No Effect on iTunes Sales. To back up their demands for tougher anti-piracy laws, the music industry often promotes statistics that show how drastically sales improve when they have their way.
This week the music industry did this again by claiming that the French three-strikes law has been highly effective and has boosted iTunes sales tremendously. But is this really the case? Or have the media and lawmakers been fooled again by the copyright lobby? The majority of the reports and press releases put out by the music industry in the past several years can be summarized in a few words: “Piracy is evil and we lose a lot of money because of it.”
Even today, when more music is being sold than ever before, the RIAA, IFPI and other music groups still lobby hard for draconian measures to curb piracy. Whether it’s SOPA, PIPA or similar legislation as currently being presented in Finland and Ireland, the music industry begs governments to help them out. This is bogus. French iTunes sales vs control group vs Google trend. Megaupload shut down by feds, seven charged, four arrested. The filesharing site Megaupload.com has been taken down by the FBI as the Justice Department unsealed an indictment charging seven people associated with the site. The 72-page indictment, handed down by a federal grand jury in Virginia on January 5, charges the seven people, including Megaupload's founders Kim Dotcom and Mathias Ortman, with conspiracy. Four of the people named—including Dotcom, Ortmann, Megaupload.com chief marketing officer Finn Batao, and developer Bram van der Kolk—are in custody, arrested in New Zealand today, according to the FBI.
The FBI worked with authorities from New Zealand, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Canada, Germany, the UK and the Phillipines, and in concert with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the case. As of the afternoon of January 19, the site for Megaupload.com had not been redirected, and requests simply timed out.