RIP Megaupload

Today, Feds killed a good friend of the Internet, the file-hosting website Megaupload.com. Let's spend some time to reflect upon its demise.

Even if you didn't use it for file hosting, if you ever tried watching anime, downloading music, watching television or obtaining manga scans (which, admittedly is 95% of the internt with the other 5% being children under the age 7) chances were that you ran into the site or its sister site Megavideo.com at least a couple times. While I'm not a huge proponent of Internet piracy, it was still one of the most extensive NON torrent download sites.

Well, at least rapidshare is still available for now.

edited 19th Jan '12 2:38:03 PM by Mattonymy

You have a link to an article? What's their reasoning for this?

Link [1]

I believe they said it was over a lost revenue of $500 million

Edit: "racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement."

edited 19th Jan '12 2:56:18 PM by Mattonymy

• thinks about all the stuff hasn't downloaded on Megaupload yet* FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...

Anonymous have already hit back - by DDO Sing the US Department of Justice website, DOJ.gov.

Source: [1]

As much as I dislike Anonymous, I find their argument quite compelling in this case.

A CNN link to the same story (the Anonymous attack, despite the URL name), in case Gizmodo isn't trusted: [1]

FBI: And thus, we believe that this site, Megaupload.com, should be taken down. Any counter arguments?
-Anonymous DDOS bunch of sites related to incident
Anonymous: We as a collective believe we have made our point.

Okay, maybe not that, I'm just glad I was smart to keep original uploads in separate backup USB stick. Instead of losing them now that MU is out, I still have them. Then again, I always liked Mediafire more.

Dunno tough is this good or bad. On one hand, it shows what "pissed off nerds" can do, but then again it can be used "Look at these EEEEEEVIL hacker pirates, clear we need more 1984 style surveilance!"

Yeah. I'm more of a Mediafire guy myself.

I'm pretty sure this is a plan by the government to tell SOPA to screw off.

edited 19th Jan '12 3:27:59 PM by Psyga315

While I'll admit I don't use megaupload much (except for the megavideo part), that's not exactly the point, now is it? They shouldn't be able to invent reasons to shut down sites.

If the government wins this, it will mean sites can be held accountable for things people not affiliated with them post on them. They won't need to pass SOPA, this lawsuit will have the same effect. Every file sharing site will have to fold up shop. Youtube and all sites like it will have to fold up shop.

If the government wins what? The battle? The SOPA vote? The lawsuit?

I don't remember what I downloaded from which sites. I don't know how important this is to me.

Anon has also D Dos'd the RIAA, the MPAA, the US copyright office, and some others.

Can they keep'em down? Fighting censorship with suppression is beautifully proportional.

Welp, that's sucktastic. I didn't use megaupload much since I stopped getting like, scanlations and stuff, but it's terrible that it's gone. Still, this doesn't quite seem like an "end of the internet, they're just inventing reasons, they won't even need SOPA" thing, and more a "They actually 'were used for piracy and illegal downloads'" thing. Yes, there were plenty of legitimate files on it, but to be totally honest, I can't think of a single file I ever downloaded from there that wasn't piracy.

EDIT: And Anonymous is probably doing more harm than good with this. One of those "Stop Helping Me" things. It smacks of "you took down Napster Megaupload so I can't steal music anymore, so I'm gonna fuck with your shit." rather than "I feel this was a poor decision for reasons unrelated to piracy and illegal downloading, I'll protest the only way I know how."

edited 19th Jan '12 3:53:00 PM by Wulf

No more megaporn???? OMG!!!

people have lost their backups, or even their primary copies of files because of this. Some people have lost business relatted files because of this.

I love to see the government's reaction to that.

Does this hit Megavideo as well?

Megaupload complied with the DMCA. At least, I remember a lot of times I'd go to download a file or watch a video and it would say "Removed due to infringement." As Andygal touched upon, this is like bombing the entire neighborhood to get rid of the meth lab.

Yes.

edited 19th Jan '12 3:57:36 PM by Discar

I don't think it'll be the end of the internet, but if Megaupload goes down for good a hell of a lot of other sites will most assuredly follow. They won't want to get sued.

Fortunately, I think this is just going to create a lot of noise. The FBI won't be able to win the lawsuit. In order to be held liable, I'm pretty sure Megaupload has to be proven to have encouraged infringement and to have made a profit from it. So long as they complied with any legitimate DMCA takedown requests they were handed, they have a good chance of surviving.

I'm sure a few sites will be up. This is just like the One Manga incident.

I don't recall anyone being arrested in relation to One Manga.

...Damn.