Malum Discordiae : The FBI kills Megaupload

[chocochuy]

Greetings, Ladies and Gentlemen! Chocochuy reporting for duty and bringing you some news from the global community.

As you might recall, yesterday was the peaceful blackout of pages like Wikipedia, Google, Mozilla and our very own Dreamwidth in order to protest against the SOPA bill. Well, just some hours ago Megaupload was shut down by the FBI, thus causing the arrest of its inner circle and the loss of countless Terabytes of both illegal and safe files. Retribution from hackers all over the globe was not denied and hours later the group that calls itself Anonymous hacked several government sites as well as asking all cybernauts to join their revolution against the rich 1%. It might be kinda exaggerated to say this but I am certain that were witnessing the genesis of the First World Internet War. In my honest opinion I think the loss of Megaupload may be a heavy loss for most cybernauts and it may also herald the beginning of some authoritarian movements if the FBI can go shutting down websites when the SOPA has not been approved yet. What we are really seeing is a struggle between two powerful forces, none of them wanting to give up, that will change the way we use the internet from now on if a peaceful solution is not found.

I will be glad to hear your opinions in this matter, comrades, especially if this SOPA bill goes out of control and tries targeting our beloved fanfics/fanarts.

Here is an old Captain America picture done by Frank Miller. It may be over-used but it seems quite fitting.

Comments

[arise]

I'm against SOPA/PIPA as much as anyone, but I'm not really feeling the outrage. I'll miss MU for file uploading, but there are plenty of other options out there.

I'm surprised that the arrested are facing prison, though. I'd always assumed these sorts of things just attracted insanely heavy fines and civil measures.

Personally, I'm more alarmed by the whole Anonymous hijacking people's computers for a DDOS attack thing.

[baihu]

Mediafire was so much more convenient than MU. It was already a troublesome thing having to wait for the Free download speeds, but then it just kept putting more ads and Megavideos on their website when I just wanted to download one file.

Heck I saw more and more files that I wanted to download being put on other file-uploading sites. Megaupload may have been one of the originals, but it was no longer the 'go-to' website if you wanted to upload files. It got bigger than that until I had no idea what Megaupload was really for anymore to be honest.

[greenmask]

I think a fair amount of the outrage is coming from the fact that megaupload was used for a lot of legit filesharing as well as/more importantly than copyright infringement, as well as how easily a lot of piracy could be curbed if media was made more easily accessible. Taking away how people get their hands on stuff instead of plumbing in official methods of getting stuff to its audience is baffling to a lot of people.

Like, if you shut down filesharing sites because people pirate from big companies with them, which sites do freelance creators use to get their own large files to their audience?

[arise]

Oh, yeah, it's definitely really annoying for all the legitimate users! Especially if the data isn't being stored. And I completely agree about making media more accessible - it seems like some companies are moving towards it, and it can't happen soon enough. I guess I'm just not sure what else the FBI could've done other than take MU offline at this point in their investigation.

[greenmask]

There's probably (or, I'm assuming it's reasonable to assume that there was) no other path they could have taken. BUT, that doesn't mean that there's no reason for a backlash or further protests. So the current laws and rules mean that the FBI was obliged to shut down this site and arrest people. So, maybe there need to be some newer, expert-designed, up-to-date rules and protocols - and everyone affected by the take-down yelling about how the current situation sucks is probably going to help with getting that done, right?

Maybe?

[ziriffic]

From what I heard, the arrested were less facing prison for pirating charges and more for money laundering and other more legitimate charges; otherwise, them facing 55 or so years in prison would be ridiculous.

tl;dr, MU being shut down is legitimate, their owners getting arrested is also legitimate, the timing of this bust was probably not a coincidence and probably was done on purpose to time with the online protests. :x