Filesonic and others Spooked by MegaUpload Shutdown; Reducing File-Sharing

[dgstorm]

Here's a follow-up article to the one we ran previously regarding the shutdown of MegaUpload file sharing. Some of MegaUpload's rivals are running scared from the US Department of Justice, and who can blame them? In the wake of the shutdown of MegaUpload by the DoJ, FileSonic and Uploaded.to have dramatically curtailed their file-sharing services in order to try and get off the radar of the US Government. Both sites took different tactics to protect themselves, and neither of them issued any formal public statements about the issue.

FileSonic simply stopped any new sharing, and posted the statement, “our services can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally." They also completely stopped their program where affiliates could get paid the more times that their files were downloaded. Uploaded.to had a different approach, their site is simply inaccessible from any IP address within the United States, but you can still access their services elsewhere in the world. If you try to access their services from within the US you get the following message, “Our service is currently unavailable in your country. Sorry about that.”

In an interesting twist, there were a lot of legitimate users of MegaUpload that used the service to store and share their own personal files, so there was an outcry on the internet because innocent users were unable to get access to their cloud-based content anymore. Because of all of this, the notorious hacker group, Anonymous, lead a massive Denial of Service DDoS attack against the Department of Justice, RIAA, MPAA and a few other sites, leading to these sites being shutdown temporarily.

This is definitely a complex issue which dances back and forth across lines of free-speech vs. protection of intellectual property. It's a contentious quandary when things become so morally gray. We want to hear your perspective, but please remember to share your opinions in a polite and respectful manner.

Source: SlashGear

 

[bluefire7002]

This is looking worse day by day for those who use file sharing sites like these everyday :frown:
I never really used megaupload or uploading, but hopefully others out there dont follow their footsteps soon

 

[Sweettooth]

Perhaps file sharing will follow the way of prohibition. Being almost completely stopped and completely illegal for a little while, until they realize that such a thing is impossible to stop, and then we'll be right back where we were before all of this began. You can never stop people from sharing what they want to share, and you will never stop piracy, no matter who you are. Theft has been a part of our culture since caveman Bob snatched a better club from the clubsmith. Good luck to you government because new file sharing sites pop up every day.

 

[catnapped]

Fer gosh sakes, think of the chilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllldren!!!!!!! :blink:

 

[Chizzele]

I used MU for Rom sharing.. luckily i had local backups for everything. Did have some of my business stuff there as well... to bad, i do have other servers i can use but MU were the fastest. But hey... if this helps saves even one child's innocence, i'm all for it, us legitimate users can get by...

 

[alifie]

there will always be ways around that. Megaupload is not the end of the road, I only feel bad for the other file sharing platforms that shut down because of this. Just the other day I was reading about this new technology, they are calling it a dark net, from Audials that's offering a reliable way to share files on the internet (or so they say). There weren't too many details and all I could find about Audials didn't really cover the file sharing subject.. so I don't really know what to think but I am rather curious with what they've come up with. (Do you know anythig about it, btw?)
Anyway, it's a pity Megaupload is not there anymore, not the way it used to be anywho..but this is clearly not the end of it.

 

[SquireSCA]

Well, they can shut these sites down and new ones will pop up and then they will be shut down.

And torrents are getting a lot of attention. Hundreds of large lawsuits where a company(Hollywood, pr0n, etc...) seeds a movie, they hire a company to track the swarm and grab the IP addresses of everyone in the swarm. If you are downloading a torrent, you are also seeding it as you download it. That means you are "distributing" it, and they can easily snag your IP address. They then launch a single lawsuit listing hundreds or even thousands of "John Doe's" and subpeona your ISP for your personal info, which by law they have to turn over. Then they send letters to you threatening to take you personally to court unless you settle for a few thousand dollars. It's rapidly becoming a huge business.

Even YouTube is going overboard with copyright stuff. I have made several personal videos of my girlfriend and I riding in the mountains, or racing on the track. I edit them up and put some songs behind them, 50% volume so you can hear the song and still hear the bikes... Half of them are getting yanked or having the audio muted entirely because the U2 or Golden Earing song that I used is copyrighted. These are videos I put up last year. I am not making money from them, I am not using them to promote anything, there is no financial gain... it just sounds better with a little music rather than only hearing an engine racing at 15,000rpm the entire time... LOL

The videos started getting yanked right after SOPA fell through and this MegaUpload crap started.

It seems that everyone in multiple industries are going absolutely overboard with this copyright stuff... I can understand going after people distributing music, although I think the whole legal thing with mass lawsuits against torrent downloaders to extort money is shady at best... But YouTube ruining all my videos because I used part of a Bon Jovi song?

Insane...

 

[GBH2]

People should not infringe others' intellectual property. The biggest problem I have here is the way DOJ handled this situation. There methodology is like if they found out a drug dealer deposited money in your bank, DOJ found out so they burned the bank to the ground. When innocent people asked where their money was the government said F--- off.

Who caused the greater harm here? Megaupload making it possible for people to download(illegally) other people's copyrighted material (almost none of whom would have actually paid for it otherwise) or DOJ under a mandate from Government forces who appear to have a "Quid Pro Quo" arrangement with the Film and TV industry, who caused substantial harm to innocent people using the service and have created a dramatic "chilling effect" on free speech, emerging technology and the internet in general.

 

[alifie]

Megaupload shut down - Malwarebytes Forum by the way, this is that Audials Anywhere file sharing thing I was telling you about, you can share your files with friends over the internet and download media from their computer, it wants to be an alternative to torrents and file sharing websites. you think it's any good? i am still quite interested to try it out, it kind of reminds me of pcAnywhere though and odc. what do you think?
about the copyright infringement..i do not agree with using copyright material without purchasing it but things have gone a little bit too far, these people are far from starving because their stuff is illegally downloaded. taking websites down by force is not a long term solution. find a cheap, fast way for people to grab a hold of their fav music or movies and im pretty sure they'll follow it.