US Prosecutors shut down Megaupload, indict several workers

[amanuensis1]

AH, CRIPES.

APNewsBreak: US prosecutors shut down one of world’s largest file-sharing sites, Megaupload

Not happy about this. Freaking miserable about it, actually. It still hasn't sunk in how many things this is going to affect in my daily activities. So many content sites that I frequent depended on it. So many.

Right when I was feeling damned proud of the internet for yesterday's activist SOPA/PIPA protest. I can't imagine it's a coincidence that this happened one day later.

What now? To whom do I write, and how do I do it without sounding like I advocate pirating? Megaupload might have been used in that way by many, but it's also a storage site for many of us, useful for sharing content which we owned or had permission to share. Can this be saved?

Comments

[ambrosiatea.livejournal.com]

This made me feel much better:

http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/65887074.html?view=11367272802#t11367272802

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's loopy. Well, if Megaupload is taken down, something else will come to replace it. That's the way of things.

[la-mariane.livejournal.com]

It looks like there are some sore losers in the entertainement industry...

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

The article makes it sound as though this was planned, and unveiled today, so, it has to be a response.

[la-mariane.livejournal.com]

The thing that really bugs me is that the American justice arrested people in foreign countries (on what ground?!) and those persons face enormous prison time in a worst case scenario. Sometimes, people who commit really serious crimes (rape, murder, ...) face less time in prison. Where's the justice in that?

[cellia.livejournal.com]

This seems weird because isn't Megaupload not US-based at all? Maybe they're just blocking US access to it or something? idk this all feels v sketchy after UMG got youtube to take down the Megaupload commercial for a bit. *Goes to poke around articles to try to figure it out.*

Practically, I feel like all this will do is make people swap to another storage site. Not like Napster going legit slowed illegal music downloads. But, ugh.

/no useful info sorry

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

No, you are right, I've been trying to shrug and say, "If you take down one such site, another site rises to replace it." It's the nature of the net. But I wonder if there's any saving Megaupload. So much archived content has just been lost, and that's hideous to me. Loss of content is the triumph of chaos over order. It scares me.

[cellia.livejournal.com]

Yeah the general trend is a little worrying. Still I am (maybe overly) optimistic about the internet's ability to keep info flowing.

[zedmeister.livejournal.com]

Apparently, they had some servers located on U.S. soil, in Virginia.

[cellia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, seems like they aren't as overseas as I thought. Still, it's creeped me out when I read that RIAA's Sherman is basically saying that this highlights how we need SOPA/PIPA... because if it were overseas the US should still be able to shut it down.

[freed-wings.livejournal.com]

China based, US owned, as I understand it. And I did read they had 60 servers here.

[cellia.livejournal.com]

Yup. (I somehow had gotten the idea they were a Dutch company, so I was completely off base there.)

[daigranon.livejournal.com]

WHAT

WHAT.

NOOOOOOO I rely on that site so much!

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

BELIEVE ME. Yeah, this affects our segment of the web like mad.

Take deep breaths. Seriously. I had to when I found out.

[daigranon.livejournal.com]

I mean, I'm not advocating pirating, but I really liked that site (my computer doesn't support torrents). It was good quality, didn't freeze your computer, and I used it for most of my episode-watching...*sigh*

I hope other sites do not get shut down. T_T

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Yeah. There are people saying it more eloquently than me, about how the model of entertainment is outdated--I can't get behind people who are saying entertainment sources are too expensive, that doesn't sound to me like justification for anything--but the idea of immediate world-wide access today (and how it brings greater exposure to the source and actually creates sales) is the model, and that's not going to go away.