Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy
At the risk of megadownvoting here...<p>Megaupload never complied with DMCA requests - I made several as part of some research and never received any response. The site charged for access to, and provided advertising around, pirated content.  The site paid people (users/staff - it's a fine line) to provide popular content.<p>It went to extraordinary lengths to hide the identity of its operators.<p>Now if people believe that anyone should be allowed to set up a site, fill it with full length DVD rips,and then charge $10 a month for access then no wrong has been committed.  But I think most right-minded people would say that is wrong - otherwise we'd all be doing it.<p>Kim Schmitz has made a lot of money over a five to seven year period doing this.  But the risk that came with that was that eventually he'd face serious jailtime.<p>I cannot believe that Megaupload is being touted as an anti-SOPA posterchild. It is, pure and simple, a piracy site full of pirated material.  I'd be astounded [see update] if anyone here uses it for anything other than pirating.  But let's not pretend it's Dropbox - it isn't.<p>I am also astounded that people on HN are calling this a legitimate business.  What was its business?  Was it being used to distribute Wikipedia archives?  To host videos of people's kids singing?  No - it was hosting pirated content.  Not torrents, not links.  AVI files of films.  AND THEN CHARGING FOR ACCESS.<p>[Update: It seems some people below did use it for sending big files.  Colour me astounded.  I've never had to do this so it's new to me.  I guess the fact remains that they had to subsidise this activity somehow - and that they made their money off popular content. They have to hope this is enough to cover their asses.]