Megaupload down, FBI Charges Seven With Online Piracy
At the risk of megadownvoting here...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.It went to extraordinary lengths to hide the identity of its operators.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.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.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.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.[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.]