Recently, in January, the videosharing website Megaupload (and the associated Megavideo) was taken down by the United States government. Following an investigation led by the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI, the website was seized and crew arrested for criminal copyright infringement and involvement in a money laundering scheme. This came at an interesting time, as it happened close to the debate over SOPA/PIPA. The Megaupload shutdown illustrated the fact that legislation, such as SOPA/PIPA, was not as necessary or important as some would have you think. Megaupload/video was heavily infringing on copyright and consequently punished: all done with current rules and regulations. It definitely causes you to question the necessity of new legislation (that could harm other creative efforts) when the current system seems to be doing the job. It would be like taking new medication with harmful side effects to cure an ailment that was already being treated with an existing prescription; it simply doesn’t make any sense.
The Megaupload shutdown also angered many people as everything, not just the blatant examples of copyright infringement, was seized and set to be purged. Maybe someone’s illegal copy of Twilight was removed, but so were your backup wedding pictures, student films, and other creations; this illustrates the government’s lack of care for people’s property and creative efforts. To the U.S. government, it seems that cutting out piracy, at the expense of other’s memories and works of art, is worth the price: a troubling thought indeed!
I really think the government took the wrong steps in shutting down Megaupload. Sure, Megaupload was breaking the law and they had every reason to be shut down, but there are a few problems. 1, Megaupload was not an American company or website. 2, not all users were bad. Many of them lost their valuable files. The government should have allowed these users an ample amount of time to remove their files before they were lost forever
ReplyDeleteYeah, the government probably could've handled some of it better but I'm sure with cases like this it's pretty messy. I understand not being able to notify people beforehand, but it seems unreasonable that the government's first thought after the takedown was not to grant people access to their files. I think they've put a hold on the purge for now, and I think the EFF is fighting for people to get access to their files - so here's hoping!
DeleteThis is the first time I have heard anything about money laundering on Megupload. I would like to hear more about that. If that were the case, I can understand shutting down the site. But I do think it is a bad scenario for people who had important, noncopyrighted material on the site.
ReplyDeleteI think there are definitely aspects of this case that we don't have any idea about - I don't how the money laundering fit in with everything, but it does seem like shady business was going on. Apparently the EFF is trying to find a way to let people who were using the site properly have access to their property - I hope it works out!
Delete