Two Ways Megaupload Made Themselves A Target
Putting a little more thought into it, it’s easy to see why Megaupload got shut down. They offer the same things as many cyber-locker or file host services do, but there are two things they did that separate them from say Rapidshare or Fileserve.
1) They ran a streaming video service in Megavideo. So not only could you possibly download content that is under copyright, you could watch it first. Streaming video is the low-hanging fruit that these guys are worried about. Having to download pieces of a file and unRAR them doesn’t take much know-how. However, streaming is easier and more people do it than download, so stopping streaming is a higher priority for the content holders.
2) They made that commercial with a bunch of RIAA signed artists, and then tried to sue the record companies for filing takedown requests and DMCA notices. While it was a nice middle finger to the big media corporations, that sort of thing was bound to blow up in Megaupload’s face.
I don’t recall Megaupload running a “we pay you to upload if you get x amount of downloads” thing like some of the other hosts, but I could be remembering incorrectly.
Let’s be honest, Megaupload has plenty of legitimate uses, but they aren’t 100% innocent. It’s not unreasonable to assume that a significant percentage of what people uploaded to it would be considered “copyright infringing”.
Full disclosure: I have/had a Megaupload account and was a regular user. It wasn’t a paid account, and I have uploaded a few files. One that could get me in trouble was a RAR that I uploaded for a friend that was the entire BIOSHOCK soundtrack. I figured it would be okay, since all of that music was incredibly old and very few of the recording artists who made it are even still alive. I never thought to delete it once he grabbed it.
In general, I don’t download tons of stuff. But I do download a mix of things when I do…
Some are perfectly 100% legitimate like non-professional poker coaching videos (Megaupload was usually the file host of choice for that on 2+2).
I also download some stuff that I consider to be a “gray area”. Things that aren’t commercially available. Like out of print movies, or movies that have never come out on DVD. The occasional out of print music album, unreleased demos, or concert bootleg. (I really really don’t download much music though.)
I also freely admit to occasionally downloading stuff that the content companies are more concerned with. TV episodes of shows that I missed for whatever reason and couldn’t DVR. Overseas TV shows that either never air over here at all or do so later than in their native country (especially DOCTOR WHO or PEEP SHOW).
Oh, and of course I’d download some porn sometimes. What? I’m a guy. It’d be weird if I didn’t like porn.
Ultimately, they’ll probably go after the uploaders. (If I’m unlucky I’ll get some sort of ridiculous $50K+ fine for uploading a single file made by people who aren’t alive to collect royalties.) Maybe they’ll go after downloaders too, but that’s less likely. They’ll probably go after another host or three. People will switch to other hosts, usenet, maybe even IRC. People have spoken loud and clear that the old way of selling entertainment simply doesn’t work anymore in the 21st century, but will be ignored. The US government, especially the DOJ, will continue to abuse their power to shut down sites that their corporate masters dislike… and they didn’t even need SOPA to pass to do it.
Edit: A third reason was that Megaupload were actually stupid enough to have servers in the United States, something that I forgot to mention previously.
