01-20-2012, 09:41 PM
Just because the majority of the thread is uninformed:
They didn't take it down because of SOPA. They didn't take it down because of PIPA. They took it down because they never took down pirated content, the owners themselves were sharing pirated content among themselves, and everyone in the company made millions because of it. They've always claimed that they "didn't know" or weren't fast enough, but everyone knows that Megaupload is used (primarily) for pirated content, including the owners.
Yes, this does mean that lots of legitimate files also got caught in the mix. That doesn't excuse the fact that the owners of the company were selling services (premium services, etc.) to people so that they could distribute content that they gained at no cost. The fact that they were selling their services (and not just making ad revenue) is why the people running it are going to jail and not just being sued for ridiculous amounts of money.
Plus, in that long list of terms that you probably didn't read, they said that they could take down your content without prior notice. Well, that just happened.
I completely agree that the "we're losing money" argument is completely dumb, but the fact that they were essentially making millions off of others' content was why the site got shut down, not just the fact that they had illegal stuff on it.
Of course, this is a big problem, because corporations will try and take down the other sites for the "pirated stuff" reason, but I just felt that I needed to clarify this, because no one seems to know (or act like they know) what really happened.
They didn't take it down because of SOPA. They didn't take it down because of PIPA. They took it down because they never took down pirated content, the owners themselves were sharing pirated content among themselves, and everyone in the company made millions because of it. They've always claimed that they "didn't know" or weren't fast enough, but everyone knows that Megaupload is used (primarily) for pirated content, including the owners.
Yes, this does mean that lots of legitimate files also got caught in the mix. That doesn't excuse the fact that the owners of the company were selling services (premium services, etc.) to people so that they could distribute content that they gained at no cost. The fact that they were selling their services (and not just making ad revenue) is why the people running it are going to jail and not just being sued for ridiculous amounts of money.
Plus, in that long list of terms that you probably didn't read, they said that they could take down your content without prior notice. Well, that just happened.
I completely agree that the "we're losing money" argument is completely dumb, but the fact that they were essentially making millions off of others' content was why the site got shut down, not just the fact that they had illegal stuff on it.
Of course, this is a big problem, because corporations will try and take down the other sites for the "pirated stuff" reason, but I just felt that I needed to clarify this, because no one seems to know (or act like they know) what really happened.