The US Department of Justice has ordered the closure of Megaupload.com. The file sharing website also controls Megavideo, a true totem for streaming enthusiasts, and boasts at least 45 million visitors a year.
The accusation is heavy: "Massive computer piracy on a global scale", whose activity has generated over 175 million dollars in illicit profits, causing approximately 500 million dollars in damages to the owners of the protected works. The main perpetrator, Kim "Dotcom" Schmitz, faces up to 50 years in prison. The complaint had been filed on January 5 and had identified Schmitz, a German citizen with residence in Hong-Kong and New Zealand, as the sole owner of Vestor Limited, a company used to manage all Megaupload-related activities.
It is the end of an era, that of pirated file hosting, and all its aficionados will perhaps soon have to give up the possibility of using copyrighted content for free or almost free. The judicial action against Megaupload indeed seems to be the perfect legal precedent to be able to proceed with the closure of all sites operating in the field of pirated file hosting, or at least an excellent deterrent for those who face the threat of 50 years in prison and heavy sanctions, they will prefer to close the sites.
It is no coincidence that Kim Schmitz was chosen as the scapegoat, the owner of Megaupload is in fact a previous offender, accused in the past and sentenced to two years in prison for having organized a trade in cloned credit cards. An easy target to start the battle against those who do not respect copyright.
Judging by the reactions on social networks, the common opinion is very negative. Between amazement and discontent, Facebook and Twitter were filled with annoyed comments towards the closure of the site, to such an extent that the blue sparrow of San Francisco risked the "crash" due to overcrowding on the server.
However, the supporters of the so-called "copyleft", the movement of those who oppose the tightening of copyright laws, have not lacked an answer. The now increasingly well-known group of hackers who sign themselves Anonymous has launched an attack on the sites of the FBI and the US Department of Justice, as well as against the major record companies (universalmusic.com) held responsible for lobbying for the closure of Megaupload.
The result was that, in the same hours in which the Schmitz site was closed, the aforementioned sites also received a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack which blocked them for some time.
