A friend posted a blog similar to this one, here. I recommend reading his entry, as he cites a number of news reports on the content.

By now, it’s all over the internet. On 01/19/2012, the US Department Of Justice took down MegaUpload. If you’re not familiar with MegaUpload, the site was a pretty simple concept. A place to upload stuff, so you could share it later. There are lots of valid uses for such a service. One I can think of right now is XDA-Developers. They’re an Android development community. Commonly, users would use MegaUpload to share new Android rom’s the’ve built. Of course there are also plenty of not so legal uses for MegaUpload. Like sharing copyrighted material. Which apparently is what the site was being routinely used for.

Something else that’s all over the internet lately is the anti-SOPA anti-PROTECT IP protests. SOPA and PROTECT IP aim to stop online piracy. So of course a large part of the community has jumped to what you might consider an incorrect conclusion. That the US Government had no business taking down MegaUpload.

From what I’ve read. MegaUpload had been warned a number of times about its content. Complaints were filed against MegaUpload, and ignored by MegaUpload. The end result being seizure of their servers, and the arrest of the owners. This sounds like due process to me.

Why this Isn’t SOPA/Protect IP

The complaints over SOPA were two fold. First that sites could be taken down without due process, and second that the method in which they were to be taken down broke DNS. Neither of those complaints apply to the MegaUpload case. The site was taken down, not by breaking dns, but by SEIZING THEIR SERVERS! If a server is powered off and taken as evidence, it CANT SERVE WEB SITES! Thats just how it is.

MegaUpload ate my data

Another complaint flying around is that there were legitimate files up on MegaUpload, like the XDA Developers example above, and now those files are inaccessible, and this is just unacceptable. This is ridiculous. Yes, they’re inaccessible. Because the servers are OFF. This is what you get for trusting a free service to be there forever. I think i’ve said this before. Trusting someone else with your data is BAD.