After file-hosting site Megaupload bit the bullet, many other sites are falling on their swords to evade the law.
With Megaupload founder Kim ‘Dotcom’ Schmitz currently billed as an extreme flight risk, thought to hold multiple identities and a history of fleeing criminal charges, swathes of fellow file-sharing sites have been cutting their file-sharing technologies to the bone. Filesonic, at the time of writing, has the following message on their homepage:
‘All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.’
Presently, the US is pushing for extradition for Dotcom to face charges over an estimated $175 million empire based on copyright enfringement of music, film and software, so it’s understandable that people to want to get out without jail time, but the move may prove crippling to the sites and the users who support them.
This is only one more move on the board regarding the heated piracy/IP debate raging across the world, with political, financial and social ramifications that have made this a hot-button topic for many politicians and notable media groups. With the shared media culture now as much a part of social life as any other aspect of online communication, gaming or networking, the users are making themselves heard by any means at their disposal. Already, their feelings have been made clear via systematic attacks against federal law enforcement websites, as well as large supporters of the SOPA bill, such as Universal Music. More lawful protests have already been made against the SOPA bill, leading to its halting (for the moment).
Until solid progress is made towards forming a consensus between policy makers and the public, many of these sites will hang in a legal limbo, trapped between their obligation to their users and the looming threat of legal action.
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I think the problem is that those sites do nothing to avoid illegal files to be stored in their servers. If they avoided those kind of files, maybe this could be avoided.
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manwithnoname (January 23rd, 2012)