Shit hit the fan on Thursday; the U.S. government took down Megaupload, one of the largest file-sharing sites in the world. Here’s a quick recap of the key events in this crazy story:
- Megaupload is one of top 100 most-visited websites on the web for years, mostly because it was an easy and relatively “safe” way to download and transfer pirated content. Yes, people hosted legal stuff there, but the vast majority of it was pirated.
- On December 9, a bizarre video was released with A-listers seemingly endorsing Megaupload. P Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West were among the stars featured.
- Universal and the RIAA were NOT happy with this, so they asked YouTube to take it down due to copyright infringement,. They succeeded, though Megaupload continued to host the video (YouTube eventually brought it back as well). Megaupload essentially gave the music industry the middle finger.
- Everything exploded yesterday, though. The FBI led a coordinated strike against Megaupload that involved 20 search warrants in eight countries. The result was the shutdown of Megaupload.com and the seizure of more than $50 million in assets.
- Megaupload’s staff was also arrested and denied bail in New Zealand. This includes founder and majority owner Kim Schmitz — aka Kim Dotcom. Yes, that’s what he goes by.
- Here are some pictures of the New Zealand government confiscating the Megaupload team’s very fancy cars.
- Oh, and it was revealed that Swizz Beatz is the company’s acting CEO. Yes, the guy who’s married to Alicia Keys. This was likely an attempt by Kim Dotcom to reduce the heat on himself.
- GigaOm has a fantastic summary of the indictment itself, if you want to learn more.
- There was an important part of the Internet that didn’t like how this raid went down though: Anonymous. The shadowy hacker group launched its largest attack ever merely minutes after the raids became public. They attacked “the White House, the FBI, the Department of Justice, multiple record label sites, the MPAA, and RIAA, and the U.S. Copyright Office” all at once. Anonymous considered the destruction of Megaupload an act of war, and they responded with an all-out counterstrike.
If you think today is the worst of the retaliation, then you’re deluding yourself: Anonymous is nowhere near done. The IRC chatrooms where Anonymous plans its attacks are still active. I suspect that it will continue to lash out as more details of the Megaupload takedown come to light.
Questions remain: will Megaupload’s leaders be extradited to the U.S.? Where are pirates going to store files now? What is Anonymous’s next move?
The fireworks are just beginning, so find the nearest bunker, because yesterday was just the first of many battles in the Great Megaupload War of 2012.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Bryan Burke. FYI, nobody was harmed in this photo.
For me, 2011 signified the extreme vulnerability and dependency on centralized sites and walled gardens such as Facebook, Google Search with Social, etc vs peer to peer systems like Diaspora (social) and Yacy (search).
I think that the fact that our government can force/cause search warrants and arrests in eight countries (at the behest of some powerful corporations) is WAY more scary than piracy.
The world is getting scarier by the day.
That is my main takeaway as well. It is scary the kind of reach these corporations have. In all honesty though they took 1 down only 1000000000000000 more to go.
I agree, how can an American state orders other countries to arrest and give them assets that doesn’t belong to them. However, on the bright side China has websites like funshion that streams and download any film or TV shows at same time, and oh surprise no FBI??? Why?
Is it because they only raid countries that have week governments that have no or little military power, how noble…
Well, FBI, I challenge you to come to China and take down funshion if you dare!
Go on, show me your might!
I guess, megaupload should have started it’s base of operation in Beijing and gave half their profit to the Chinese government, then nothing like this would happen…
Morality, if you are a pirate choose your country well or the big bad wolf will catch you.
Don’t worry guys, they are 100 of other sharing websites, Russian ones are great and less prone to be taken down, and don’t forget to check funshion it’s really a great chinese invention.
Has Anonymous taken full responsibility for these attacks? Â My concern in all of this is what if the attacks on all of the sites by “Anonymous” were just a false flag, to give Congress more ammo to pass these types of legislation? Â How hard would it be to fake an Anonymous video? Â
That’s a really scary, but realistic thought
Anonymous did take full responsibility for the attacks, and hinted at more multiple times last night.Â
Here is their ‘Press Release’ they posted on PasteBin >Â http://pastebin.com/WEydcBVV
man, I don’t know if I should admire them or fear them, but one thing for sure, don’t mess with a good hacker, in real life they are nothing but online they…
If you want to read the most interesting life story just read about  Kim Schmitz on wikipedia! 🙂 It’s not his first time in jail and probably not the last time either Â
Here is a bit of irony for you, @benparr:twitter Â
#SOPA Author Lamar Smith (R-TX) Breaks Copyright Law on His Own Website
http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/11747/sopa-author-lamar-smith-rtx-breaks-copyright-law-on-his-own-website
This is total madness. Kinda funny considering I was just wondering how they could afford all of the celeb endorsements they had.
While I don’t support or endorse piracy at all. All I can think of doing now is this -Â http://www.michaeljacksoneatingpopcorn.com/mjep.gif
Would it it be funny if these hackers managed to hack some of these high officials and publish and upload what they have found. Imagine that some of their stuff were very offensive or illegal, Would the FBI turn against them or let them go…MMMmmm…food for thought though.