On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice shut down the lucrative offshore file transfer site, popular for streaming pirated movies. Now that sounds like a great movie to me.
The big news this week among true Internet mavens is the take down of file transfer site Megaupload in New Zealand. Supposedly, the site was a conduit for streaming all the great new Hollywood movie releases. To be honest, I think the problem of pirated films is exaggerated.
Now this is probably going to cause some eyes to roll, but until now, I had never heard of the operation. It was not on my radar at all, though I think I can be excused for this oversight.
I do not download movies because I really have no problem waiting for a film to show up on HBO, unless viewing it in a theater is essential, as with an IMAX or 3D film. If there is some movie that I must see in theaters—Hugo in 3D being the most recent example—I pay money to go see it. When I do watch a movie on a big screen, it is because I want the experience, which downloading certainly doesn't replicate. Maybe I'm getting old, but I do pay for HBO and will generally wait.
Is that a good enough disclaimer for you?
There are few ways of uploading and downloading large files unless you have your own FTP site, which most people don't, and Megaupload was one of those ways. As far as Hollywood is concerned, those "large files" mean movies. If you want to pass a movie around, you would not want to do it from an FTP site you owned, anyway. You'd instead find some neutral partner like Megaupload.
Okay, so several interesting facts emerge from this shutdown, besides the fact that one of the owners legally changed her last name to "Dotcom."
To begin, this is an international bust involving American law enforcement in New Zealand and elsewhere. In fact, according to reports, eight other countries were involved and search warrants for servers and documents were executed in those countries. Cars and money were confiscated, too.
(As an aside, can someone tell me why SOPA and PIPA are needed after we witnessed this take-down and indictment? But I digress.)
This proves that offshore operations can still be reached by the long arm of the U.S. law. Also, none of these folks were Americans as far as I can tell. Dotcom is German and Finnish. The lot of them will be extradited to the U.S. to be tried for what are essentially crimes against the state. Citizens of the world, beware!
This, to me, is the most interesting situation since the days when the leader of Panama, Manuel Noriega, was dragged out of his bed and thrown in a Florida prison for trafficking drugs.
While this is all very amusing, you have to wonder who at Megaupload wasn't playing the game right since there are overt music and video trading sites scattered around the globe. Worse yet, what about the facilities that actually manufacture DVDs and make them available throughout Asia for $2 a disc? You can walk into stores and buy the discs. Where is the abatement of this problem? It has to be worse than the inconvenience of downloading moves so you can watch them on the laptop. Yes? No?
More importantly, once in a while the average user will need to upload and download massive and legal files, but any system that can transfer files larger than 600MB, I assume, will be scrutinized. This means that the Justice Department will target Dropbox and other handy utilities.
In the meantime, everyone should look at personal alternatives to file transfer. Start by learning aboutFTP.
Whatever the case, the situation with the folks from Megaupload will inspire some sort of a farcical movie. All the characters were living a high life on a reported advertising and subscription income of $175 million, so apparently, Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, and hookers were abundant. I'll probably wait to watch this movie on HBO.
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