Megaupload

The owners of Megaupload have been arrested and the site taken down........

"Seven people have been charged with racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering. Several of the charges involve conspiracy, and the maximum sentences for the various charges range from five to 20 years each."

...... and I bet that is just the beginning. Watch all the others start closing their doors.

Apparently they just supplied the means for the offences which occurred. Will the owners of ISPs be next as they allow all the illegal downloads to happen in the first place?

"Following the MegaUpload shutdown and indictments last week, FileSonic, one of the Internet's most popular file-sharing services, has disabled its sharing functionality.

The service can "only be used to upload and retrieve files you have uploaded personally," according to a note posted on the site's home page. FileSonic also suspended its affiliates rewards program, which paid users when people downloaded their files."

..... who's next?

Good point Zep. Where does it end? Maybe they will arrest Bill Gates for supplying the means?

Now wouldn't that be funny.

Apparently Alicia Keys husband, Swizz Beatz, is expecting to be questioned over the MegaUpload fiasco as he is apparently listed as the company CEO.

Oh dear. I have just been reading up on this, I'd heard briefly on the news about it last week. The founder, Kim Dotcom has just been remanded in custody for a month as he posed a flight risk according to the judge. I am sure with all his millions he will have the best defence lawyers there are and they will get him off the charges anyway.

"In addition to shutting down the worldGs 13th largest site, FBI has indicted seven and arrested four people on charges that include Hconspiracy to commit racketeering and criminal copyright infringement.I Beatz has not yet been charged.

Swizz will also face lawsuit from UMG after recruiting artistes such as Kanye West, Diddy and Will.i.am to appear in the FMegaupload Mega SongG promo video marketing the site. Universal said they didnGt give any of their artists approval to endorse the company that they claim has a reputation of hijacking albums illegally.

Snoop Dogg, Jamie Foxx, Serena Williams, Macy Gray Lil Jon, Floyd Mayweather, The Game, Kim Kardashian, Mary J. Blige, Chris Brown and SwizzGs wife Alicia Keys are among celebrities who endorse the site."

Just found that on a news website.

Been reading a lot about Rapidshare as well. Anyone use that site? I have seen lots of search results for music when I have been doing searches on google so can only assume that they also host illegal files.

Mentioning google there, I think that they could do a lot more to help by banning sites like those (having illegal files available to download) from appearing in their search results.

I have used Rapidshare on lots of occassions, they host millions of files and are also one of the busiest networks on the internet.

As for Google I am sure they probably could stop all the search results for illegal files but they never have done yet. Besides the file storage sites you always get results for Torrent websites which also allow anyone to get illegal files, the only difference between torrents and file storage sites is the fact that you have to join a torrent site and then share what you are downloading.

Which I assume is far worse as whoever is downloading is also helping distribute the files as well using their own bandwidth. It always seems to be these types of downloaders we usualy always hear about on the news being fined massive amounts of money.

Thats right Zep. Simple solution - Dont download illegal files.

Easier said than done. They dont exactly tell you which files are illegal and which are not!

Like you wouldn't know.

Here's the latest one..........

"The UK music filesharing site RnBXclusive has been shut down and a man has been arrested amid signs that organised crime officers are cracking down on illegal downloading in Britain.

The domain name rnbxclusive.com was taken over by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), which warned users they may have committed a criminal offence.

In a message on the site, the agency said the majority of music files that the domain made available "were stolen from the artists" and those who downloaded them could face up to 10 years in jail and an unlimited fine."

Watch yourself people.