Fall Of MegaUpload And What Next?
On January 19th 2012 MegaUpload domain names were seized by U.S. Justice Department and the websites were shut down. This was done as a step of action for copyright infringement. MegaUpload limited was founded by Kim Dotcom (aka Kim Schmidtz), a German-born programmer and entrepreneur. These websites were running a number of online file hosting services related to online file sharing. This company’s services includes megaupload.com which is a one-click hosting service, megapix.com which is a image hosting service, megavideo.com and megalive.com for video hosting services, megabox.com which is a music hosting service, cum.com was hosting for pornographic services. There were also other advertisement and financial services which includes megaclick, megakey, megapay and megafund. This company constituted of 155 employees, 180+ million registered users, 400 million monthly page views, $175 million net revenue. Its traffic has hit a maximum of 4% of internet traffic at its peak.
SEO
All these domains under the MegaUpload were seized by the U.S Justice Department and $100 million worth properties were frozen by the Hong Kong’s Customs and Excise Department since its headquarters were located in Hong Kong. Dotcom and three other executives were arrested in New Zealand. Although the Headquarters were located in Hong Kong, the company was not operating in Hong Kong. These services were banned to the Hong Kong’s users since 2009. On 23rd may 2009, the services were blocked by Saudi Arabian internet authorities also. Megavideo was blocked in United Arab Emirates due to pornographic contents. In June 2011 Malaysian government ordered its ISP’s to block service of MegaUpload.com and Megavideo.com to its users in the country. India also blocked access to MegaUpload.com from July 2011.
Following the seizure, there was question like what will happen to the data stored by the members using their accounts. But the justice department stated that it was clearly warned in the FAQ’s and terms of services of megaupload.com that the users have no proprietary interest in any of the files which they upload to the servers of Megaupload.com.
Many people who were using MegaUpload for personal use to save large audio and video files of their families have raised their voice that they could not access those files. Some android software developers also describe this was the easiest and fastest way to distribute their developed software.
Now the question arise is that what can be done next. Even though this incident happened, other file hosting websites have continued their limited functionality of services. The FileSonic.com which is also one among the top ten file sharing websites, has displayed a banner in its home page stating that it has withdrawn all the file sharing activities and it is providing download to only the contents uploaded by them personally. Many other providers like 4shared.com, FileJungle.com, Uploadstation.com Fileserve.com have followed the same way. All these websites have with driven the privilege of providing link to the shared contents. Derek Labian the COE of Mediafire.com which is also one among popular the file sharing websites released a statement that he is not concerned by the Megaupload incident because his website is not involved in copyright infringement and also stated that MegaUpload was only concerned about money and it was not worried about maintaining the quality of service to its customers.
