This week's FBI assault on megaupload has shaken the foundations of the sharing culture worldwide. And following megaupload's shutdown some other major online sharing sites are applying new total control opresive policies.
I do not want to justify megaupload crimes (if they are) but the way the page was simply taken down can only be seen as a threat to all people sharing information worldwide, regardless of the content. I can only say that the measures taken seem to me unproportionate and the procedure lacking in correctness.
First of all, megaupload was not an american company to begin with, and in lots of countries their business system would be perfectly valid. The sudden takedown has crumbled years of anime subs with it, a fan product that, for example, spanish law has approved to be legal as long as no company in the country holds the rights to it.
Web sharing is the only chance to get lots of products that are not available to the general public out of their country. When have you seen a recently released anime on Netflix? And a japanese game on Steam? Or a less known book published in your language? When was the last time you saw a german film in your cinema or played greek music in your radios?
And in which position do the premium users fit, now publicly accused to belong to a terrorist organization, no less? Will they get the money back? This very week i uploaded to megaupload 600 megas of photos from my last holiday to share with a friend of mine in Barcelona. A completely legal content that has been burned down as one more book from this modern era's library of Alexandria.
The american way of life dictates that to prevent you from accessing some titles, all of them must been burned. Congratulations, no one expected an american inquisition!
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