Earlier today, the U.S. government shut down Megaupload.com, one of the largest and longest running cyberlockers in the business.
Its founders and a handful of employees have been arrested, as well, and charged with copyright infringement.
The indictment and arrests come just one day after major websites including Wikipedia and Google staged anti-SOPA “blackouts.” SOPA was created to fight piracy, but has seen massive criticism due to its ability to shut down sites with very little appeal time, at the behest of media companies or other content owners.
Megaupload and its owners are accused of taking over $500 million from copyright holders due to piracy, and cashing in on $175 million in profits from ads and premium subscriptions.
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Result for: copyright infringement
Hotfile has begun taking a harsh stance on copyright infringement, says TF, with the cyberlocker deleting premium accounts, along with all the files in them.
Furthermore, the company is not paying out money earned in the site’s rewards program.
The MPAA recently filed a lawsuit against Hotfile and its owner, claiming that “in less than two years, Hotfile has become one of the 100 most trafficked sites in the world. That is a direct result of the massive digital theft that Hotfile promotes.”
This week, hundreds of account holders are reporting that their paid-up premium accounts have been deleted, along with all their uploaded files. Many had been uploading movies and TV shows and were being paid weekly by the rewards program, using piracy as a means of income.
One account holder says he has not been paid on the $1000 Hotfile owes him for uploads.
Says Hotfile of the matter:
Recently, we have become concerned that despite these policies, some users persist in attempting to use Hotfile.com to share materials to which they do not have the necessary rights. Therefore, we have implemented a more aggressive policy of terminating the accounts of users who are the subject of repeated complaints of infringement.
Result for: copyright infringement
The Japanese police carried out raids all over the country last week. They managed to arrest 18 people who have allegedly uploaded copyrighted movies, music, games, and software to the Internet.
Anti-Counterfeiting Association (ACA) which consists of many of the influential trade groups had been monitoring the Internet use in Japan for weeks to spot the possible copyright infringements. They handed out the information to police who started the operation last Tuesday.
The police searched a total of 50 locations and found 18 individuals who are waiting to be prosecuted. One of the ACA partners, Recording Industry Association of Japan, has released details of the arrested.
Even though the operation was quite a large one, none of the accused pirates are big time crooks. Even the worst of the bunch shared only a couple games or music tracks.
