Last week, the FBI shut down the file-sharing sites MegaUpload and raided the New Zealand home of CEO Kit Dotcom, arresting him and other senior employees. The FBI worked with authorities in Hong Kong, Singapore, Germany, the Philippines, and New Zealand to freeze bank accounts and seize related assets. The indictment charged MegaUpload with willfully distributing pirated content, despite the service’s claims that it removed infringing content at the request of rights-holders.
Since the raid, a number of other file-sharing services have changed their policies to take themselves out of the crosshairs. According to TorrentFreak, Filesonic has changed its rules to allow only the original uploader to download files. It also killed its affiliate rewards program and has reportedly been deleting files on user accounts.
Fileserve, another cyberlocker site, has followed Filesonic in disabling third-party downloads and banning certain offending users. Uploaded.to decided the best way out was to ban all US IP addresses, preventing North American users from accessing the site. Other sites scrambling to protect themselves include FileJungle, UploadStation, and FilePost. UploadBox decided to shutdown completely.
RapidShare, another leading file-sharing site, told Ars Technica last week that it was unconcerned by the MegaUpload raid.
"We're not concerned or scared about the raid," said Daniel Raimer, a spokesperson for RapidShare. "File hosting itself is a legitimate business. As far as I can tell, the allegations are based on [MegaUpload’s] closed eyes to the pirate scene, and that they financially supported (pirates) and uploaded infringing content themselves. If they turn out to be true, then law enforcement had to go this way."
RapidShare CEO Alandra Zwingli compared RapidShare to other services like YouTube or DropBox.
"We act rigidly against copyright infringement," Zwingli insisted.
MediaFire CEO Derek Labian told VentureBeat the same thing when it was interviewed.
“We don’t have a business built on copyright infringement.” Labain said. “Like many other cloud-based sharing services like Box.net and Dropbox, we’re a legitimate business targeting professionals. Megaupload was making a ridiculous amount of money with a ridiculously bad service. We frankly don’t see ourselves in the same space.”
It will be interesting to see how sites like Dropbox and Box.com react to the takedown of MegaUpload. And what will stand up to take on the mantel ripped from MegaUpload's shoulders, like The Pirate Bay replaced the defunct Suprnova?
