"Anonymous Hackers Hit DOJ, FBI, Universal Music, MPAA And RIAA After MegaUpload Takedown"

[kane_magus]

"Just minutes after the U.S. Department of Justice repossessed the domains of Megaupload, Megavideo, Megaporn and a collection of other popular filesharing sites, the hacker collective Anonymous got to work on a few takedowns of its own."

I usually hate this hacking crap, but in this one particular case... ¬_¬

Concerning the takedown of Megaupload (a site that is used for many legitimate purposes, in addition to illicit filesharing), as Jonathan Coulton said on his Facebook page: "Any other musicians out there notice that ever since they shut down MegaUpload, the money has just been POURING in? NYTimes says MegaUpload was responsible for $500 mil in copyright damages. Once we all get that money, the record biz will be saved! Just spitballing here, but maybe we should have the Feds seize ALL the computers. Just to be safe." (He is, of course, being sarcastic. You know, just in case it wasn't blatantly obvious.)

Keep in mind, here, that this website takedown happened under the current laws. If SOPA/PIPA or similar laws were to pass, private companies themselves will pretty much be able to do this kind of crap whenever they please, and with minimal government involvement.

From both ends of the spectrum (both the "lawless cyber-vigilantes" and the "corrupt corporate fatcats and their government patsies"), I only expect this whole thing to get worse before it gets better. Even now people are pointing at things like this hacking crap as the perfect justification for passing terrible laws like SOPA/PIPA. It is not. As much as I generally loathe the arrogant jackasses that make up (the public face of) Anonymous, their shenanigans is not a good reason to wreck the Internet entirely.

Comments

[hikarugenji.livejournal.com]

Personally I think the megaupload takedown was probably justified -- in this case it wasn't just that the site was hosting pirated files, but that they were essentially paying people to upload pirated files and encourage others to download them. I know there were legitimate files there too, but obviously megaupload was making most of its money off of piracy.

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

Without records proving one side or the other, I won't simply assume which side was making more revenue for the company.