It's all about money... money, money, money.

Megaupload already had a policy in place that all the RIAA had to do was state this work violated copyright and they would take it down. That is the best anyone could have done. For those of us who used Megaupload to share games they have created themselves this is extremely annoying.

I don't think I've used a locker in years. We use another method. Shows just how far behind the movie/music industry is AGAIN.

In other news the mainstream press is about 5 years behind the rest of the internet. They're only just now becoming a "growing piracy concern"? That's one of the best lols I've read all week.

More schlock writing.

My real concern is that anyone is still calling it "piracy", or a "concern".

It is not piracy (files don't and generally can't be "lost" or "stolen", because of how easy they are to copy), and (partly because of that, and partly because of the lack of respect for due process by companies that cry "piracy") frankly it's not my (or most Web users') concern.

Fortunately, there are so many people and groups who make good games and music, who don't subscribe to the "piracy" term, and who offer their wares at reasonable prices, that I barely even have time, much less need, to "pirate".

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if people do not want to buy movies or music it will ALWAYS be available online. The comment about speed on the locker sites is just simply wrong. Especially with torrent sites which you can still download at your top internet speed on most files. Not to mention that many newsgroup sites have faster speeds then the locker sites ever had. Bottom line is piracy is near impossible to stop. Why don't the producing companies start adding stuff to their products that can't be pirated online which would encourage consumers to buy their products such as limited edition photos with cd's and movies, concert and movie ticket discounts with purchases, or maybe other material products that the consumer can use to bring more money into the system. Should they have to do this? Probably not, however at this point and time I believe Pandora's box has been open and there is no way you are getting the sins back in the box.

In continuation from my above post, it is very scary on how far behind these companies and the news agencies are when it comes to piracy. For example I'm going to give you a few results from a popular newsgroup website on certain searches:

Ides of march: 111 Results (including DVD quality AND Blue Ray copy)
MoneyBall: 113 Results (including DVD quality AND Blue Ray copy)
Contraband: 12 Results (bootlegs)

So on and so forth. Not to mention you can find ANY music artists entire discography to download with a click of a button in one convenient zip file.

All files are downloadable at your internet top speed.

And you thought the locker sites where the big guys?

I'd never heard of Megaupload before the shutdown, but I'd heard of online backup. I'll never use it and this is a prime example of why it's dangerous. If my only backup of my critical data is on someone elses servers, and someone I don't even know is using the same servers for illegal purposes, the entire site can be shut down and I have no backup of critical data. And what about a business that is trusting and stupid enough to put all their data in the cloud? You can have it all destroyed or at least inaccessible, in a heartbeat. I'll make my own backups and keep my own data thank you.

The real issue is actual access to sites like Megaupload, Rapidshare, Torrent sites and others. SOPA and PIPA have gone into hiding but only for the moment. The majority of average Americans access the internet via their home cable subscription, or a similar service, all of which are owned by corporations with interconnecting interests in the media industry.

They have the technology to block access to any site or service they choose. All they lack at the moment is the legal power to do so. It takes a relatively small amount of coding for them to block consumer access to hundreds if not thousands of web addresses.

It is powerful lobby, and it is only a matter of time before they have chipped away at all of our ability to access where we want to go on the web. Newsgroups are great now, until the day when the majority of people won't even be able to access them. (Again, the vast majority of people are point and clickers, the truly tech savvy will always know where to go)

Enjoy the Wild Wild West while it lasts.

Here's your major reason to not use cloud storage for any of your legal content. Expect to lose access at any moment, probably in the middle of system failure that requires restoration from it. No storage provider, even the most reliable and law abiding can prevent storage of "intellectual property" and the way SOPA and PIPA are written and will eventually be shoehorned through means you will lose access to your stored data because your next door neighbor on the same service is pirating music.

That digital family photo album you've created over a decade and decided to store online because it is safer? It may disappear at any moment in time without due process and may never come back, no matter how much you point and scream and try to educate the people who shut it down that your data store had nothing but your own "intellectual property". The ultimate irony, eh?

I always thought copyright was a civil issue anyway. What because the RIAA gets tired of suing children suddenly it becomes the government's responsibility to enforce RIAA's business. BS. Send those corporate welfare queens back to work.

Why am I still seeing the term 'piracy' being used to describe file sharing? Piracy is distribution for profit of physical merchandise being represented as legitimate. One could argue that in the digital age files equivocate to physical merchandise, but even then there is still no profit. And the only thing that makes file sharing 'illegal' is tort law, not criminal. Any legislation which tries to criminalize digital copyright infringement (SOPA, PIPA) is trying to shift the legal burden from lawsuit to law enforcement, and the expense of remedy to the taxpayer instead of the industry.

File sharing arose from a fed up consumer base who all saw a way to 'stick it' to the music biz fat cats who overcharged for digital music. Since the advent of the CD in 1982 they have had the same near zero cost duplication and portability of digital files that the consumer discovered a generation later which allowed their profits to soar. Empty promises of lower prices never materialized and the consumer revolted as soon as they had the means. Instead of getting the message and rewriting their business model the idiots lawyered up and took the advice of these techno-ignorant suits and pursued all legal means to fight back. Public opinion eroded further and they dug themselves a deeper hole, which has destroyed their business forever. After years of losses they are now trying to update their model, but SOPA and PIPA prove they still think pursuing legal avenues is the best approach. Never going to work. In case you haven't looked around in a while the internet is global. There is no world wide legal jurisdiction and getting multi-country cooperation takes time, where as new code is fast and the network potentially morphs quickly into something else.

Despite how this might sound I do not partake in file sharing and believe worthy content creators should be compensated proportionately. But I do believe the supply side of this equation (artists, labels, etc.) need to understand that the new model is the norm now and they will not survive on old school ideas anymore. Distribution and promotion can be successful at near zero cost if done correctly and are the only way to profit legitimately in the modern digital age.

"Ilk"? Why would a Reuters press release call an industry 'ilk'? This sounds like it was written by the rich, for the rich, protecting their wealthy entertainment industry. Why would anyone care if they lose a few bucks out of billions? Why don't they copy-protect their own property? Why is this such a huge deal to nobody and overreported? Wy does the Federal Govt all of a sudden have to be in the business of policing for Weinstein and Co.? People are so greedy and corrupt it makes you want to vomit.

The benefits of online piracy as detailed by Slate:

""

Perhaps the government and media industry should consider this.... Also, why are we so concerned about piracy when there are more important factors affecting the economy? They should have better things to do.

Semantics do not avoid the truth of the issue. Megaupload did not restrict account access to just the owner. Megaupload was intentionally designed to be used for content distribution. That is not what a "digital locker" is for.

True artists do not need megaupload. Anybody can bring up a site in a day or so and share their works for free if they want.

If Megaupload was on the up-and-up, it would have required a second login using email-based password whenever an account login attempt occurs from a different ip block than previously recorded from the system. That would protect lockboxes from hackers and prevent Megaupload from being used as a content distribution site.

Because of creeps like these, Congress is considering brickbat legislation that will put the whole internet at risk. Those who think the internet is a game where freedom means full-blown copyright violation bear the onus of blame for bringing the house down on those of us who do not abuse the internet.

Billions aren't enough. This is nothing but already super wealthy rats in suits conspiring together to keep every crumb for themselves. The music industry peddles nothing but audio diarrhea these days anyway. Rap, Gaga and Bieber. Hollywood churns out comic book based CGI pieces of crap and lame remakes. So, the gluttons can lock down the internet. I don't download any of that crap anyway.

The American system of justice was created by the rich, in order to keep them rich.

Look at it this way I never would have bought that movie/game/software in the first place so you aren't losing anything from me downloading it.

Violation of copyright law is a criminal not civil matter.

if you could get a refund on movies, cds, and programs that are not what the say or don't work I would be glad to pay up front but most of them are ripoffs so i check them out before I buy them.

I have a problem with a police raid over file sharing. Go through the courts.

maybe they have a point. there has been a noticeable decline in the quality of drugs and prostitution provided at RIAA's xmas parties in the past few years...

Storage Lockers are neither a problem, nor "piracy". If there are any unauthorized uploads on a Locker, it is not "theft", "stealing', or "piracy"; it is simply a copyright violation.

The RIAA's (and MPAA's) "loss" numbers are pretty much made up out of whole cloth; studies have shown that people who sample music or movies via download are more likely to go on to buy the commercial product than people who do not "sample" the wares. Essentially, there are no "losses", since a large number of illegal downloads would never have been purchases in the first place (or would have been purchases if the copyright owner had actually made the product available on a reasonable basis in the first place). The downloads that do result in subsequent sales are free marketing for the copyright owner - customer-initiated "viral" marketing, if you will. Even if you count every single copyright-violation download as a "lost sale", the numbers would still be something like an order of magnitude less than the made-up industry figures.

Try not to take RIAA and MPAA press releases as truth - there's more smoke in them than substance.

If the music and digital image companies weren't busy trying to make bazillions consumers would buy the products. But with the rip off they are charging everyone goes elsewhere for content. Price the product right and more people would buy and your profits would increase and piracy would be less, but they are so greedy they don't understand this.