Megaupload Fallout Continues, Filesonic Removes File Sharing

Megaupload, one of the world’s top file sharing and storage sites, has been taken down on request of US authorities on Thursday. Arrests have been made in various countries and assets as well as the service’s websites and servers have been seized.

No files were accessible anymore on the servers after the takedown, which had serious consequences for users who used the file hosting site for just that: to host their own files.

Users looking for a Megaupload alternative can check out our quick overview of file hosting services.

The Megaupload fallout has not ended yet though, as some file sharing sites have begun to change their business model, likely to avoid the fate of the service.

When you visit Filesonic’s website today you will notice an announcement on the frontpage that states:

All sharing functionality on Filesonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally

Users who try to download files see the following message instead on the Filesonic website:

All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.

If this file belongs to you, please login to download it directly from your file manager.

But FileSonic is not the only file sharing site that made changes to their business model after the Megaupload bust. Uploaded, another popular file sharing service, started to block visitors from the United States. Visitors from the United States see a blue landing page that tells them that the service is no longer available in their country.

Both file sharing companies are registered outside the United States. FileSonic operates from the Netherlands while Uploaded from Hong Kong.

Neither FileSonic nor Uploaded have released statements about the changes yet. There is no certainty that Megaupload’s takedown had anything to do with the decision but the proximity of events would suggest it did.

What’s going to happen next? It is likely that FileSonic will lose a good chunk of their traffic in the coming weeks. Users will move on and use other file sharing services to share files. It needs to be point out that this does not necessarily mean illegal activities. File sharing sites are ideal to share small to medium sized files with friends and family as well.

Users who have personal files on file sharing sites should consider making a backup of those files just in case. Services like Dropbox allow you to store files in the cloud, along with synchronization options and sharing.

Update: It appears that Fileserve has started to make changes as well. The file hosts affiliate program page is no longer accessible on the site, and according to Neowin, users are reporting that their accounts have been terminated. The message they receive when they log in states the following:

Unsuccessful login
Your account has been disabled due to violations of our Terms and Conditions

Update 2: File sharing service Uploadbox has announced that they will be shutting down servers. All files that they host will be deleted on January 30th.

Megaupload Shuts Down, Arrests Have Been Made

The popular file hosting site Megaupload has been shut down by US authorities on Thursday, and the site’s leaders have been charged with widespread online copyright infringement. According to an US Department of Justice press release, Megaupload generated more than “$175 million in criminal proceeds” and caused more than “half a billion dollars in harm to copyright owners”.

Seven members of the site and two corporations – Megaupload Limited and Vestor Limited – were indicted by a grand jury in Virgina, and charged “with engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement”.

Arrests have been made in New Zealand, were Megaupload founder Kim Schmitz and three others were arrested at the request of US officials. According to The Verge, a total of 20 search warrants have been issued in the US and eight other countries including The Netherlands, Germany, Canada and Australia. In addition, assets worth more than $50 million US Dollars have been seized as well as 18 domain names associated with the business.

Users who try to open the Megaupload website, any of the site’s inner pages, hosted files or one of the related domain names will notice that all connections time out. Megaupload, which has been listed as one of the top 100 sites at Alexa, and its cousin site Megavideo, in the sub 200 rankings, have been two of the most popular file sharing sites on the Internet.

The core question that many Internet users will have right now is if this will affect other file sharing services like Rapidshare as well.

If you read the Department of Justice press release thoroughly you will notice that much of it can be applied to nearly every popular file sharing site on the Internet.

• A business model expressly designed to promote uploading of the most popular copyrighted works for many millions of users to download
• A structure to discourage the vast majority of its users from using Megaupload for long-term or personal storage by automatically deleting content that was not regularly downloaded
• A rewards program that would provide users with financial incentives to upload popular content and drive web traffic to the site, often through user-generated websites known as linking sites.

Will we see a ripple effect? What’s your take? (via Neowin)

Update: The Department of Justice website, as well as several music industry related websites are currently targeted by Anonymous as a response to the take down of Megaupload. More information here at The Next Web.

Sweden Recognises New File-Sharing Religion

When the next national census arrives on your doormat you now have another option to enter for religion other than Jedi, at least that is if you live in Sweden.  On its third attempt the church of “kopyacting” has been officially recognised as a religion by the Swedish government.

The church is founded on the belief of sharing information and holds CTRL+C and CTRL+V as sacred symbols.  They say they do not promote or condone illegal file-sharing but are pleased that file-sharing generally has now been given “religious protection”.

In a statement the leader of the church, a 19 year old philosophy student, Isak Gerson said “For the Church of Kopimism, information is holy and copying is a sacrament. Information holds a value, in itself and in what it contains and the value multiplies through copying. Therefore copying is central for the organisation and its members.”

Despite this unexpected turn of events the Swedish government said that it wouldn’t mean illegal file-sharing was about to be legalised and music analyst Mark Mulligan told the BBC ”It doesn’t mean that illegal file-sharing will become legal, any more than if ‘Jedi’ was recognised as a religion everyone would be walking around with light sabres.  In some ways these guys are looking outdated. File-sharing as a means to pirate content is becoming yesterday’s technology.”

Whatever you might think of this new religion its recognition does at least help provide encouragement for those people who believe freedom of expression and freedoms to worship are being stifled.  In this respect it has to be a good thing.

File sharing generally is a “religious ceremony” according to the church and it comes at a time when the US government’s controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is causing concern and argument across the pond.

---

© Mike Halsey MVP for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2012. | Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us, digg, facebook, reddit, twitter
Post tags: church, file-sharing

Bittorrent Share, Easy File Sharing

Sending big files over the Internet is still a big issue for many users. While it is possible to overcome those issues, it often means spending time preparing the files to do so. You could for instance pack and split the files before sending them, upload them to an ftp server or online file hosting service, use Microsoft’s Hotmail which uses the company’s own SkyDrive storage service to enable the sending of large files, or resort to handing out the data on physical discs.

Bittorrent is another solution, one that requires basic knowledge of creating torrents and seeding it to friends. Bittorrent Share tries to reduce the complexity by making it easier for users to share data with their friends (keep in mind that Share is a temporary name subject to change).

Users can download the alpha version from the official website. A free account is required which can be created directly in the application. Share is initially available for Windows systems, with Mac and Linux systems announced to be available at a later point in time.

Share users can then use the file browser or drag and drop to add files to the program that they want to share with individual friends or groups. Multiple files, for instance a folder full of photos, are automatically grouped together.

You can share the files with users either by entering individual email addresses into the share form, a name of a user that you previously shared with, or by selecting a previously created group. Groups allow you to share with multiple users at the same time, for instance your college football team, your family or colleagues at work.

The emails users receive point to a download page. Users who want to download the shared files need to create a Share account as well before they can download the files. This is different from downloading shared files with software like uTorrent, as no accounts are required to do so.

Share has no file size limitations as it is based on the same technology that powers all Bittorrent clients. Users should however keep in mind that they upload the files to the users they share with, which can mean that the total bandwidth spend sending those files may be larger than the size of all files.

All users with access can leave comments in the program interface. Invited users will also share the files automatically with other users that have been invited to download the files. This access restriction is one of the advantages of Share, as it allows users to limit access to files they want to share.

Bittorrent (the company) notes that it will “initially host and remotely seed a file for a limited time” to “ensure quality of service and file availability”.

The big issue here is that the initial seeder needs to be online when other users start the file download. This can be a issue if the software is not open about this to both seeders and downloaders. This is probably one of the reasons why Bittorrent made that decision.

The company intents to integrate Share into Bittorrent and uTorrent clients. What they mean by this is that both clients will include features to download files shared via Share in the future. This is beneficial to existing uTorrent or Bittorrent users who do not want to download another software to download those files to their computer.

Share in its current form is a dumbed down Bittorrent client with integrated social features that simplifies the sharing of files. While it simplifies the sharing, it adds to the complexity of the operation by requiring accounts prior to downloading files.

What’s your take on Bittorrent Share?

---

© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2012. | Permalink |
Add to del.icio.us, digg, facebook, reddit, twitter
Post tags: bittorrent, file-sharing