FileSonic, one of the most popular file-sharing websites on the Web, has announced that it is has disabled “all sharing functionality”, and that its service can “only be used to upload and retrieve files you have uploaded personally”.
The company’s Facebook page has also disappeared. According to users on Reddit it is believed that many accounts and files were deleted today.
It is thought that this measure has been put in place in response to the wider crackdown on file-sharing sites by U.S. authorities.
SOURCEIn December of 2011, just weeks before the takedown, Digital Music News reported on something new that the creators of #Megaupload were about to unroll. Something that would rock the music industry to its core. (Digital Music News - MegaUpload Is Now Launching a Music Service Called MegaBox...)
I present to you... MegaBox. MegaBox was going to be an alternative music store that was entirely cloud-based and offered artists a better money-making opportunity than they would get with any record label.
"UMG knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings," MegaUpload founder Kim 'Dotcom' Schmitz told Torrentfreak
Not only did they plan on allowing artists to keep 90% of their earnings on songs that they sold, they wanted to pay them for songs they let users download for free.
"We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free," Dotcom outlined. "Yes that's right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works."
MegaUpload users who want to join in on the action can do so here.In most reports following the MegaUpload shutdown, the site is exclusively portrayed as a piracy haven.
However, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people used the site to share research data, work documents, personal video collections.
As of today, these people are still unsure whether they will ever get their personal belongings back.
In a response, Pirate Parties worldwide have started to make a list of all the people affected by the raids, and they are planning to file an official complaint against the US authorities.
“The widespread damage caused by the sudden closure of Megaupload is unjustified and completely disproportionate to the aim intended,” they announce.
“For this reason Pirates of Catalonia, in collaboration with Pirate Parties International and other Pirate Parties, have begun investigating these potential breaches of law and will facilitate submission of complaints against the US authorities in as many countries as possible, to ensure a positive and just result.”
“This initiative is a starting point for legitimate internet users to help defend themselves from the legal abuses promoted by those wishing to aggressively lock away cultural materials for their own financial gain.”
Legal experts and citizen rights groups have taken an interest in the issue as well, TorrentFreak learned. The Pirate Parties are the first to make an inventory of the damage, but not the last.
On Sunday we reported on a “we the people” petition asking the White House to investigate the MPAA’s alleged bribery practices.
Today the petition reached its goal of 25.000 votes, but that’s not the only pressure that Washington is facing over the issue.
Before the Obama Administration has a chance to respond to the petition, several citizen rights groups are gearing up to put pressure on Congress to return “Hollywood’s dirty money”.
“The MPAA is so brazen in its efforts to buy legislation with campaign cash that its leader, himself a former senator, sees nothing wrong with threatening legislators on national TV,” said Free Press Action Fund President Craig Aaron today.
“We think it’s time that Congress showed that its votes are no longer for sale. The first thing Congress must do is give back the MPAA’s tainted campaign cash or give it to charity. Congress must make it clear to the world that it won’t be bullied into supporting censorship.
Now that various congressmen reconsidered their positions on the controversial PIPA and SOPA bills, Free Press thinks they are ready for the next step.
“Last week’s unprecedented grassroots uprising, in which millions mobilized against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act , clearly got Washington’s attention. And we’ve since seen dozens of legislators scrambling to show they were really against these bills all along. But the real test is whether they will put their money where their mouths are by returning Hollywood’s dirty money,” Aaron concludes.
It will be interesting to see how Congress responds to this call for refunds. To be continued
The US Attorney's Office leading the prosecution of Megaupload founder Kim Dotocm and his associates has told the court that the companies hosting Megaupload data might begin deleting data on February 2, according to an AP report.
"The execution of those search warrants [on the servers] has now been completed," said the government letter. "The United States copied selected Mega Servers and copied selected data from some of the other Mega Servers, but did not remove any of the Mega Servers from the premises.
"Now that the United States has completed execution of its search warrants, the United States has no continuing right to access the Mega Servers. The Mega Servers are not in the actual or constructive custody or control of the United States, but remain at the premises controlled by, and currently under the control of, Carpathia and Cogent. Should the defendants wish to obtain independent access to the Mega Servers, or coordinate third-party access to data housed on Mega Servers, that issue must be resolved directly with Cogent or Carpathia. It is our understanding that the hosting companies may begin deleting the contents of the servers beginning as early as February 2, 2012."
Since Megaupload's assets are frozen, company attorney Ira Rothken told AP reporter Joshua Freed that Megaupload was unable to continue to pay its hosting providers, but that he had been working with prosecutors to keep the data—belonging to at least 50 million Megaupload users—from being erased.
Carpathian and Cogent representatives have not commented on the letter.
Original Article : Dereferer
Full article:With MegaUpload disabled by the feds and accused of widespread piracy, and many of its top managers in jail or out on bail, there has been no way for the company to pay Carpathia Hosting and Cogent Communications, the services that host its data. For a while, it looked like those companies would begin deleting user data as early as Thursday.
But managers at both firms have agreed to preserve the material a minimum of two weeks, according to Ira Rothken, MegaUpload's U.S. attorney.
"The hosting companies have been gracious enough to provide additional time so we can work out some kind of arrangement with the government," Rothken said.
Rothken is in negotiations with the government about finding a permanent solution to the user-data issue.
apparently there are the odd ones that are still working. like Rapidshare. Now not many people used them after they changed things a few yrs ago, but under the rules i think they cant be touched. So bet they get a few new members and a few old ones back.
Ive heard people say it wil just go underground :(