It was hard to miss the coverage and attention devoted to the recent takedown of the illegal filesharing site megaupload.com. The sheer magnitude of copyrighted material that was being illegally shared on the site was newsworthy. There were also the added elements of the lavish lifestyle and dramatic arrest of megaupload’s founder. But the attention may be obscuring the greatest impact of law enforcement bringing down one of the Internet’s truly bad actors.
The facts of the megaupload case are straightforward. Ten days ago, the Department of Justice revealed that seven individuals involved in the operation of megaupload.com and related sites were indicted for operating a criminal enterprise responsible for “massive worldwide online piracy of copyrighted works.” Four of those indicted were taken into custody in New Zealand. (more…)