Megaupload wasn’t just for pirates: angry users out of luck for now
►http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/01/megaupload-wasnt-just-for-pirates-angry-users-out-of-luck-for-now.ars
Megaupload wasn’t just for pirates: angry users out of luck for now
By Jon Brodkin | Published 2 days ago
Megaupload wasn’t just for pirates: angry users out of luck for now
By taking Megaupload offline and charging its leaders with criminal activity, the feds are hoping to drive purveyors of illegally distributed copyrighted content out of business. But in doing so, they’ve also eliminated a service that was used by many to share files acquired and distributed in a perfectly legal manner.
Megaupload is most well known for the distribution of pirated movies, games, software and the like, but a certain percentage of the site’s usage—how much, we don’t know—was legitimate. We reached out to readers today to find out how and why they used Megaupload to distribute and acquire content that didn’t infringe anyone’s copyright, and what they plan to do now that the site is off the Internet.