January 19 In History: FBI Shuts Down Legendary Data Sharing Site, Megaupload

FBI headquarters in Pennsylvania (Source: Commons Wikimedia)

JAKARTA - On January 19, 2012, Megaupload, one of the most popular data sharing sites in the world, was closed by the FBI. The closings came after the United States Department of Justice accused the founder and several of his executives of violating the Piracy Act.

The shutdown comes a day after thousands of websites took part in a "blackout" to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Intellectual Property Protection Act (Pipa).

Quoting the BBC, Tuesday, January 19, the US Chamber of Commerce supported the proposed law and said law enforcement agencies "lack the tools" to effectively apply existing Intellectual Property Laws to the digital world. Industry observers suggest this latest move could enter into broader debate.

"Neither of the bills is close to being passed. But it looks like officials can use existing tools to pursue businesses that are suspected of causing the piracy," said Gartner media distribution expert Mike McGuire.

"It raises the question that if you can find and arrest people suspected of engaging in piracy using existing laws, then why introduce further regulations that are only US-only and potentially destructive?"

As a technology used to transfer data that is too large to send by e-mail, Megaupload has legitimate uses. But the Motion Picture Association of America claims most of the content transferred via Megaupload violates US Copyright Law.

Based on the NPR report, the Justice Department said two Megaupload founders, Kim Dotcom, previously known as Kim Schmitz and Mathias Ortmann were arrested in Auckland, New Zealand along with two other business employees at the request of US officials.

They were then handed a series of charges, including extortion, copyright infringement and money laundering, each carrying a prison sentence of five to 20 years.

"This act represents one of the largest copyright crimes cases ever brought by the US and directly targets the misuse of public content storage and distribution sites to commit and facilitate intellectual property crimes," said the statement posted on the US Department of Justice website.

Megaupload is just one of a number of sites that allow users to upload large amounts of data which can then be downloaded from other computers. What the still-operating competing sites - including Rapidfire and Sendspace - don't have are notable founders, such as Schmitz or well-known affiliates who have been involved in other legal disputes with record labels.

In December 2011, after a music video to support Megaupload featuring Kanye West, Will.i.am. and P. Diddy appeared, Universal Music Group filed a lawsuit against Megaupload for copyright infringement. The New York Post also reports that producer Swizz Beatz is the CEO of Megaupload. Swizz Beatz, whose real name is Kasseem Dean, was not named in the indictment.

Hours after the charges were published, a notorious hacker known as Anonymous claimed to be behind the attacks on the inaccessible websites of Universal Music Group and the Department of Justice.

Anonymous described the attack as retaliation for the crackdown on Megaupload. Overall, the Megaupload empire is spread across 18 different domains with servers in Ashburn, Washington DC, the Netherlands, and Canada.