With The Removal Of Megaupload – Are SOPA Or PIPA Really Necessary

While everyone was concentrating on the impending vote on the SOPA and PIPA bills in Congress, the U.S. government was flexing the existing legal muscle it had on the very subject that has internet users and providers, giants and individuals alike, scared. Internet copyright protections. A great cause, yes...but are they beating a dead horse, There's the DMCA, which when used properly, can affect a take-down that spans the globe, and can affect up to 1-2% of all internet traffic.

According to the Federal government, the website Megaupload has been participating in, and knowingly encouraging, copyright infringing actions. They claim in their accusations that the website even compensated some of their members in the U.S. for infringing actions. In fact they were quite flagrant about it is what the government says. During the 6 year run that they enjoyed being in the top 20 most visited websites on the global internet. In the end, the Feds seized more than $50 million in assets, cars, personal properties, and 7 people were arrested. The Feds claim that all told, Megaupload has made more than $175 million since they went live in 2005.

In spite of the MPA and RIAA assertions that pirating is running rampant, and insistence that more regulation along the lines of SOPA and PIPA, the DMCA did make the cut. The site, as shows in my screenshot is quite effectively blocked. Since the government was taking actions, and most of their U.S. payments were through PayPal, those accounts have been frozen, along with all the asset seizures. The shutdown and seizure actions are global, with the authorities cooperating in Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Germany, U.K. and Canada. Every jurisdiction was crossed to display the far reach of the law as it exists today.

Some have went so far as to say that this sting operation was planned to help the SOPA and PIPA bills in one way or another. But the truth of the matter is that an investigation that goes this deep, and crossed that many borders, didn't just happen overnight. Claims are that the investigation took over 2 years, and that the indictment was handed down by the Grand Jury days before the announcement of the other blackouts in protest of the destructive bills. Was the timing of the entire delivery planned? Probably not over the long time, but someone may have noticed an opening...and took it. However the incident was staged, you can bet a lot of legitimate customers were pretty peeved.

Well, there's going to be a huge long trial, where the defendants say they didn't do it, and the DOJ prosecutors will say that they did. There are a lot of charges, and the entire group is looking at some very serious Federal prison time. But for the customers that had legitimate copies of stuff, or the only copies even, they are still left holding an empty bag...and unable to access the data that may be instrumental to the running of their business. For the copyright infringers, they may have reason to worry. Because there may have been records identifying the origination points of the infringed material...just something to think about.

For the moment, both SOPA and PIPA ore officially off the table...but both bill sponsors are saying that a few amendments will place them back on the table. And, there are still some dangerous provisions left in both of them. There are other options, like the recently introduced OPEN act. This one isn't too bad, but I haven't had much time to look very deeply into it yet. The Protect Children From Online Predators act is kind of a joke, with all the vague language and wide sweeping powers that it will grant. Besides, the bill barely even touches on the subject, legal-wise at least, that the title implies.

In the long run though, it looks like the DMCA operates with some kind of authority...even if the appeals system needs a little more touching up and fine tuning. If the few issues that have been encountered were taken care of, that system could feasibly police the internet, and keep us all safe from being a victim of infringement.