How many kilobytes can your heart hold?
I do, but I don’t think people will like it. Megaupload is one of the shadiest sites on the internet. A major source of not only pirated material, but viruses and malware. It was truly the Mos Eisley of file sharing. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Apparently the FBI has massive evidence of wrongdoing. Not only copyright violations, but money laundering and criminal conspiracy. I know we all love having easy access to free Doctor Who episodes, but that doesn’t change the fact that they broke the law. They didn’t break it just a little. It wasn’t a moral gray area. If the law was a china shop… they were the bull. People don’t like losing this source of content, but the FBI isn’t going to just let that shit slide.
Emotionally I always feel bummed when the hammer comes down on file sharing sites. It is super convenient to just have a file on my computer that I can watch anytime I choose. That I can transfer to any computer without hassle. But logically I know that there is a buttload of stealing involved in all this. We don’t attach that word to it because the crimes are intangible. Just ones and zeros on a hard drive. No one is being held at gunpoint. No one is packing loot into a pillow case. We don’t wear ski masks when we click on that Sherlock link. But deep down we all know that we are in ethically murky waters.
I’m not saying that we are all criminals for participating in file sharing. It is my hope that content distributors will start to realize why people pirate. That it isn’t just because it is free. It’s also goddamned convenient. They need to accept that times have changed. We don’t want to buy their DVDs. We don’t want overpriced cable bundles with 40 channels we will never watch. Photoshop should not cost 700 goddamn dollars. We want safe, reliable content available for download instantly and priced within reason. By not providing this, distributors are almost begging people to steal their shit.
Netflix, Pandora, and iTunes are proving that a la carte and subscription based media can be very successful. Yet studios refuse to allow major movies to be streamed. They are set in their ways. They spent decades building up their physical media infrastructure. They spent billions of dollars creating it. It doesn’t make sense to them that they should start abandoning their current methodology. They want us to buy their dvds, on their time table, with their fancy wasteful packaging. And maybe a year or two down the road they will allow it to be streamed on the internet.
They must also realize that piracy cannot be stopped. It can only be reduced. If they don’t start delivering content using a model that reflects current technology and demands, the piracy will only get worse. I wouldn’t be surprised if several Megaupload ripoffs arise to take its place. The FBI basically just cut the head off a hydra.
