Current Events II – Megaupload

Megaupload was a Hong-Kong based, New Zealand founded company that owned several websites for file sharing (music, movies and software in particular) and on January 19, 2012 was shut down by the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for copyright infringement and intellectual property misuse (Perry 2012). The case of Megaupload is closely related to the Stop Online Piracy Act, as Megaupload’s representatives were arrested the following day after a massive worldwide anti-SOPA protest. As mentioned in Current Events I, Wikipedia decided to fight against SOPA by taking its website offline for 24 hours, leaving a message for every visitor to see, saying “Imagine a world without free knowledge”. In the 24 hours, over 162 million people saw the message. Google had also take action against SOPA through an online petition, which in the end was signed by 4.5 million people (Savov 2012) Even thought these are only two examples of the protests carried out against SOPA, they illustrate the scope of the protest. The fact that Megaupload representatives were arrested only 24 hours after the protest, stirred up the question of online piracy even more. Without the close time relation of the two events, the case of Megaupload might not have received such attention from the general public. The Internet hacker group Anonymous decided to retaliate and so the group took the Department of Justice’s website offline for several hours (Segall 2012). The whole incident illustrated not only the power the general public can have when united for a certain cause, but also the vulnerability of Internet. It also demonstrates the power of the United States over other countries’ Internet regulation even without an act such as SOPA. The case of Megaupload raised several important questions concerning freedom of speech, Internet control and legal rights of governments; these questions are still being discussed. 

Perry, Nick. "Popular File-sharing Website Megaupload Shut down."USATODAY.COM. N.p., 20 Jan. 2012. Web. 12 May 2014.

Savov, Vlad. "The SOPA Blackout: Wikipedia, Reddit, Mozilla, Google, and Many Others Protest Proposed Law." The Verge. N.p., 18 Jan. 2012. Web. 12 Apr. 2014.

Segall, Laurie. "Anonymous Attacks DOJ Site after Feds Shut down Megaupload." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 19 Jan. 2012. Web. 01 May 2014.