[ale] First SOPA & PIPA, now Megaupload.com

[David Tomaschik]

On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 8:11 PM, Collin Pruitt <collin at collinp.com> wrote:
> Anyone else heard about this? The government seized megaupload.com
> http://techland.time.com/2012/01/19/feds-shut-down-megaupload-com-file-sharing-website/
> http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/megaupload_seizure/
>
> --
> Collin Pruitt
> Ubuntu Member
> http://collinp.com/

Believe it or not, SOPA treatment would be much worse:
https://plus.google.com/115040231829422107651/posts/GrLkmuPNz2H.

The site is not offline because the domain name was seized or DNS
blacklisted, but because the servers that serve the site were seized
as material evidence in a criminal investigation.  The defendants will
have opportunity for trial, and if found not guilty could pursue civil
action to reclaim losses.

And, if some people I know are any indication, megaupload really was a
haven for pirated content.  I'm opposed to SOPA and PIPA (and pretty
much anything else the feds are doing) but, believe it or not, I
believe we do need more effective tools to pursue copyright
infringement.  Keep in mind that when someone "violates the GPL" what
he/she is really doing is infringing upon the copyrights of the
author(s).  Like it or not, the same system that protects the rights
of RIAA and MPAA members protects the rights of free software authors.
 SOPA and PIPA are just ineffective attempts to exercise more control
over the internet.

If we didn't have so many petty criminals (pirates) out there, we
wouldn't be handing the government so much leverage for SOPA and PIPA.


-- 
David Tomaschik, RHCE, LPIC-1
System Administrator/Open Source Advocate
OpenPGP: 0x5DEA789B
http://systemoverlord.com
david at systemoverlord.com