Internet superstar-turned-mogul-turned-jailed-man Kim Dotcom of Megaupload seems to be coming out of the dumps of the past few months now. Justice Judith Potter declared the restraining order slapped on Kim Dotcom “null and void” because of some procedural error by the New Zealand police. Apparently the error was committed by the police while filing documents to seize Dotcom’s property. This was admitted by the Police Commissioner Peter Marshall.

While this is an order on a temporary basis, it may lead to the Megaupload creator to receive all his assets back and a good chance to set up his defense in the trial that is to follow on the piracy claims against Megaupload. His site bought him great wealth and a string of luxury cars and a large mansion in Auckland.

However there is a really sick smell of a rat around these “procedural errors”. For one, a little bit of background research on Justice Judith Potter does not turn out to be quite so rosy, with a bunch of ‘shocking’ and ‘mocking’ sentences that she has passed and she might have been a little under the water. Secondly, it might be a case where the New Zealand Government has finally stopped taking orders from a pressurizing United States and showed them the finger with this “procedural error”.

Or it might just be an error. You can never trust bureaucracy, can you?

Amongst the litter of pirated songs, videos and software that filled the servers of the deceased file sharing behemoth Megaupload were also some legitimate files, original content and other innocuous material – the material that is now forever lost to the internet, and the users who created and consumed this content are taking the murderer to justice. Indeed, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom’s house and took the website offline, they also unwittingly (?) took down several users’ legitimate files that were needed by them for work in the office or as backup. Now these users wish to sue the FBI in a court of law and this will happen quite soon.

These users are also morally supported by the Swedish copyright and patent law reform advocate Piratpartiet (Pirate Party):-

The widespread damage caused by the sudden closure of Megaupload is unjustified and completely disproportionate to the aim intended. For this reason Pirates of Catalonia, in collaboration with Pirate Parties International and other Pirate Parties, have begun investigating these potential breaches of law and will facilitate submission of complaints against the US authorities in as many countries as possible, to ensure a positive and just result.

The Pirate Party of Catalonia, Spain has said that they will be leading the charges against the FBI:-

Regardless of ideology, or opinions on the legality or morality of those running Megaupload, actions such as the closure of this service cause huge damage to lawful users of the sites and are unacceptable and disproportionate violations of their rights.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Carpathia Hosting have opened Megaretrieval.com to assist users in filing legal complaints to get their data back.

Exciting times and I wonder what the FBI would say to all this.

We all know how Megaupload was shutdown accompanied with the dramatic arrest of its flamboyant founder Kim Dotcom. The arrest was made on January 20, and it has been over a month since then. Shortly after his arrest, Kim Dotcom applied for a bail, but his application was rejected soon. After a month, on February 22, Kim Dotcom filed another bail request, which was granted eventually. The judge found it unlikely that he would flee New Zealand.

However, the prosecutors acting on behalf of the US Government appealed that he might still attempt to flee. Sadly, this appeal was rejected on Wednesday as Kim Dotcom’s bank accounts have been frozen. This makes it unlikely for him to attempt to flee. Torrent Freak writes,

The prosecution, acting on behalf of the US Government, argued that Dotcom had hidden resources that would enable him to flee the country should he be granted bail. Although four additional bank accounts in the Philippines were discovered, all of them were empty, and the Judge concluded that there was no evidence of significant funds elsewhere.

The US appointed prosecutors cried foul when two more bank accounts were discovered shortly after his bail, with $2000 in them. They also tried to present the possibility of Kim Dotcom having access to forged travel documents, but in vain.

Therefore, currently, Kim Dotcom is free on bail. The US Government is attempting to extradite Kim Dotcom for trial in the US, though the case is expected to begin only in July.  Kim Dotcom has four months until then. In an attempt to put pressure on Kim Dotcom, the US Government is also trying to implicate Kim’s wife Mona Dotcom for a possible involvement in Megaupload.

On January 19, 2012, the US Justice Department shut down MegaUpload, one of the largest file-sharing sites on the Internet. Though commonly associated with piracy, many people used MegaUpload for perfectly legal reasons. Regardless of whether personal or pirated data was stored, users lost access to their files without notice. Although file-sharing sites have taken a tough blow, there are still a fair number of sites that still offer file-sharing services. Sites such as MegaUpload, FileSonic and Uploaded.to may not be around anymore, but there are still a number of alternatives that vow to keep their services. Some of the most popular alternatives include:

RapidShare
RapidShare is a well-known alternative to MegaUpload, with nearly identical services. In order to use RapidShare and upload files, users must create a login. With an account, users can take advantage of unlimited file size and storage, but files are removed after 30 days of inactivity. While most users take advantage of the free service, users are also able to purchase a premium subscription called “RapidPro”. With different payment models, RapidPro members are able to use unlimited storage and traffic, without the standard waiting time.

Mediafire
MediaFire is a free image and file hosting site, with a relatively friendly user interface. Free users are able to drag and drop files into the site without registration, with a maximum uploading or downloading size of 200 MB. MediaFire also features paid versions, starting at 9 dollars a month. With a subscription, users are able to use direct downloads, increased file sizes and a number of additional features.

HotFile
HotFile is another hosting website that allows users to upload and download files. Free users are able to upload a file size up to 400 MB, and must wait 30 minutes between downloading files. However, premium users are able to access unlimited, multiple downloading, with direct linking services.

WUpload
Similar to the above, WUpload is another hosting service that allows users to upload files up to 10 GB. One of the main characteristics of the premium service is speed: customers are able to access increased download and upload speeds, as well as unlimited storage and file size.

DropBox
DropBox is a cloud-based hosting service, which allows users to share files with each other. Unlike direct download sites, users must download a client in order to use DropBox. Free users are given an account to store up to 2GB of space , while subscription services allows customers to take advantage of additional storage space. DropBox also offers a service tailored for businesses, providing unlimited storage space at 795 a year for the first five users.

==== About the Author ====

Rachel Hyun Kim is a writer on topics ranging from payroll services to background checks. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including telemarketing for small business owners and entrepreneurs at Resource Nation.

As you probably know already, Megaupload, one of the most popular file sharing websites, was taken down by the FBI, which claimed that the website incentivized users to upload pirated, illegal content. While that may be true, there was a significant amount of collateral damage to innocent users who had uploaded their personal, legitimate data on Megaupload servers to store it and share it online. Despite being completely legal, those users have no access to their data.

However, there may still be hope. Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced that it has partnered with Carpathia Hosting, Megaupload’s hosting provider, to launch MegaRetrieval, a website which would allow Megaupload users to get their legit, non-infringing content back.

An EFF staff attorney stated:

“EFF is troubled that so many lawful users of Megaupload.com had their property taken from them without warning and that the government has taken no steps to help them. We think it’s important that these users have their voices heard as this process moves forward.”

The EFF hasn’t actually revealed the exact details about what it will do next, but for now, if you are one of the Megaupload users who lost their legit data stored on the website, you can send your contact information to megauploadmissing@eff.org.

Carpathia has officially stated that it doesn’t have access to any data for Megaupload customers, but it will try to help users retrieve their data.

Do note that the EFF doesn’t guarantee that you will get your data back. It is just trying to provide legal help to affected users.

The DoJ has announced that its searches on Carpathia and Cogent, Megaupload’s hosting providers, are now complete, and they may start deleting the hosted content from February 2.

However, on the EFF’s request, both the hosting companies have agreed not to delete the data without assessing the situation first.

The dramatic Megaupload crackdown has turned the online file sharing world upside down by shattering the illusion of invulnerability that many of these operators enjoyed. Earlier today, Uploaded.to shut out US users, while Filesonic pulled the plug globally. Since then, several more cyber lockers have followed suit.

Filesonic, which receives more than a billion page views every month, seems to be on the run. Not only is it restricting users from downloading files uploaded by others, there are also reports of large scale file deletion. The Twitter account of Filesonic, which is typically fairly chirpy, has also vanished off the face of the earth. Somewhat surprisingly, WUpload – which is Filesonic’s sister site, continues to function.

Fileserve, another popular file sharing service, has also capitulated. Going forward, you will only be able to download your own files from Fileserve. Other services operated by Fileserve – including Uploadstation, Filejungle, VideoBB and Videozer – also seem to be in shutdown mode. Affiliate program has been yanked, and user accounts and files are being deleted en masse. None of the files that I found through Google Search were downloadable.

Other services that Torrent Freak is reporting as down are Uploadbox, x7.to, and Filepost. 4shared has also terminated its affiliate program. However, unlike most of the other services, it has promised to pay out any dues within the next fifteen days.

Two industry stalwarts that have refused to budge are RapidShare and Mediafire. Both of them have decided to distance themselves from Megaupload, and are harping on the legitimacy of their business model. In fact, Mediafire even went a step further, and promised to shakeup the cloud storage industry with a major new release in the next quarter. I have included the responses from Rapidshare and Mediafire below.

Dear RapidShare fans,
You posted some comments on our wall today regarding the shutdown of Megaupload. There is no reason to be concerned. We distinguish ourselves from services like Megaupload in many major issues and we aren’t threatened in any way. One of the main differences between RapidShare and Megaupload is that we never wanted to escape from the legal access of any administration. RapidShare AG was founded in Switzerland, was always based at the address cited in the imprint and was always managed with an authentic name without any anonymous intermediary companies. The drastic measures against Megaupload were obviously seen as necessary by the FBI because the situation was different there.
We wish you a great time with RapidShare!

MediaFire’s premium services are based on a user’s ability to upload data and pay to distribute it. This storage and sharing model is similar to Akamai, Amazon S3, YouSendIt, etc. MediaFire has no caps or restrictions for downloading data and each upload is limited to a maximum size of 200MB for non-premium users.

Most importantly, people choose MediaFire because it offers high quality services that are simple to use and extremely powerful. We incorporate the latest HTML5 technologies, the most advanced user interfaces, and are constantly expanding our services with features requested by businesses and professionals. In Q2 2012, MediaFire will redefine how people access and manage their data and how they interact with the cloud by releasing long-in-development desktop and mobile applications that solve problems Microsoft, Dropbox, and Box fail to address.

A little more about MediaFire:

MediaFire was founded in 2006 and is based near Houston, Texas. MediaFire is used by people at 86% of Fortune 500 companies and is currently ranked in the top 100 websites globally by Amazon’s Alexa and Google/DoubleClick’s Ad Planner services.

Thanks again everyone, especially to our fans who we’ve heard loud and clear evangelizing the benefits of our service. It’s easy for us to get caught up in building our technology and services and we haven’t spent enough time espousing our own benefits and differentiators. The cloud is an incredibly convenient and powerful tool for many professionals, businesses and individuals. At MediaFire, we are committed to continuing to innovate on this technology and provide it to our users in new, simple, ethical and cost effective ways.

It looks like the Megaupload takedown is not just prompting rebuttal from sites like Uploaded.to, but also has put fear in the minds of other large File sharing websites.

After Uploaded.to blocked U.S. users, another large file sharing website called FileSonic has now stopped users from downloading files that other’s have uploaded.

When compared to Uploaded.to, FileSonic is a very large website with an Alexa global rank of 167 and a U.S. rank of 220. Compete data shows that FileSonic gets approximately 1.9 million visitors from the United States. The site now displays a message as shown below when you try to download a file from FileSonic.

All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.

If this file belongs to you, please login to download it directly from your file manager

It is not really clear as to whether FileSonic stopped file downloads due to fear of being targeted by the FBI and US Justice Department or whether they have already been targeted. However, it looks like that file sharing websites are starting to become cautious of what data they hold on their servers thanks to the U.S. Justice Department and FBI crackdown.

If you are affected by this, don’t forget to check out several alternatives to Megaupload to store files in the cloud and other ways to share files online. You can also check out services like Dropbox and SugarSync among others to easily sync and share your files online or take a look at several other services to backup and sync your files online.

This has been a very interesting last few days with the draconian piracy law of SOPA and PIPA being defeated in the U.S. Congress and Megaupload being shutdown by the U.S. Justice Department. In fact the Megaupload website was back online shortly on different servers as well.

In retaliation of the Megaupload shutdown, the famous group Anonymous also took down several websites in protest. However, it looks like the protest is now growing to another level.

According to reports from Torrent Freak, another file sharing website called Uploaded.to is now blocking users from U.S. and not allowing them to upload or download files from their service. This is definitely a big rebuttal from them and would likely make other services follow in their footsteps.

Currently, users who visit uploaded.to from United States are displayed a message similar to the one in the image above. It reads:

Not available

Our service is currently unavailable in your country. Sorry about that.

Uploaded.to has a traffic rank of 3075 in the United States according to Alexa and serves about 350K users from United States according to Compete. Though their stats are no where near what Megaupload had; which was the 13th most popular website in the world, it would definitely inconvenience U.S. users who have used it to store files on the website.

There is no official update from Uploaded.to about this blockage and whether it will remain permanent. In the meantime, if you have been affected by the Megaupload takedown or the Uploaded.to blockage, don’t forget to check out several alternatives to Megaupload to store files in the cloud and other ways to share files online.

The U.S. Anti-piracy law SOPA and PIPA may be off the table for now, however, it did deal a a major blow to the 13th most visited site on the internet – “Megaupload” in some way.

Yesterday, the Justice Department of US shutdown Megaupload; one of the most popular online file sharing website in the world. Along with the closure of the website, they also arrested 7 people in connection with piracy and other charges. The downside of this was that several users might have lost legitimate files hosted on their servers forever.

However, it looks like Megaupload is now making its way back on the internetz in another form. A forum post on a website (via Giga OM) says that Megaupload is now back online through a new domain name called megavideo.biz. However, the domain does not work fully, but they do have a working IP which does say that the site is back and they are working on it to get back to earlier levels soon.

The message reads:

WE DON’T HAVE ANY DOMAIN NAME FOR NOW

ONLY THIS IP ADDRESS (http://109.236.83.66) BEWARE TO THE PISHING SITES!

This is the NEW MEGAUPLOAD SITE! we are working to be back full again

Bookmark the site and share the new address in facebook and twitter!

A quick WhoIS of the IP address shows that the server is located in Amsterdam, Netherlands by the RIPE Network Coordination Center and not Sweden where File sharing is an official religion . Ironically, the Megaupload operation was a international co-operation between United States and several other countries which included Netherlands, so there is no guarantee that the above IP address may stay up for a long time.

It is not clear whether the site owners have access to the uploaded files when the Feds seized the Megaupload domains and servers. However, it could be that the site owners might have kept backups of the files in other locations as well.

It would be interesting to see, if the site really comes back into operation and how they would allow users to download files which they have already uploaded.  If you have been a Megaupload user, don’t forget to check out several alternatives to Megaupload to store files in the cloud and other ways to share files online.

Soon after the Internet community pinned down SOPA, the feds went after Megaupload and brought it down. Megaupload is one of the world’s most popular file-sharing websites. It has been charged with over $500 million in losses over piracy of music, movies and TV shows. This is one of the largest criminal copyright cases, and the Justice Department along with the FBI has been prompt in bringing it to a closure. Surprisingly, they did not need to use anything like SOPA in this case. This proves that there is enough law for taking down apparently rogue websites. SOPA is absolutely unnecessary and hence, unwelcome.

The founder of Megaupload Kim Dotcom, along with three others, was arrested at New Zealand, on request by US authorities. Megaupload was one of the 18 domains owned by Kim Dotcom and his company, and all of them were seized following raids on their three datacenters. However, this domain-seizure and arrest came as a surprise, because a few days ago, Kim made a bold statement in an interview with TorrentFreak.

Mega has nothing to fear. Our business is legitimate and protected by the DMCA and similar laws around the world. We work with the best lawyers and play by the rules. We take our legal obligations seriously. Mega’s war chest is full and we have strong supporters backing us.

The position on file-sharing websites has always been a controversial one in the anti-piracy debate. NY Times puts it into fine words saying,

Megaupload and similar sites, like Rapidshare and Mediafire, are often promoted as convenient ways to legitimately transfer large files; a recent promotional video had major stars like Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas singing Mega-upload’s praises. But they have become notorious inside media companies, which see the legitimate uses as a veil concealing extensive theft.

In the midst of all this ballyhoo, Anonymous rose in protest against the Megaupload shutdown, and brought down the Justice Department website for a brief period. They also attacked the MPAA, RIAA and Universal Music Group websites.

Do not forget to read some interesting traffic stats for Megaupload.