With the DOJ taking down the file sharing site megaupload yesterday, we are now exposed to another problem of such actions. This involves the law abiding citizens that use that service.For example, here’s a video from a bunch of big name artists that explained what Megaupload was and why they used it:

Not only that, but Megaupload also was used by a lot of Fortune 500 companies. This from Megaupload’s assertion:

Mega has over 150 million registered users and over 50 million daily unique visitors. Employees of over 70% of the world’s Fortune 500 companies have accounts with us. We have become the de-facto standard for sending files that are too big to email. We are the most popular hard disk in the cloud. We host more backups than any other company. If Mega is a rogue operator as we have been unfairly labelled by the MPAA and RIAA, then what about Google? What about Yahoo? And every single ISP? At any given time, they all host pirated, illegal or even criminal content for which they are not liable nor legally obliged to prevent their users from posting. They are, like Megaupload, online service providers who are in no position to monitor or restrict their users’ activities. There are technical, practical and legal reasons why these entities as a whole enjoy safe harbor protection all over the world. Service providers like Megaupload are simply better off focusing on providing a better service to their customers than fending off lawsuits from third parties unhappy about content.

That said, all service providers have to deal with the challenge of online piracy, just like us. Google probably hosts the world’s largest index of pirated content and yet no one has characterized them as rogue. Why not sue the manufacturers of external USB hard drives or burnable DVDs? They can be used for illegal purposes, too. Microsoft’s Windows operating system is the world’s largest enabler of piracy. Windows is used to transfer and consume pirated content on a massive scale every day. And yet Microsoft is not rogue. This double standard should not be imposed on Megaupload since it finds no basis in either logic or the law. All we want is equal treatment.

I personally know musicians who use it to share their own songs. On top of that there’s also the people who pay for their monthly premium service.

This is all gone. The United States government has seized the work of millions of law abiding citizens and left untold millions wondering “what next”.

I try to be reasonable when thinking about this stuff. I understand that the people involved in putting out work should be compensated and pirating does hurt them. I have done a lot of software development in my life, some of which does hold copyrights, so I really understand it. Having said that the action taken by the U.S. government today was draconian to say the least. Instead of going after the ones actually breaking the laws, they chose to cause havoc upon everyone.

And that’s not the worst part.

The worst part is that our elected leaders in Congress are wanting to make it easier to do this. They want to be able to take any site down at anytime with limited proof – due process and the basis of our justice system be dammed!

It’s going to be interesting to see how this progresses. I’m sure the lawyers for Megaupload are currently trying to get a judge to order the site back up. Hopefully that does happen because to many people have lost a valuable service and those people did nothing wrong. That alone should be criminal.