Our way of life is being threatened.
// January 20th, 2012 // No Comments » // Blog
If you haven’t yet followed a dead link nor read the news, I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you. Megaupload is dead. The US Department of justice closed down the site, which is based in Hong Kong, and arrested and raided the homes of the employees, which live in New Zealand. Yes, right after the internet-wide SOPA and PIPA protest, the US proved that they don’t need SOPA or PIPA to shut down sites and arrest people worldwide after accusations of copyright infringement.
Megaupload users – many of them paying customers – were given no notice of this, no chance to download their legal files. All the freeware programmers, musicians, educators, etc. etc. etc. that were using megaupload for legitimate file distribution are now scrambling to find other hosting. Those of them that have backups of their data, that is. They are all now aware that their legal data can be ripped away without a moment’s notice. That they can be cut of from sharing their own IP – even just from sharing it with themselves – if the MPAA and RIAA don’t like how a site is being used.
If you’re reading this, you are probably like me in that the internet is an integral part of your life. I use the internet to educate my children and myself, to get my news, to contact my family and friends. I use it to get information that isn’t in – or is incorrect/outdated in – library books. I use it to get news beyond the local, limited information the newspapers choose to print. I haven’t had a landline in years, and my cellphone uses the internet to make calls. I don’t have the phone numbers nor address of most of my extended family, but they are friends or friends of friends on Facebook. I can’t find any brick-and-mortar stores that sell quinoa – an important grain for vegetarians – so I buy it from Amazon. All of the ways I make money require the internet.
The internet may not be quite as integral to your life as it is to mine, but to most of my readers, it is integral to some extent. And the fact that any of the sites we use could be shut down at the whim of the MPAA and RIAA is a threat to our way of life. Could Wikipedia be shut down tomorrow because the MPAA feels a certain picture of an actor or description of a movie violates their copyright? Could Facebook be shut down because someone posts a picture of themselves with a tv playing in the background?
I’m not even saying that the way of life of pirates is being threatened. In all honesty I haven’t pirated anything from the MPAA or RIAA in quite some time. Nor have I purchased anything from them. I never really did either of those things, as there just isn’t much American stuff I like. Although I joke about piracy and it’s kind of a cliche/meme that I’m a huge pirate, the truth is; With Crunchyroll coming into existence, Amazon beginning to sell Japanese mp3s, Netflix having foreign movies, etc., I’ve been paying for all my movies, tv, and music legally rather than pirating. Back when I was sued by the MPAA, it was because of users of my site (whos information I did not keep for the MPAA to take) pirating, not because of me pirating. I’ve always used Megaupload only for legal purposes.
Yes, the Megaupload employees are accused of committing piracy themselves. That’s not who is threatened here – copyright infringers were already threatened. Who’s being threatened here are people that use the internet legally. People that want to spread information legally but are prevented from doing so in the name of keeping it legal. Everyone is being forced to keep their mouth shut just in case they were about to say something bad. Knowledge can’t be spread because every moment a person is consuming knowledge is a moment they aren’t partaking of the MPAA or RIAA’s products – uh, I mean because knowledge spreading tools can be used for evil.
SOPA and PIPA be damned, the assault on our way of life has already begun. I don’t know what can be done about this. But something needs to be done before everything on the internet looks like megaupload.com looks now.
