And so it begins...
So, I don't really do so much with the talking on this. It's mostly been fanmixes and things that piss me off. This entry kinda falls in the latter category.
MegaUpload is gone. Which in and of itself is a mild inconvenience: I'll have to upload my mixes to a different site, but that's simple. Sites disappear, I'm used to that.
What annoys me is the way this was done. There was no warning to anyone, not even the company, which is not, in fact, US-based. The statement that because there was material hosted on Virginia servers, the US government can shut down a foreign-owned site, AND arrest workers in New Zealand is simply outrageous.
This was not a shutdown because the company refused to cooperate (from what I've seen, they were swift to remove copyrighted material when requested to do so); this was a kneejerk reaction to the fact that there may be user-uploaded content that could be copyrighted. I have to wonder how long it is before sites like Youtube, Flickr, Tumblr, etc. come under fire for the exact same reason.
Oddly, what amuses me most about this situation is the timing. Many internet giants (Google.com, Wikipedia (EN), Reddit, Cheezburger Network, and TVTropes to name a few) went completely dark (Reddit, Wikipedia), included popups (Cheezburger), or ran banners (Google, TVTropes) to protest SOPA and its lesser known little brother PIPA, which, due to enigmatic and broad wording, could lead to EXACTLY this on a widespread scale. Attacking, without warning, what articles are now calling "one of the world's most popular file-sharing sites" seems like a petty and childish reaction to yesterday's black/greyout.
For the two people that care, I'll be moving my mixes to another site at some point in the near future, and correcting the links accordingly.
MegaUpload is gone. Which in and of itself is a mild inconvenience: I'll have to upload my mixes to a different site, but that's simple. Sites disappear, I'm used to that.
What annoys me is the way this was done. There was no warning to anyone, not even the company, which is not, in fact, US-based. The statement that because there was material hosted on Virginia servers, the US government can shut down a foreign-owned site, AND arrest workers in New Zealand is simply outrageous.
This was not a shutdown because the company refused to cooperate (from what I've seen, they were swift to remove copyrighted material when requested to do so); this was a kneejerk reaction to the fact that there may be user-uploaded content that could be copyrighted. I have to wonder how long it is before sites like Youtube, Flickr, Tumblr, etc. come under fire for the exact same reason.
Oddly, what amuses me most about this situation is the timing. Many internet giants (Google.com, Wikipedia (EN), Reddit, Cheezburger Network, and TVTropes to name a few) went completely dark (Reddit, Wikipedia), included popups (Cheezburger), or ran banners (Google, TVTropes) to protest SOPA and its lesser known little brother PIPA, which, due to enigmatic and broad wording, could lead to EXACTLY this on a widespread scale. Attacking, without warning, what articles are now calling "one of the world's most popular file-sharing sites" seems like a petty and childish reaction to yesterday's black/greyout.
For the two people that care, I'll be moving my mixes to another site at some point in the near future, and correcting the links accordingly.