US Shuts Megaupload File-Sharing Site, Prompting Massive Hacker Response

January 20, 2012 from Al Jazeera English

The US government has shut down one of the world's most popular file-sharing websites for allegedly violating piracy laws, as police arrested Megaupload's co-founders and another staff member in New Zealand. The suspects are accused of engaging in a scheme that cost copyright holders more than $500mn in lost revenue and of generating over $175m in proceeds from subscriptions and advertising, Al Jazeera's Matt Moore reports.

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Megaupload

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File sharing

File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia, documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion incl... Explore this topic

Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's "exclusive rights", such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the copyrighted work, spread the information contained within copyrighted works, or to ... Explore this topic

Kim Schmitz

Kim Dotcom, also known as Kimble, and Kim Tim Jim Vestor is a German-Finnish Internet entrepreneur, currently residing in New Zealand. He is the founder of Megaupload and its associated websites, as well as Megaupload's successor site, Mega. He rose to fame in Germany in the 1... Explore this topic

US Government

The government of the United States of America is the federal government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that constitute the United States, as well as one capitol district, and several other territories. The federal government is composed of three distinct branc... Explore this topic

Anonymous

Anonymous is a loosely associated hacktivist group. It originated in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, representing the concept of many online and offline community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic, digitized global brain. It strongly opposes Internet censorship and su... Explore this topic

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses ‒ that of the North and South Islands ‒ and numerous smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 1,500 kilometres east of Australia across the Tasman ... Explore this topic

US Department of Justice

The United States Department of Justice, also known as the Justice Department, is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries. The D... Explore this topic

Money laundering

Money laundering is the process of concealing the source of money obtained by illicit means. The methods by which money may be laundered are varied and can range in sophistication. Many regulatory and governmental authorities quote estimates each year for the amount of money l... Explore this topic

Racketeering

A racket is a service that is fraudulently offered to solve a problem, such as for a problem that does not actually exist, will not be affected, or would not otherwise exist. Conducting a racket is racketeering. Particularly, the potential problem may be caused by the same par... Explore this topic

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File sharing

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