Diary of a Mad Editor

As anti-SOPA protests became more vocal and demonstrative, several supporters backed away from the online piracy bill, including the White House. This casts doubts on the passage of the bill. But perhaps just to make an example and show the world that it is still serious about taking down online pirates, the Justice Department decided to shut down MegaUpload.com. This site provides a service to individuals to upload large files. Once uploaded, these file can be shared. For instance, you can download videos, games, music, applications and other files. And, yes, some of these files are uploaded illegally. But many files are legal. Does that mean that the site, itself, is run by online pirates? It’s an important question which needs to be answer as at least four of the site’s operators have been arrested. Did these individuals directly pirate the illegal files and upload them? I think ultimately, these charges will be dropped. I think there’s a legal argument to be made. Just my two cents.