New York, Jan 30 (TAG) – On January 19th, the United States put the hammer
down on file sharing site Megaupload, by charging its owners with online
copyright infringement. Seven people and two corporations—Megaupload Limited
and Vestor Limited—were indicted by a New York grand jury and charged with a
variety of crimes. If convicted on all possible charges, those involved face up
to 50 years of jail time.
In the wake of this news,
several file-sharing sites changed their operation methods. Filejungle and
FileSonic eliminated third-party downloads, while Uploaded to blocked American
users from accessing the site. These three file-sharing sites worked
preemptively to prevent similar fates, which raises an important question: what
are the fates of file-sharing sites as a whole?
It's hard to know which
websites, if any, will next taste the swift fist of justice, but there are a
handful of choice suspects that are prime candidates for speculation.
For example, the MPAA
considers three online destinations as "rogue sites" for linking to
copyrighted movie and television content: 1Channel.ch, Movie2k.to, and
SolarMovie.eu. The reason for the MPAA's concern is obvious; all three sites
act as pointers to sites that feature movie downloads for films that are
currently in theaters (such as Underworld: Awakening).
Legitimate services that
allow users to store files in the cloud without advocating copyright
infringement—Dropbox, Box, Mozy, and others—were not mentioned. But that
doesn't necessarily mean that those services—or those services' users—are
exempt.
"I cannot say who
they will go after, but they will get more aggressive," said Much
Hakhinian, CISSP, head security architect and leader of application practices
at Intralinks, a NYC-based company that provides secure collaboration service
to 800 of the Fortune 1000. "If you go to a site that offers [to pay you]
10 bucks to upload a recent movie, there's a risk."
That said, there are
plenty of file-sharing and hosting sites similar to the Megaupload (as well as
torrent and "pointer" sites that direct you to pirated content) that
may be the next to appear in the Justice Department's scope. Are they the next
to go down?
Here are the websites
that may be at risk. And remember, digital piracy encompasses more that just movies, TV show and mucic —it
involves software, too.
4shared:
4share lets you share entire files or entire folders.
If you install the 4Sync software, you can keep files on your PC and in your
Web account in step. 4share free, basic accounts store 10GB of data, and lets
users upload files no larger than 2GB. Premium accounts (starting at $4.55 per
month) up the overall storage capacity to 100GB, increases the maximum file
size to 5GB, removes advertisements, and boosts download speeds.
Potential Danger: A quick search for "The Lion King" using
the site's built-in search engine revealed tracks from the film soundtrack that
could be streamed or downloaded.
Hotfile:
Hotfile provides free, one-click file uploads (400MB
maximum size) for registered users.
There are three Premium
membership tiers: $9 (one month of unlimited downloading/100Gb of Hot/Direct
Linking), $35 (six months of unlimited downloading/600Gb Hot/Direct Linking),
and $55 (one year of unlimited downloading and 1,200Gb of Hot/Direct Linking).
You can also tack on additional hotlinking packages for $8 (200Gb), $38
(1,000Gb), or $108 (3,000Gb).
Potential Danger: Googling "Hotfile" and "The Lion
King" returned a portion of "The Lion King: Special Edition,"
which was available for download.
MediaFire:
MediaFire has a free basic plan that lets users upload
files that are 200MB in size with "limited" long term storage, and no
direct downloads. The Pro plan ($9 per month) ups the maximum file size to 4GB,
long term storage to "forever," and direct downloads to 100,000 MB
per month. The Business plan ($49 per month) lets users upload 10GB files,
store them "forever," and all 250,000MB of direct download bandwidth
per month. The premium accounts removes advertising and lets users create
unique custom domain.
Potential Danger: Googling "MediaFire" and "Gaga"
returned Lady Gaga's "Wonderful," which was available for download.
RapidShare:
RapidShare offers swift, one-click file uploads.
Buying "Rapids," Radipshare's currency, lets you shop for games, or
upgrade to a premium RapidPro account. One Euro equals one Rapid. Premium
account holders get unlimited storage time (vs. 30 days of inactivity for
basic, free account holders), multi-platform administration tools, unlimited
downloads with zero waiting time, and 100% SSL-encrypted file transfers.
Potential Danger: Googling "Rapidshare" and
"Bieber" returned the pop singer's "Home For The Holidays"
special which was available for download.
The
Pirate Bay:
The Pirate Bay is the poster boy for websites that
have incurred the wrath of content providers—Swedish police raided and shutdown
the operation in 2006. Why? The site is a search engine powerhouse that's
designed to sniff out thousands upon thousands of torrent files, some of which
(many of which?) are television shows, movies, comics, and albums.
Potential Danger: Visiting the site's "Applications" search
area and discovering software such as Adobe Illustrator C2 5.1 and Microsoft
Office 2010 Professional.
Project
– Free TV:
Project – Free TV's tagline is "Unleashing the
Free TV Revolt," but it appears that it may do so in a way that violates
copyrights. The contains links to a number of popular movies and TV programs,
as well as a disclaimer stating that it doesn't or "know who and where
videos are coming from."
Potential Danger: Links to external sites that house "Tower
Heist," "Big Bang Theory," and dozens of other popular shows and
movies.
1Channel.ch,
Movie2k.to, and SolarMovie.eu:
It would be a
massive oversight to not mention these three websites, as they were explicitly
mentioned as copyright infringers by the MPAA. Like Project-Free TV, these
sites feature links to television and film programming that's hosted on other
websites.
Potential Danger: Links to external sites that house "The Girl
With The Dragon Tattoo," "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn,"
"Criminal Minds," and a plethora of other copyrighted content.[]
Related articles:
After Megaupload: 7 Sites the FBI Might Target Next?
Reviewed by theacehglobe
on
January 30, 2012
Rating:
Reviewed by theacehglobe
on
January 30, 2012
Rating:
No comments: