Who Does SOPA Really Hurt?

Ever since SOPA and PIPA became public knowledge, huge groups of people protested it. Whether it was because it was an unfair bill, or people just didn't want to lose their access to free TV shows and music, people were heated and passionate. I know as soon as I heard about it, I started doing research on it, trying to figure out just what damage it would do. I then went out and signed every petition I could trying to get the act repelled. It has now been a few months since these two acts were back-seated, and somehow they are still hurting people. The biggest cause of this was the take down on Megaupload. People are still upset about it.

Kim Dotcom

Recently, US authorities have been trying to extradite Kim Dotcom, the founder of Megaupload, so they can try him on American soil. They have been having trouble with this. The last time anything like this happened in America, it was for the founder of NinjaVideo, a movie streaming service. The founder was sentenced to 22 months in prison. In his time as the head of NinjaVideo, he made $500,000 in revenue, which is a minute number compared to Dotcom who made close to $175 million through Megaupload. His sentencing would be much steeper.

So now that the dust has settled, it's clear to see who has really been affected by the shutdown of Megaupload. It's not the people who were uploading illegal content and getting paid for it; it's not the people who used Megaupload to watch copyrighted movies or download music illegally; its the people who used Megaupload for its intended purpose - for storing and sharing legal files. The biggest group of people who used it for this purpose was new up and coming artist and independent filmmakers. It was people who were trying to get their foot in the door in the movie and music industry. Using sites like Megaupload was great for these types of people because it allowed them to upload their content for free and allow the whole world to see it. Without Megaupload, these independent artist find it much harder to get recognized, especially since all the big movie industries and music labels own and operate most of the other ways to get noticed.

The other people that get hurt are those who used Megaupload simply to back up their data. A large number of Megaupload's users used the site for its intended purpose. Many of these people who now have no access to all of their files are really pissed off. A group of campaigners are currently trying to file a legal claim against the US Government for their seizure of Megaupload, which is a Hong Kong based company. Other's are trying to file a claim against the FBI, in hopes of getting some sort of compensation and getting their files back. The group stated, "When the United States Government shut down access to Megaupload, a multitude of innocent users who stored legitimate, non-infringing files on the cloud-storage service were left with no means to access their data." This, in my opinion, is not right.