It appears as though the arrests made by the US of several Megaupload employees have sent shivers down the spines of top-dogs at other file-sharing services.
Just last night, Filesonic, one of the top-10 cyberlocker services, ceased to offer its content-sharing functionality and rewards program, with currently only existing users able to access their own uploads for retrieval. This came as a shock announcement, with the firm not confirming any timescales or even if the matter is a temporary one; users were left with a brief and uninformative message on the Filesonic homepage.
Much like Megaupload, Filesonic is based in Hong Kong with some servers likely to be present in the US, and from the Megaupload case we know this is enough for the US to claim jurisdiction if they wished it; we wonder if the US also has any dirt on the Filesonic employees or if they are simply being overly cautious.
Two months ago, Filesonic announced a partnership with Vobile and its content-filtering service as an effective means to fingerprint and filter copyright content. It's unlikely that the new service had gone live in the short space between the announcement and yesterday's actions but it's clear that the firm was looking to take a step in the right direction from the eyes of the US legal system. Perhaps yesterday's actions are in preparation for rolling out such a system or perhaps the top Filesonic employees have simply panicked - hopefully we'll have more to report over the following weeks.
Meanwhile, Filesonic isn't the only firm to make a voluntary move, with cyberlocker site uploaded.to blocking access to its services from within the US, in the hopes of keeping the US out of its business and itself out of the jurisdiction of the courts. It's clear that the world of file-sharing is to change significantly throughout 2012, mostly to our detriment, as some of the world's largest and thus most convenient cyberlocker services close-up shop either partially or fully, with it seeming less and less likely users will wish to expose themselves to the more affordable, long-term account options.
Come on Hackerspace Global Grid!
