Information Madness

The big crackdown on the file sharing site, Megaupload, is not expected to do much to bring down piracy in music, software and Hollywood movies. In fact, the crackdown is stifling the medium of distributing content online. After last week’s indictment of the digital storage company and its seven executives, other companies have begun changing their policies. Megaupload executives are maintaining their innocence in a first court appearance in New Zealand.

Filesonic.com has stopped people from downloading files that they have not uploaded themselves. Uploaded.to has blocked access from internet locations in the United States of America. A survey by NPD market research has shown that only three per cent of internet users have depended on digital lockers like Megaupload in the third quarter. Nine per cent were using peer to peer networks that allow sharing of files among consumers with no central organization. BitTorrent and PirateBay are likely to see more activity now after the Megaupload incident. However, users are afraid to upload content to lockers as they feel that they may lose access in a similar shutdown.

The amount downloaded on the torrents may rise. PirateBay did not appear shaken at the attack on Megaupload. In their blog, they have confidently voiced that they see the future of copying evolve beyond the digital format to physibles or physical objects and talked about what artists they are likely to promote in the coming months.

Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Google Inc. have all adopted some version of the lockers’ technology that allows the digital content to be uploaded for the purpose of backing up user data or making the content available to multiple devices.