Department of Justice Shuts Down File-Sharing Site MegaUpload

One of the world’s largest file-sharing websites, MegaUpload, is down for the count. After a well-orchestrated raid played out in multiple countries, the US Department of Justice were successful in not only taking MegaUpload.com offline, but also in ceasing numerous assets related to the site founder, Kim Dotcom, who was also arrested as part of the operation.

It’s been said that over $50,000,000 worth of assets has been ceased, which includes “dozens” of cars from Dotcom’s personal collection (file-sharing is big business, isn’t it?). As expected, every domain name related to MegaUpload’s business has also been ceased.

The reason behind the operation is that the Department of Justice claims MegaUpload has been responsible for more than $500 million in lost revenue to the affected companies, while at the same time generated $175 million in “criminal proceeds”.

Given that a universal anti-SOPA movement occurred around the Web yesterday, there’s little doubt that the timing of this was made to be deliberate. According to Kim Dotcom, he has the best lawyers on hand and to him, has been running a completely legal business. It will take a little while to see if the court agrees, but the outcome of this case could threaten other sites in the same business as MegaUpload and the Web in general.