When I first heard about shutdown, I was like "Whoa! That just happened?" I never did really use the site except when someone would paste a link to some tool or other thing they made into a forum. Now, I must admit I did download a few unmentionables from it, but that was ages ago and I've since come clean and bought legit copies and then some (the sequels). But I never uploaded to it, and most legit stuff I got was what I would call "unique items" that people had uploaded, typically stuff like "that killer app that does just what you need that you know you'll never find again." All those files...gone. And their creators are likely out of touch and may have even forgotten about, meaning the files could be lost forever. This saddens me in a way. To me, anytime a website goes down, it feels like watching a library go up in flames; the potential loss of information of any kind hurts me. That's why I don't delete anything off my computer unless it's an emergency.

But considering the kind of files and the sheer number that I would see linked to megaupload, it looked like a system gone either way too lax in content control or just plain corrupt. I think they knew they had illegal stuff on their site, and they let it slide for far too long. I know that if I were running a file-hosting site, I would do random checks on suspicious looking files to check for infringement. I'd assume that they might have down that occasionally. Now, I know that sharing of files for creative collaboration happens all the time and that's a primary use of the internet, and you can't judge intentions from just a filename or its contents. I think that this is one of the main problems that a SOPA-like act would have to address, and personally it just wouldn't work. The problem is people, not the internet. If you give people power (internet), it is a certainty that some of them will be corrupted into misusing it (hey I've got a game/song/movie/program/etc! let me share it with you!), and those people may, intentionally or not, taint others (yeah! sure! I'm a taker. Post the link!). Now that, more or less, is how I think piracy works on the internet, not counting the DEFINITELY ILLEGAL cracking of software and DRM. All of the games I had ever pirated I have since purchased, and I still have the pirate copies. Heck with one of them, I still use the cracked copy, but I own it on Steam, which is really the important thing. My guilty conscious got me to eventually buy the game, but I didn't feel like actually downloading it. But now everything feels right.

Maybe we've lost some of our values with the expansion of the internet?
(And yes, I just did pull a Kobayashi Maru... This issue is rife with morality conflict, which is something that is very hard to mediate. I think that not even Spock or Yoda could decisively solve this problem. Too gray, this matter is.)