ReadWriteWeb

If recent crackdowns against file-sharing were meant as a warning shot to other site owners, it has indeed been heard loud and clear. First, sites like FileSonic and FileServe voluntarily scaled back their functionality, while others vocally defended their own practices in the wake of the Megaupload shutdown.

Today, popular BitTorrent index BTjunkie shut itself down to preempt legal action of the type experienced by the Pirate Bay, Megaupload and others. The seven-year-old site may not have been squashed directly by authorities, but it is nonetheless good news for the RIAA, MPPA and other opponents of online piracy.

In the aftermath of the Megaupload shutdown that unfolded nearly two weeks ago, the story has splintered into a few interesting directions. One of the more controversial issues is the fate of the personal data stored on the now-defunct service's servers.

Yesterday, news broke that the data could be at risk of deletion as early as this week, if Megaupload's former hosting service providers decide to do so. Well, not if the Electronic Frontier Foundation has anything to do with it.

We're at a watershed moment for intellectual property. Not a day after online protests drove Congress to shelve SOPA/PIPA, the feds demonstrated that they don't even need new laws to crack down on websites that threaten the interests of moneyed rights holders. They unceremoniously shuttered Megaupload, spooking other services that cloud-host users' files.

TechCrunch reports today that the Megaupload crackdown cut the site off at the knees just before it planned to launch a disruptive and legal music player. Another popular boogeyman for copyright holders, The Pirate Bay, announced a new, legitimate direction yesterday: It's going to host physibles, downloadable models for constructing 3D objects. Are the "pirate" sites actually Big Content's worst nightmare for legitimate reasons?

The fallout from last week's FBI raid and shutdown of MegaUpload isn't limited to founder Kim Dotcom and his associates. As intriguing as that story will be to follow, some of the more immediate side effects are being felt among other file-hosting services.

Some companies that are perceived, correctly or not, of having a similar model to MegaUpload's are now scrambling to prevent their own demise now that that the legitimacy of that model has been very publicly - and dramatically - challenged.

Twenty-four hours after an Internet-wide protest against controversial anti-piracy legislation, big media and pro-copyright interests won a major victory with the shutdown of Megaupload and related websites. The company's flagship file-sharing site allowed users to upload files and share them via a unique URL. The service, which garnered several million visitors per month, was frequently used to share pirated music, movies, software and other copyrighted media.

While the site's owners long argued that they were legally protected by the "safe harbor" provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), federal authorities in the United States evidently saw things differently and have arrested four people connected to Megaupload and charged them with online piracy. Three other people are still at large.

Last week, the Spanish government enacted a law containing provisions that allows copyright holders to have allegedly-infringing websites shut down within days of a complaint. The legislation, which sounds like a more extreme version of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) being debating in the U.S., had actually already been passed, but wasn't implemented until Spain's new, notably more conservative government took control.

The Sustainable Economy Law, which contains the anti-piracy provisions, was enacted in part to help encourage investment by U.S.-based media and technology companies. Today it was revealed that American interest in the law being enacted may have been more than casual. Spain was actually threatened by the US with being put on a trade blacklist if the law wasn't passed, according to cables released by WikiLeaks.

In 2012, anybody who starts a band or begins recording their own music at home is probably not quitting their day job and awaiting huge financial returns. If they're good at what they do and the Web helps them build a huge audience, then great, but that's unlikely to be their chief motivator. Of all the ways for artists to make money early in the game, selling music is generally not seen as a cash cow. For many, making their music available for free and getting it on streaming services is a better way to get exposure and monetization is a strategy best saved for later.

The state of online music sales for independent artists may not be as abysmal at it feels though, according to some data recently shared by Bandcamp. The artist promotion and e-commerce site found that some of their paid music downloads were being initiated by users who had searched explicitly for pirated content.

Just as SOPA opponents in the United States prepare for round two in their battle against far-reaching anti-piracy legislation, it appears that their Spanish counterparts just lost theirs. On Friday, the Spanish government approved the Sustainable Economy Law, (SEL) which enables rights holders to have infringing websites shut down within 10 days after a complaint is filed.

Once a complaint is made, a judge can order ISPs to block access to sites that host copyrighted material or have them shut down entirely. The law, which was officially passed early last year but never implemented, was approved by Spain's new, more conservative government last week and will now be enacted as planned, much to the delight of the film and music industries, as well as other media companies.

It's rare to find bipartisan support for anything in Washington these days, which is why, at first glance, the Congressional support for the Stop Online Piracy Act seems so perplexing.

If Congress was going to choose to agree on something, why would it choose a bill that everyone from big Internet companies like Google and Facebook to free speech advocates to the pharmaceutical industry say is a bad idea? Or, as New York Times media columnist David Carr notes in today's editions, "You can see why big Internet guys are upset by SOPA. Maybe you and I should be, too."

Carr points to a potential, all-too-obvious reason why some lawmakers may be supporting a bill that, outside of the Beltway, seems to primarily appeal to traditional media companies. Those companies, according to campaign finance tracking Web site MapLight, gave four times as much to the bill's sponsors as corporate contributors based in Silicon Valley.

After outraging the Internet yesterday by declaring support for the Stop Online Piracy Act, Go Daddy has reversed its position in a smarmy press release. It tweeted the link to Ben Huh, CEO of the Cheezburger Network, who threatened to move his company's thousands of domains yesterday in protest.

In the statement published on its website, Go Daddy maintains that "fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance," reminding us that the company has been working on the legislation. But it admits, in the face of massive boycotts, that "we can clearly do better."