SOPA and PIPA may be shelved for the time being, but the war between the content industry and the parts of the Internet that they perceive to encourage copyright infringement is far from over. The timing of the crackdown raised a few eyebrows, as well as questions about why SOPA would have been necessary in the first place. Battling Piracy in a Post SOPA-WorldĪpparently by pure coincidence, the Megaupload shutdown came one day after large-scale online protests against SOPA and PIPA, the proposed anti-piracy legislation. Separately, the Swedish Supreme Court recently upheld the sentences of three Pirate Bay cofounders who were convicted of copyright infringement in 2009. Since that day, the aftershocks have been felt across the Web, BTjunkie’s closure being only the latest example. The copyright lobby has scored several big victories lately, most notably the seizure of Megaupload by federal authorities on January 19. The voluntary shutdown of BTjunkie isn’t going to single-handedly change the file-sharing landscape, but it’s symbolic of a larger trend in the ongoing war over digital piracy. 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. Today, popular BitTorrent index BTjunkie shut itself down to preempt legal action of the type experienced by the Pirate Bay, Megaupload and others. 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. If recent crackdowns against file-sharing were meant as a warning shot to other site owners, it has indeed been heard loud and clear.
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