US Federal Agents shutdown the file hosting site MegaUpload yesterday because of requests from Hollywood claiming half a billion in losses from illegal downloads.

The website offers free and paid hosting and distribution of files and is owned by a European multimillionaire that was living in New Zealand.

Unfortunately for many users of the service their files seem to be gone forever because movies and music were being downloaded from their data center in Virginia, USA.

The legal use of this service allows people with files too large for email or ones that would eat up their hosting transfer agreements to offload these files for distribution.This is something that both businesses and personal users have taken advantage of for some time now.

An author of a windows software package could host their distribution package and provide passwords by email after users register to use the software.  This was a really simple solution for startups or weekend warriors using their skills for a second job.

I have spoken to more then a few people who are afraid that eventually most of the file hosting sites will be taken down.

One of these people runs a website graphics package business. They design packages of icons and other graphics along with backgrounds that are to be used to enhance designs. The distribution zips that they sell for a pretty reasonable price are password protected and hosted remotely because he uses a free hosting solution. Although he doesn’t make a ton of money it does offset his costs for a couple bills. It is a hobby turned business that he is now reevaluating.

Lets get back to SOPA

This takedown was not due to SOPA it was performed by the Obama Administration a day after a large fund raiser in Hollywood.

Say what you want but he can’t blame that on George Bush.. heh