Major Crackdown?

[Ranger]

This is most likely old news, but 2-3 weeks ago, I noticed many sites were confiscated by the US gov.
Also, a lot of rapidshare links have been recently invalidated.

[Baker]

Without bothering to read any articles on this, I would say this ...

I wouldn't recommend any company providing the slightest bit of a controversial service hosting their web site in the USA. Canada or some other country is a better choice. Unless it is solely free speech oriented, where probably the USA might be the best place.

The piracy issue relating to file downloads isn't "black and white" as corporate interests would like to make it seem. I don't believe that the US government's job is to be an extension of US corporate interests as a general rule.

For example, let's say there is a free Microsoft patch that states in the docs that "you are not allow to host this file". Common among even game demos and shareware, actually. Then the site link goes 404 or the company site gets upgraded and there is no link or a company goes under. Hosting such a file, in all cases is "illegal" but not immoral.

And what about abandoned games?

Or "cracks" that just make a game actually usable like "no cd cracks"? On my desktop, the CD player currently doesn't work but I feel I still have the right to use games I *purchased* on that machine without the CD.

It is fortunate that the internet cannot be governed by a single country, that would be a disaster.