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And what of those who were on the wrong side of the Megaupload controversy? People like Kanye West, P. Diddy, Jamie Smith, Swizz Beatz, Alicia Keys, and Will.i.am who publicly participated in, or supported copyright infringement — and Megaupload?

Internet content piracy had immense profit potential — or at least it did before the Megaupload arrests in Auckland earlier this week.
The issue of electronic media copyright protection came into sharp focus earlier this month when the Justice Department announced the indictment and arrest of Megaupload.com executives in New Zealand. What’s clear now that the dust is settling, and the breadth of international interest in and participation in the investigation and arrests is more fully revealed, is that the end of Megaupload marks a major inflexion point for Internet publishing and content re-distribution.
One of the first fall-outs from the Megaupload shut-down has to be the end of assumed untouchability among thousands of similar site operators. Then there are the quasi-responsible content sharing organizations including Facebook, Dropbox, YouTube and YouSendIt — all of whom are routinely used to swap legitimate and pirated copyright protected content.
What’s to be learned from any inflexion point has more to do with how the landscape has changed than why it changed. While the indictments and statements by the Justice Department make clear the why, and to some degree the how, those who profit from pirated content continue to rake in millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains. While the profitability potential of wrongful distributed of pirated content by the most popular social-networking sites is unknown, the fact that the Megaupload operators took in a tidy $500 million is well understood.
Internet content piracy had immense profit potential — or at least it did before the Megaupload arrests in Auckland earlier this week.
What is not yet clear is how or if the Megaupload inflexion point will impact the so-called ‘locker’ services that permit unmonitored upload/download of content in ways not unlike Megaupload’s collect-delivery model. Those in the online locker business best be aware that history reveals the difference between an event and an inflexion point. Inflexion points not only endure, they radiate throughout society and nations becasue they reflect a consensus of thought, not a finding of fact.
And what of those who were on the wrong side of the Megaupload controversy? People like Kanye West, P. Diddy, Jamie Smith, Swizz Beatz, Alicia Keys, and Will.i.am who publicly participated in, or supported copyright infringement — and Megaupload?
While it’s possible for some people to disregard property laws and get away with it — at least for a time, Inflexion points have the impact of a tidal wave that cleanses and rearranges the landscape before washing those unprepared out to sea.