Megaupload.com was shut down last week. The extremely rich creator Kim Schmitz, now known as Kim DotCom, was arrested on his 37th birthday party after an investigation from the FBI. Really come on guys, at least arrest him the day after his birthday.

Anyway for those of you who don’t know what MegaUpload is, it is a popular file sharing site. If you had a large file you wanted to share with your friend you could simply use MegaUpload to upload your file and send the link to your friend, it’s that simple. Unfortunately due to the simplicity, so many users upload copy written material and share it with others. You know… Those awesome files that people claim to have copy of, maybe it’s the latest movie in the theatre or that awesome new music album that is not supposed to be released until next week.

So, the popular service is offered for free; however, some power users can choose to pay a monthly fee, or extra features and they will get faster downloads and more upload space. Apprently this has made Kim DotCom very rich, and what seems to happen when someone gets super rich? Why… A good old fashioned FBI investigation, and on your birthday even. Kim was charged for running an online piracy ring, you can read about more of this in detail by an article written by FoxNews.

So, after this arrest many popular file sharing sites have shut down or limited their service in order to pass up the ass-raping that happened to Kim DotCom. Here are some of the restrictions or notices that popular file sharing sites have set in place:

• Filesonic and Fileshare have claimed that they are only allowing users to download files that they have uploaded.
• Upload.to has claimed that they are banning United States unmasked IP addresses.
• VideoBB, VideoZer, FileJungle, FilePost, and UploadStation are deleting a lot of user accounts and files.
• UploadBox has claimed that they will be deleting all data on their servers on January 30.

If I had a lot of money from a popular file sharing site, I might close up shop as well, or at least remain under the radar until things calm down. It definitely looks like the U.S. is trying to use MegaUpload as an example. They are laying down the law and hoping that many other sites will get a good scare from this whole fiasco.

So, why all the hype over the SOPA/PIPA anti-piracy bills in the first place, if the United States was able to enforce the shutdown of a popular file sharing site in New Zealand. Someone may have a little explaining to do. Nonetheless; MegaUpload we salute you for your valiant effort in helping us share files, whether they be illegal or not.