As for blocking, not only the US government does that. It is immensely popular in a lot of countries to do so, and most notably, TPB is being blocked by BREIN recently.
The difference is that they do it locally based on their laws. China also does. However, US is much worse in this regard because they try to control the whole world.
Everyone is afraid of being scammed by new companies because there have been so many since the busts and after every other site shutdown. And just look at the forum in general - file uploading sites have official discussions and support persons, they're clearly seeing what kind of files people are uploading and on what kind of stuff the forum specializes in (file uploads, torrent seedboxes, remote desktops for quickly obtaining new warez releases and uploading them to file upload sites and spreading those links)
Especially since most of these sites deleted files that had no downloads during specific time frame, for example 60 days. They clearly were not meant for limited sharing of personal documents, they were looking for popular material, ie. warez.
MegaUpload and similar sites were used by general population, and outright made money from copyright theft. It was very similar to selling warez on streets, they just tried to hide it behind "clever" subscription models and affiliate programs. Yes, serious pirates will always be able to get their files, but when the circle is small enough companies don't care. They care about what most of population does, and they can easily make it harder and inconvenient enough for general population.
Wikipedia doesn't put works done by Encyclopedia Britannica on their site. It's completely different than having a site that allows you to download pirated ebooks.
It's been a month now and literally every upload site has either closed down or shut down their affiliate programs that offered money for uploaders. Those who uploaded pirated material to gain money are devastated on forums and cannot find any good upload site anymore. This was highly successful bust against piracy, and rightly so.
Slashdot Mirror
Like the article states, SCO is related to Microsoft. This is direct attack against Linux.
As for blocking, not only the US government does that. It is immensely popular in a lot of countries to do so, and most notably, TPB is being blocked by BREIN recently.
The difference is that they do it locally based on their laws. China also does. However, US is much worse in this regard because they try to control the whole world.
http://www.wjunction.com/95-file-hosts-official-support
http://www.wjunction.com/102-file-host-discussion
Everyone is afraid of being scammed by new companies because there have been so many since the busts and after every other site shutdown. And just look at the forum in general - file uploading sites have official discussions and support persons, they're clearly seeing what kind of files people are uploading and on what kind of stuff the forum specializes in (file uploads, torrent seedboxes, remote desktops for quickly obtaining new warez releases and uploading them to file upload sites and spreading those links)
Especially since most of these sites deleted files that had no downloads during specific time frame, for example 60 days. They clearly were not meant for limited sharing of personal documents, they were looking for popular material, ie. warez.
MegaUpload and similar sites were used by general population, and outright made money from copyright theft. It was very similar to selling warez on streets, they just tried to hide it behind "clever" subscription models and affiliate programs. Yes, serious pirates will always be able to get their files, but when the circle is small enough companies don't care. They care about what most of population does, and they can easily make it harder and inconvenient enough for general population.
Wikipedia doesn't put works done by Encyclopedia Britannica on their site. It's completely different than having a site that allows you to download pirated ebooks.
It's been a month now and literally every upload site has either closed down or shut down their affiliate programs that offered money for uploaders. Those who uploaded pirated material to gain money are devastated on forums and cannot find any good upload site anymore. This was highly successful bust against piracy, and rightly so.