pondering MegaUpload’s demise

 
Now that MegaUpload has been closed down by a global muscle-flexing of the Corporate States of America’s government-for-hire, I wonder if any action will be taken against other sites that seek to profit from “piracy.”

One site that comes to mind is Uz Translations, a repository of links to “pirated” copies of language courses, textbooks and dictionaries. Uz Translations’s ad-infested pages and their operation of their own file-hosting service ($50/year for premium access) give me the impression that they are in it for the money. I wonder how much revenue they are generating.

Another worry that pops into one’s head is the safety of original, hard to replace files kept in any online storage service, whether it be iCloud or DropBox or Google Docs. Once again we are reminded of the importance of having backups at home, backups offsite, and backups “in the cloud.” If we are very fond of our files, that is.