FBI Closes File-Sharing Site; Anonymous Gets Revenge

After yesterday's SOPA protest comes more online piracy fun: The FBI today shut down the file-sharing site Megaupload.com and charged seven people with copyright infringement, reports the Wall Street Journal. Soon after, the hackers of Anonymous sought revenge by taking down the websites of the Justice Department, Universal Music, and the Motion Picture Association of America, reports CNET.

Megaupload is a so-called "digital locker" that is "widely used for free downloads of movies and television shows," according to the Los Angeles Times. The site boasted of having 50 million daily visitors and insisted that nearly all of its traffic was legit. The indictment, however, says it has cost copyright holders about $500 million, adding that today's action is "among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought in the United States." (More Stop Online Piracy Act stories.)