US Government in a bitter action, brought down  the Online Content Sharing website Megaupload, seized its domain names, grabbed $50 million in assets and got arrested its 4 of  its key people including CEO Kim Dotcom, chief marketing officer Finn Batao, Developer Bram van der Kolk.
It has been charged with a Mega conspiracy for more than five years operating websites that willfully distributed pirated movies, often before their theatrical release, and other illegal copies of copyrighted works, earning the company over $175 million in illegal profits through advertising revenue. Megaupload is also charged with money laundering by paying uploaders through an “uploader reward program,” and paying other companies to host the pirated content.
However, for years the site had claimed to take down unauthorized content when notified by rightsholders. It had registered a DMCA agent with the US government. It had created an “abuse tool†and given rightsholders access. It had negotiated with companies like Universal Music Group about licensing content
US Government asserts that Megaupload merely wanted the veneer of legitimacy, while its employees knew full well that the site’s main use was to distribute infringing content. Indeed, the government points to numerous internal e-mails and chat logs from employees showing that they were aware of copyrighted material on the site and even shared it with each other.