On Wednesday, January 18th, Google, Wikipedia, and a number of other websites “went black” to stand in protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act. On the following day, the FBI moved in an international effort to bring down the file locker website Megaupload on charges of racketeering, “conspiracy to commit copyright infringement,” criminal copyright infringement and money laundering. Once more these actions have got me thinking about copyright and piracy. More specifically it got me thinking about the actions that organizations like the Motion Picture Associate of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have taken to try to protect themselves against piracy.
