MegaUpload shut down. Hackers hit back.

[Gavin Luper]

...Speakeasies. Even if we shut down these sites, the pirates will just get smarter with their trafficking. Taking it down is just issuing a challenge to these guys. Pretty soon we'll have a real Internet Mafia on our hands (if the pirates weren't already).

Exactly, Shonta. Forceful prohibition of alcohol in America in the 1930s DIDN'T WORK: people still found ways to drink, for better or worse. Same with this. I mean, piracy is already prohibited and I am fine with that status, especially being an artist myself; I certainly don't think piracy is 'good'. But enforcing it with brutal and unnecessary measures won't get rid of it, it will just drive it even further underground. People will keep doing it, especially if a new market has opened up, and they'll just find clever new methods to circumvent the law. The net effect of SOPA/PIPA would be absolutely no reduction in piracy, no increased revenue for studios and labels, and, worst of all, an Orwellian law that allowed censored internet and huge blows to free speech and freedom in general. Not cool.