Uploaded.to was born sometime in 2006 as the one-click file-hosting market began to develop. For the time it offered a generous upload maximum of 250mb per file and by the end of 2007 was selling premium accounts and offering uploaders four euros for each uploaded file downloaded 1,000 times.

The site now exists under new ownership at Uploaded.net but the historical activities and fate of the site’s former operator following a criminal trial are now being reported.

In addition to controlling Uploaded.to, the man also operated a second linking site called DC Remix. When the original rightsholder complaint was filed in 2007, Uploaded had around 400,000 hits a day and DC Remix around 80,000 members.

Due to shared ownership and the fact that DC Remix published links to copyright works stored on Uploaded.to, this was not a simple case of the operator of a file-hosting site being held liable for the infringing actions of his users.

Rasch Legal reports that the sites were in “technical cooperation” in order to provide a system for the illegal distribution of music. DC Remix encouraged its users to upload pirated music to Uploaded.to, profited from those who subsequently bought premium accounts on the file-hoster, and generating money throughout from advertising.

During the trial the District Court in Munich found that the rewards program operated by Uploaded.to incentivized users to upload infringing material, by paying out more to those who generated the most subsequent downloads.

The court found the man, known by the name Deniz C, guilty of commercial copyright infringement and sentenced him to pay 360 day fines of 400 euros each, to a total of 144,000 euros ($188,000).

The site operator accepted his sentence in principle but is reported to have appealed the 400 euro amount, arguing he had a net income of just 7,300 euros. However, the original amount was considered reasonable following the discovery of photographs on Facebook depicting the now Swiss resident in a luxury apartment overlooking a lake, wearing an expensive watch, and alongside his Lamborghini.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Last week the feds shut down the popular site accusing its founder and six others of money-laundering and several copyright related crimes. The site’s former users, meanwhile, are left without their files and forced to find a new place to share.

The big question is, where do these millions of people go now?

The RIAA hopes that the people who used MegaUpload to share copyrighted music are turning to iTunes, but this is not the case for everyone. A look at the traffic of some of the MegaUpload alternatives shows that millions have simply migrated to other file-hosting sites.

The graph below shows a sharp increase in traffic for four popular MegaUpload ‘replacements’ since last week. Based on data from various traffic measurement sites, Depositfiles, Uploaded.to, Hotfile and Rapidshare welcomed hundreds of thousands of extra visitors.

The example above is just the tip of the iceberg, as there are many other sites that experienced a surge in traffic including Filepost, Hulkshare, Netload.in, Uploading, zShare.net and many others. Whether the newcomers will remain on board has yet to be seen, but it is clear that millions of former MegaUpload users are migrating to other sites.

As the cyberlocker landscape stands now, 4shared.com remains by far the largest site on the Internet. With an estimated 2.5 billion page views, 4Shared is more than twice the size of MegaUpload before it was shut down.

Needless to say, 4Shared is deeply concerned about the recent developments, but the company also told TorrentFreak that they have nothing to worry about themselves.

“This case has a great negative impact on file storage services and the Internet overall,” a spokesman said, adding that “4shared has some of the most strict house rules among all other file storage services and there’s no need for any changes.”

With many sites still in a state of shock, it might take a few weeks to see what the precise effect of the MegaUpload shutdown is. One thing is for sure though, many of MegaUpload’s former users haven’t given up downloading and sharing just yet.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The move is most likely a response to the FBI crackdown on MegaUpload two days ago.

US visitors of Uploaded.to currently get the following message.

“Not Available: Our service is currently unavailable in your country. Sorry about that.”

The site has yet to release an official statement on the “block.” Whether it’s permanent, and the alleged relation to the MegaUpload raids and arrests is unknown at this point.

Uploaded.to’s decision is just one of the many changes the major cyberlockers have made during the past days. More on that later.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.