After the Megaupload shutdown the cyberlocker appeared to be one of the top alternatives. Aside from attracting new users, the site also grabbed the attention of Hollywood with the MPAA describing it as one of prime targets that should be dealt with next.

This is exactly what adult magazine publisher Perfect 10 has tried to do over the past months. June last year Perfect 10 filed a complaint against DepositFiles’ parent company, the Seychelles-based Kalmet Investments.

The publisher described DepositFiles as a “pirate website that sells access to large amounts of unauthorized intellectual property to the public without paying the rightful owners of that property” and demanded millions in damages for facilitating copyright infringement.

DepositFiles disputed the accusations, and both parties have been trying to convince the California District Court that they are right ever since. Earlier this year a schedule was setup to move the case to trial, but a recent filing reveals that this is not going to happen.

Both parties have reached a settlement that will be made official shortly. They therefore asked the Court to cancel all planned actions.

“Plaintiff Perfect 10, Inc. and defendant Kalmet Investments, Limited have reached a settlement in principle of this entire action. The parties are in the process of drafting a written settlement agreement and expect to execute it shortly.”

“The parties expect that all conditions of the settlement agreement will be met on or before July 16, 2012. Accordingly, the parties jointly move the Court to vacate all pre-trial dates so that they can devote all efforts to settlement efforts.”

Details on the settlement have not been disclosed, but it’s not unlikely that DepositFiles paid a sum of money to make the case go away. TorrentFreak contacted DepositFiles for a comment on the decision to settle but we were told that the company “cannot legally disclose anything on the issue.”

Perfect 10 are no strangers to lawsuits. From 2005 to the present day they have sued several huge companies for either allegedly using their images without permission or somehow being connected to infringements.

Notable among them are Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Yandex (for providing search engine results), Giganews, Megaupload, RapidShare, DepositFiles (hosting files) and Mastercard, Visa and CCBill for providing payment services for allegedly infringing sites.

Last month Perfect 10 added to this ever-growing list by suing the microblogging platform Tumblr.

A few settlements aside, the adult magazine publisher hasn’t been very successful in court. In 2010 Perfect 10 lost its case against RapidShare with the court ruling that the cyberlocker was not guilty of copyright infringement. Still, the legal endeavors must be successful enough for them to keep on going.

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.