THE UNITED STATES government shutting down filesharing websites might be a blunt tool that harms individuals more than it helps industry.



A report from Northeastern University in Boston first noticed by Torrentfreak found that while there was some copyrighted material on the filesharing websites, there were also a lot of legitimate files.



The report found that while there is only what looks like a small amount of legitimate material, it all adds up, and that becomes a particularly bad thing when other content is whipped away by the authorities and perhaps lost forever.



The study looked at six websites - Filefactory, Easy-share, Filesonic, Wupload, Megaupload and Undeadlink - and found a mix of content.



"In our most conservative scenario, around 4.3 percent of the ?les hosted on Megaupload were detected as legitimate," it said.



"We estimate that when Megaupload was forced to shut down, more than 10 million legitimate ?les were taken offline."

 

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