An awful lot of file sharing in Brazil

When the US Justice Department shut down Megaupload.com on January 19, it must have expected a furious reaction. Under the banner of hacker collective Anonymous and using the slogan Mega Tango Down, global attacks were launched almost immediately that, among other things, briefly removed all content from the website of CBS, the US network, on Sunday.

A lot of the hacker action happened in Brazil, where more than 100 government sites were blocked over the weekend along with the Brazilian sites of Visa, Mastercard, and singer songwriter Paula Fernandes, a rising pop phenomenon.

How so? According to DomainTools, an internet analytics website, Megaupload drew 8.4% of its traffic from Brazil - second only to France, responsible for 10.3%.

From the Brazilian end, Megaupload is even bigger. Sandvine, an internet analysis site, says the file sharing site accounted for an extraordinary 11.39% of all internet traffic in Brazil before its abrupt end.

Part of a broader problem of copyright infringement? Brazil has been criticised for years for failing to protect intellectual property. In spite of some recent crackdowns, pirated CDs and DVDs are readily available at street markets around the country. File sharing sites – and there are plenty of others apart from Megaupload – have spread like forest fires.

It may also reflect the fact that Brazil faces its own version of SOPA, the US anti-piracy bill delayed last week by vigorous internet-based lobbying. Brazil's bill has been before Congress since 2003 but the debate over SOPA and the related bill PIPA has brought it back under public attention.

If nothing else, shutting down Megaupload should free up a lot of bandwidth in Brazil. Perhaps internet users will take the opportunity to access legitimate sources of free music. Perhaps.

Which gives us a flimsy excuse to offer this YouTube clip of Paula Fernandes with guests Victor & Leo – 27m hits and counting.

(Published by Financial Times - January 23, 2012)