Feds bust Megaupload.com

File-sharing site Megaupload was busted by the government  for profiting from the distribution of massive amounts of pirated music, movies, and software. It's part of a thriving industry of file-sharing sites including celebrated apps like Dropbox, and it has nothing to do with peer-to-peer systems like BitTorrent. Here's what you need to know about Mega and its kin.

What does Megaupload do? Megaupload was a one-click hosting service. You could upload a file to it—any file—and Megaupload would give you a unique link so anyone else could download the file for free.

What are the legit uses for these sites? Many people use them to send or share files too large for email. PCMag used Mediafire to send CES photo galleries to our production team, for instance. Shareware and freeware developers use these sites to distribute software, because the devs wouldn't be able to afford the bandwidth costs themselves. Independent musicians host their songs on one-click sites, once again because they can't pay for the bandwidth themselves.

What are the non-legit uses? Anything pirated. Movies, music, porn, software, you name it.

Who says they need SOPA and PIPA, when they can do this?