This was arguably the right thing to do. Each url represented a different time someone had uploaded a binary identical copy of that file to the site. Each one

This was arguably the right thing to do. Each url represented a different time someone had uploaded a binary identical copy of that file to the site. Each one might or might not be allowed by copyright. Imagine we both rip a track from a fresh cd using the default encoding settings on some standard software. We get two bit-for-bit identical files. We both upload them to MegaUpload, you because you want to do something fair-use compliant while I want to share it with the world. You take your link and use it legally, I take mine and put it one some shady site. The RIAA finds mine, judges it to be in violation, asks MegaUpload to take it down. MegaUpload would be wrong to also take yours down because yours is there legally. It's not that a certain set of bytes, all that a MegaUpload url represented, is illegal or illegal. It's whether the person who posted it had the right to do so. Copyright is tricky because it's metadata.