One consumer said she used it for sharing big zip files of photographs that were too unwieldy with send via e-mail

The U.S. government said that it seized $50 million in assets and that much of the $175 million the site has earned since 2005 was due to copyright infringement. As Ars Technica notes, even the site’s graphic designer reportedly earned $1 million last year, and between them, the seven indicted people (including the creatively named Kim Dotcom) owned 15 Mercedes-Benzes, a Maserati, a Rolls-Royce and a Lamborghini. The blog TechCrunch has posted photos of seized assets, including the cars and a large house in New Zealand, in case you’re interested.

Publicly, at smallest, the site frowned on illegal uploads. It featured a tool with report \”misuse,\” gave copyright holders the ability with hunt for illegal content and registered with all the U.S. government under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a law aimed at fighting piracy.

The site’s owners have denied any wrongdoing in regard to copyright violation, and their attorney has mentioned the website was wrongly closed down before its owners were authorized to address the charges against them.

But the Justice Department claims the anti-theft efforts were a facade — that Megaupload’s employees knew they were allowing piracy and prepared the site difficult for outsiders with look for illegal information.

In an unofficial sampling of CNN Tech readers on Twitter, numerous fast recognized utilizing the website with watch TV shows or videos. But others mentioned more legitimate uses, with some saying they’ve lost legitimate content, and cash, after the government crackdown.

Seng Ung of Boston mentioned he lately paid approximately $260 for a lifetime membership so he could store older files from childhood and college. He didn’t lose them, but today he’s gotten nothing in return for his payment, he said.