MediaFire Proactively Removes Pirate Links, Replaces Them with "Buy Now" Option

It's been more than a year since MegaUpload was shut down and, while Kim Dotcom & co. are now closer to making their case in a court of law, the raid has been a massive success for the media companies that ordered it.

Not only was MegaUpload – one of the largest pirate havens – gone, but many other cyberlockers and even some BitTorrent sites also took this as a cue to either shut down or change their business.

RapidShare of today has little in common with the RapidShare of a few years ago and it's hardly the only example.

MediaFire is one of the biggest file sharing sites around, but it's taking some interesting measures to make sure it doesn't suffer the same fate as MegaUpload, especially considering that it's a US company.

The site has been very proactive in taking down infringing links, it scans any audio and video file uploaded against a database of known copyrighted works.

If it finds something that could be infringing, it removes any link to it and, a recent change, it adds a link to buy the content in question. Infringing files aren't deleted, since it's legal for users to backup their music or DVDs, but they can't be shared publicly.