There's no announcement on the site itself but in just two days, maybe even less, Uploaded.net will shut down, taking users' files with it. In brief emails to customers, Uploaded owner Cyando blames "the situation" for the site's closure, but provides no other details. It seems likely that Uploaded is being pushed off a cliff before a quagmire of legal action suffocates it to death.
When the U.S. Government shut down Megaupload in 2012, similar platforms were presented with a practical example of what could happen to their businesses too. A few dozen armed police officers and helicopters swooping in for Kim Dotcom was certainly eye-catching, but the world learned something else too; hosting files can make people ridiculously rich and with Megaupload gone, there was a big gap in the market. Founded in 2005 and acquired by Switzerland-based Cyando AG in 2012, file-hosting platform Uploaded wasted no time attracting new customers and the wrong type of attention. In 2015, the RIAA bemoaned Uploaded’s 100 million monthly visits, its status as the “third biggest copyright infringer” based on Google data, and the existence of reward schemes.
According to users who upload popular files to Uploaded, those reward schemes haven’t been living up to expectations for quite some time. But in just a couple of days, maybe even less, Uploaded itself will cease to exist.
torrentfreak.com
