The Federal Bureau of Investigation has shut down one of the biggest file sharing websites on the internet after the founders and other people who worked on the website have been arrested for distributing illegal content on Megaupload.com. At the same time, the Justice Department charged seven people affiliated with Megaupload.com for conspiracy and for housing pirated movies on the website even before they were released on the “market.”

According to the Justice Department, four of the seven people are now in custody including co-founders Mathias Ortmann and Kim Dotcom. Along with Finn Batao and Bram van der Kolk, the four men were arrested in the New Zealand by the authorities. The FBI said that it worked closely with the authorities from several countries including Canada, the UK, the New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany, Hong Kong, and the Philippines.

Megaupload.com is now offline as the website has been shut down by the FBI. For the moment, the Bureau didn’t release any statements regarding of what’s going to happen with the legal content and with all the legit users who paid for a premium account therefore it’s unknown, and in the same time very unlikely, that they will get their files and their money back.

The owners and employees of the website have committed a federal crime and the Virginia Grand Jury has found them guilty of  ”mega-conspiracy” for distributing pirated movies for a period of 5 years. Allegedly, Megaupload.com was housing movies even before their were released in theaters.

The FBI said that the company’s employees have received more than $175 million in revenue from premium users and ads. The seven men involved with Megaupload have also been charged for laundering money using a program  called “uploader reward program.” They paid other websites to host pirated movies and music, said the FBI.

This action has attracted a lot of negative comments from thousands of users on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking websites. Most of them were demanding to have their money returned by the FBI and to allow them to back-up their content uploaded on Megaupload.com. Until now, the FBI has remained quiet on the matter.

The Department of Justice announced that Kim Dotcom, Finn Batato, Julius Bencko, Sven Echtermach, Mathias Ortmann, Andrus Nomm, and Bram van der Kolk have been charged with copyright infringement by the Eastern District of Virginia on January 5th, 2012.