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It seems somewhat arbitrary where the line is drawn between "growth hack" and "clearly undermining copyrighted content"

Thinking specifically about Napster and MegaUpload. Is it because there was no value beyond simply sharing files? If there was a presentation layer + user accounts on top, would they have been spared?

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There was value beyond sharing files, music sharing services had decent search and music previewing.

I think a music sharing site I used let you see the other music files a user was sharing, so if you thought they had good taste you could check out other things too.

Napster added too much value it woke the bear.

Megaupload poked a bigger bear.

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