RapidShare Threatens Suit Over Piracy Allegations

Hugh Pickens writes "PC Magazine reports that RapidShare, named as a contributor to digital piracy by a MarkMonitor report, has threatened to sue for defamation. 'This defamation of RapidShare as a digital piracy site is absurd and we reserve the right to take legal action against MarkMonitor,' says RapidShare in a statement. 'RapidShare is a legitimate company that offers its customers fast, simple and secure storage and management of large amounts of data via our servers.' MarkMonitor, a Web site that specializes in 'enterprise brand protection,' says in their study that the most-trafficked domains engaged in digital piracy included three sites — rapidshare.com, megavideo.com, and megaupload.com — that combined yielded 21 billion pageviews per year. RapidShare acknowledged that copyrighted files do get uploaded to its site, however 'these users are in the absolute minority compared with those who use our services to pursue perfectly legitimate interests.' RapidShare says that it does not open and view the files of its users, and contains no search function so that other users may look for content."

Comments

Understandable

[Sumbius]

It's true that RapidShare is used for piracy but the same applies to other similar sites too. They could start combing and limiting their uploaded content but taking in account their huge amount of uploads that wouldn't be an easy process. Also, the contents of the uploads can't be figured out just by reading the names. Trying to control the content uploaded would only cause people to switch to another similar services.

Re:Understandable

[SuricouRaven]

Plus it wouldn't work. Soon it'd be full of encrypted RARs of filenames like aiegflaeaergfaer.rar, or possibly sales_reports.rar... no way anyone could tell what they are unless they are a member of the private forum where the link and decryption password are posted.

Re:Understandable

[Gaygirlie]

IMHO it's much more important that there exists a service where people can upload whatever content they need to. As it happens, there could very well be people who are for example persecuted for their believes or whatever and they have documents that they need stored somewhere without a risk of them being removed by those aforementioned persecutors..It's just one example, feel free to come up with more if you wish. But the point is, the powers that be could well misuse their powers if all the content was reviewed and monitored, and thus it's great that Rapidshare et al does provide a service where privacy is important.

I do understand that it obviously means some people will use the service for less than honest reasons but the benefits still far outweigh those negative effects.

Re:Understandable

[rolfwind]

Uh, that's like saying because of some new initiative police employ failed because it only drove murder down 80% and not 100% in that you're setting the bar for success way too high.

If something you describe came to pass, the RIAA/MPAA/others would have won because it would reduce sharing dramatically by restricting it to a select few rather than the world at large. I've encountered several password protected downloads before, and I gave up rather than waste the time hunting down the password or anything else. And such a shift towards encryption/password_protected sharing would make the copyright associations happy that, in the general public's perception, that it's far more convenient and easier to buy the damn thing.

I wouldn't want to be on such a internet, personally.

Re:Understandable

[houghi]

I record sounds. One was a metal against metal. I recorded two. The second one was called "MetalicB" Want to guess what the first one was called?

Re:Understandable

[Anonymous Coward]

These measures (encrypted RARs, encrypted file lists, convoluted file names) are already in place for a significant part of the illegal stuff on rapidshare. It is also trivial to use: type a password, check a box, rename the file.

Re:Understandable

[xtracto]

Let me guess... MetalicA...
Fortunately you misspelled metallic , otherwise you could have been in breach of someones trademark ;-)

Re:Understandable

[bjourne]

Incorrect, here is a simple explanation of how RapidShare could ,with a very high degree of success, detect piracy on their site that even a toddler can understand. They dont even have to check the filenames, just check the name of the uploader (has it uploaded piracy before? then this new upload is probably also piracy) and the referer header of downloaders (comes from a warez site? then file is likely piracy).

Think what you want about the morality of copyright infringement. But saying that the technology for rapidshare to curb piracy isn't there, is an insincere statement if you understand the basics of technology and computer algorithms.

Re:Understandable

[Anonymous Coward]

P2P is infested with password protected rar files. In most cases they're just scams to motivate people to visit drive-by attack sites or sign up for some dodgy service. There is nothing more frustrating than to download something to discover it's one of these.

Someone only has to be stung once by these scams (or waste time downloading a worthless file) and they'll be averse to do it again. So they do represent a deterrent. It's kind of funny and ironic that scammers and criminals are doing more to deter piracy than the RIAA / MPAA.

I expect the effect would be as chilling if it happened on RapidShare. Even if every file becomes encrypted .rars then it obviously makes it more of a bind to download the file and at the end of it you may discover it's just a scam anyway. At least with a .avi or whatever you can immediately view it and guess it's quality and legitimacy.

I think what P2P really needs is a way to combine file hosting services like RapidShare with distributed search & comments / ratings. How this happens is an open question, but one which clearly needs to be addressed. For example perhaps the file host holds an encrypted file that the seeder decrypts and renames on its way through. So the host has no idea what's in the file but everyone else just sees the contents. Of course if the legitimate content providers didn't have their thumbs up their asses they would realise that people don't like wading through a sewer and many would be delighted if there was a legitimate and cheap alternative.

Re:Understandable

[lattyware]

And so you redirect all your traffic through a URL shorterner that changes the referer, or don't offer links, require that users copy paste them, and you make lots of new accounts. Trivial to work around.

Re:Understandable

[dintech]

Anyway, didn't youtube start out as a haven for piracy? Keep going I say, maybe you'll be work something as a legitimate business one day.

Re:Understandable

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, that's like saying because of some new initiative police employ failed because it only drove murder down 80% and not 100% in that you're setting the bar for success way too high.

No, it's more like this... imagine there's a building that people aren't supposed to enter, and there's two ways in. One of these can be secured, the other can't; the latter is minimally more cumbersome to use (you have to walk around the building first, which takes 30 seconds), so people are using the former. However, as soon as you secure that, people (all people!) will invest those extra 30 seconds and use the latter, which you can't secure. Given that, and given that your goal is keeping people out of the building, it's not obvious that securing the former is the right course of action.

Re:Understandable

[mug funky]

wikileaks would work in that scenario... and also has the same gotchas

Re:Understandable

[Anonymous Coward]

next time you want to explain these things to the idiots on slashdot, just give them one argument :

Youtube has implemented a filter and since there is hardly any copyrighted material on youtube anymore, we can assume that this works.

Re:Understandable

[icebraining]

Except Youtube actually has access to the content, while Rapidshare doesn't if the file is encrypted.

Re:Understandable

[Schadrach]

That doesn't restrict it much more than RapidShare does right now. They have no search mechanic and don't vet the contents of their files (though presumably they have some means to identify bad content or have it reported to them for removal, because otherwise I would have expected a massive CP bust against them simply because any way to anonymously share files over the internet through a third party is bound to end up with it's share...just look at the chans).

Re:Understandable

[Schadrach]

There is at least one site out there that keeps a DB of P2P distributed files by their hashes on the various systems, lists common filenames for them, descriptions and reviews. I just wish I could remember the URL to link it. They of course had the problem with trolls that any site with user-generated content does, but something like it but with better moderation would work well, I think.

Shareaza also supports ratings and reviews on P2P files, although I'm not sure how it goes about it, or if it's a standard part of one of the underlying protocols it uses.

Re:Understandable

[1u3hr]

Incorrect, here is a simple explanation of how RapidShare could ,with a very high degree of success, detect piracy on their site that even a toddler can understand

And that a toddler could circumvent if you actually put it into practice. Plus you would have a HUGE amount of false positives. Basically, you are assuming "Guilty until proven innocent" and deleting any "popular" file on suspicion.

Re:Understandable

[delinear]

Your explanation fails the idiot test. As icebraining said - firstly Youtube have full access to the unencrypted data, it's relatively trivial to run some algorithm to compare it to a stored video/audio stream and you know what format the file is in to begin with. Rapidshare not only have the issue that users could just encrypt their files, but even unencrypted they'd need a reliable method to compare vastly more types of files. That's both technically complicated and incredibly costly. The alternative is that the people with a vested interest in preventing the sharing of illegal materials (the rights holders) do the police work and RS remove it when asked and... oh, wouldn't you know, that's what they already do. It's a much better situation, RIAA admittedly have to invest a little in chasing the content down, but compared to the millions they tell us in court this is costing them, it's a drop in the ocean to have some student checking download sites, meanwhile the rest of us get to use hosting sites for legitimate purposes without them being crushed by an unfair financial burden.

Re:Understandable

[TheRaven64]

just check the name of the uploader (has it uploaded piracy before? then this new upload is probably also piracy)

So the pirates create a new account for each upload.

and the referer header of downloaders (comes from a warez site? then file is likely piracy).

So the warez site jumps via an HTTPS redirect, which causes the browser not to send the referrer header.

As the saying goes, for any complex problem there is a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong.

Re:Understandable

[GooberToo]

It's true that RapidShare is used for piracy but the same applies to other similar sites too.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with defamation. The simple fact is, they absolutely know they are a piracy hot spot. They'd be absolute idiots if they sue. Suing means their own data becomes open to subpoena. Which means they are primed to be royally fucked.

The only way they can prove they have suffered from defamation is to actually look at their own content. Once they look at their own content, by law, they will be forced to disable tons and tons (vast majority of their) content and accounts else they are now liable for distribution of copyrighted content. Basically they'd force themselves to do exactly what they claim they don't do so as to avoid legal prosecution. The only way they can hope to be justified is if they look at their data and find almost no one uses their service for copyrighted content. And frankly, I don't find that likely in the least.

I don't know about you, but roughly 98% of all content I've seen on their site has been obvious copyrighted material. I honestly can't see how the studies are even close to being wrong. And them stirring the pot is likely to completely backfire.

My money is on them making noise and then going away - otherwise I'll be extremely surprised if it doesn't completely blow up in their face.

Re:Understandable

[bjourne]

The point is not to have a bullet-proof system. The point is to make a system that is sufficiently good at detecting warez that pirates will use another method. Yes, an evil genius warez pirate hacker can white-wash the link using an url shortener. The system can do a simple google search and see which domains it is placed on. Yes, you can create lots of accounts, you can also record how many accounts a single ip creates and ban them for abuse if they create to many.

Bayesian spam filters are also trivial to work around, doesn't mean that they aren't extremely efficient at stopping spam.

Re:Understandable

[Anonymous Coward]

That plus there is still plenty of copyrighted material on YouTube. It's usually the first place I look for anime titles.

Re:Understandable

[bjourne]

You would tag the files as suspicious. Give it a "suspicious-rating" that is higher if the file is password-protected, multi-file rar-archive, downloaded from known warez-domains, mostly downloaded by visitors who downloads known warez files. Then you hire 10 Indians for $5/hour who go through the most suspicious and most downloaded files and check them for obvious copyright infringements. Or they could just check the 100 most downloaded rapidshare files. Likely, all of which are warez or movies.

Re:Understandable

[SuricouRaven]

The old sharereactor did something similar, many years ago. Back in the day it was one of the top piracy sites on the net. Gone now. Torrent tracker sites largely replaced it's role.

Re:Understandable

[bughunter]

No, the point is don't lower the hammer on something just because it could have infringing uses... or even because, in practice, some uses are infringing.

If that were the case, cars would be banned because they're used to break laws. Knives would be forbidden because they are used to commit assault. Hell, words would be outlawed because they can be formed into libel.

Re:Understandable

[Anrego]

You just end up with a cat and mouse game.

The pirates have an advantage that rapidshare is primarly something that is linked to from private forums. It's not something that users search. A pirate can call a file whatchawhig.rar, even encrypt it, then simply include the key in his post (along with the real title of the file). Sample post:

----
Hey guy's check out (some new movie and or song):

(rapid share url)/cooking_lessons.rar

Password is: ohnoes
----

It's not like youtube where the content has to be in a usable format, and the title has to be relevant (and where filtering works fairly well). Rapidshare is just a place to dump data.. with no need for random passerbys to be able to find or use the content. Any simple method would probably eliminate a large amount of the content that is currently there, and then become useless.

Re:Understandable

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, you pro-pirate kids are so funny.

I'm a software developer, with 23 different accounts on warez forums. I have these accounts to make it trivial to find people trying to pirate my work.
The downside on anonymity for you pirates is that you cant stop us copyright holders joining your sad, pathetic little clubs.

I can send out a DMCA takedown in 3 mouseclicks now. It's easy. And funny to watch the saddos whine about dead links. awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Re:Understandable

[CastrTroy]

It could be easily done to get rid of 98% of the traffic from pirated files. But they don't want to do that, because it would kill their business model.

Re:Understandable

[misexistentialist]

Knives would be forbidden because they are used to commit assault. Hell, words would be outlawed because they can be formed into libel.

Most places have pretty extensive laws forbidding certain lengths and configurations of knife. Words classified as hate crime, holocaust denial, incitement, disturbing the peace, etc. are criminalized too. The majority of laws are indeed written to punish people before they cause any harm.

Re:Understandable

[Anonymous Coward]

You anti-pirate folks are actually more funnier than those whiners. Do you really think you can take back what some one has put on the internet? Have you ever successfully managed to take one file off the internet? If so, name one. I will download and upload it to rapidshare just on principle.

Re:Understandable

[genner]

Plus it wouldn't work. Soon it'd be full of encrypted RARs of filenames like aiegflaeaergfaer.rar, or possibly sales_reports.rar... no way anyone could tell what they are unless they are a member of the private forum where the link and decryption password are posted.

*cough*....yes soon......not doing that already.

Re:Understandable

[the_hellspawn]

"you hire 10 Indians for $5/hour" Hang on right there... you are paying them too much. I would give them only $0.35/hour. Geez, giving them $5/hour you are going to make the Indians live like Americans and then where would the US Corps get cheap labor. There has to be a line somewhere and $0.35/hour is that line.

Re:Understandable

[cheekyjohnson]

Well, none of that is exactly good news.

Words classified as hate crime, holocaust denial, incitement, disturbing the peace, etc. are criminalized too.

Many of these places also claim to support free speech. What an absolute joke.

Re:Understandable

[1u3hr]

Then you hire 10 Indians for $5/hour who go through the most suspicious and most downloaded files and check them for obvious copyright infringements.

Right. So you get a bunch of Indians working for a few cents an hour to monitor all the files people upload. That won't cause any confidentiality problems, will it? So anyone who cares about privacy will use encryption. I guess you'd delete or report them on the grounds that "You have something to hide, you must be a pirate/terrorist/pedophile"?

Or they could just check the 100 most downloaded rapidshare files. Likely, all of which are warez or movies.

Even if you're right, that's about .0001% of the files. Not much of a deterrent.

And when warez still gets through, what then? Who's responsible? Is RS going to be fined? If so, they'll just go out of business. And with this threat, no one will dare to offer any file transfer service: no email, no web forums, no Facebook, no Usenet, no Internet. We'll just all go back to 1980 and transfer files by FedEx -- or will your Indians be empowered to open mail and check any media for "obvious copyright infringements".

Re:Understandable

[1u3hr]

The system can do a simple google search and see which domains it is placed on. Yes, you can create lots of accounts, you can also record how many accounts a single ip creates and ban them for abuse if they create to many.

Most warez forums already aren't open to non-members, so Google and others can't search them at all. And banning "IPs"? Never heard of proxies? Dynamic IPs?

And how about Joe jobs? Some asshole doesn't like the whistleblowing video you are uploading , or just wants to fuck with your business, gets the filenames you use and puts them on warez boards describing it as whatever movie or kiddie porn.

It'd take a week for your methods to be completely futile. Except for the massive hassles and expense you've imposed on everyone who is legitimately trying to get their file from A to B. If you just want to outlaw all file transfers, just do it up front.

Re:Understandable

[bjourne]

Right. So you get a bunch of Indians working for a few cents an hour to monitor all the files people upload. That won't cause any confidentiality problems, will it? So anyone who cares about privacy will use encryption. I guess you'd delete or report them on the grounds that "You have something to hide, you must be a pirate/terrorist/pedophile"?

No, as stated, the Indians would only have to monitor those files the automatic system has already classified as suspicious. When you copy upload to another owners computer, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy, unless otherwise explicitly agreed upon.

Or they could just check the 100 most downloaded rapidshare files. Likely, all of which are warez or movies. Even if you're right, that's about .0001% of the files. Not much of a deterrent.

Read up about the 80-20 rule. A very small percentage of all files on rapidshare constitutes a large percentage of all downloads.

And when warez still gets through, what then? Who's responsible? Is RS going to be fined? If so, they'll just go out of business...

You are arguing about something else other than wheter it is technically possible for rapidshare to curb most piracy on their site.

Re:Understandable

[1u3hr]

Read up about the 80-20 rule. A very small percentage of all files on rapidshare constitutes a large percentage of all downloads.

You're just assuming that rule of thumb applies with no justification. Well, I'll see that and raise you . Equally sweeping unjustified.

You are arguing about something else other than wheter it is technically possible for rapidshare to curb most piracy on their site.

Of course it's possible. They just have to manually review every single file. The question is not whether it's "possible", it's whether it is reasonable to ask anyone to do that, and what the consequences would be to not just that company, but everyone who uses the Internet for anything. Because such a regime would not stop at that one company, they would have to monitor every file transfer, however made, all the time.

Re:Understandable

[Doggabone]

Well, none of that is exactly good news.

Words classified as hate crime, holocaust denial, incitement, disturbing the peace, etc. are criminalized too.

Many of these places also claim to support free speech. What an absolute joke.

Freedom of speech should not be confused with the absolute freedom of speech. It has long been limited where it is considered to be harmful to others, as the right to not have undue harm done to you is considered nearer to absolute than your right to freedom of speech or expression. Where that line is drawn, however, has continually moved and may indeed err to far on the side of "harmlessness".

"... the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

-- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859. http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/jsmill.htm

Take it as you will.

Re:Understandable

[cheekyjohnson]

Freedom of speech should not be confused with the absolute freedom of speech.

Except that that's what it actually means. When you just say "freedom of speech" instead of something like "slightly limited freedom of speech," you're including everything that is speech. The constitution in the US just mentions free speech and no exceptions.

It has long been limited where it is considered to be harmful to others, as the right to not have undue harm done to you is considered nearer to absolute than your right to freedom of speech or expression.

Ridiculous. How do you harm someone with speech? You can only harm someone with actions. Example: someone screams "fire" in a crowded building and everyone tramples over one another to leave. It was not the speech that hurt them, but their own idiotic actions. People are also by no means forced to get offended by speech. Hearsay is also simple to avoid if you just use your brain and don't take everything other people say as gospel.

In short: stupidity is what harms people, not speech.

Perhaps Not Defamation

[Kneo24]

Just in my own personal experience, I've never seen Rapidshare used for legal means. I've never heard of anyone using it for legal means. I'm not saying that it can't happen or doesn't happen, but I really do wonder how much of their business is business done without breaking copyright laws. Furthermore, if they never open up the files put on their servers, how the hell would they know whether there's copyright infringement going on in the first place? You can't claim for absolute certainty that your core business doesn't rely on law breakers when you don't monitor what your customers are doing. You have to view data somewhere at some point to have a reasonable conclusion.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Anonymous Coward]

Just in my own personal experience, I've never seen Rapidshare used for legal means.

No offense, but that probably says more about you than it does about Rapidshare.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Kilrah_il]

Well, if you see a file uploaded to RS and then it is downloaded by 10,000 users, it is probably not used for legal reasons. If, OTOH, it is downloaded by 1 other user, there is a higher chance it is used for a legal reasons.
Of course, this is not conclusive evidence: A file can be sent to a whole group via RS and still be legit, and a movie can be sent illegally from one person to another. But still, usage statistics can give you some idea as to the legality of the files without opening them.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[MichaelSmith]

You mean if somebody posts a rapidshare link to 100 gigs of porn on 4chan you assume that the images are being distributed against their license? How do you know? Did you check?

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[91degrees]

Chances are they are.

If it's a major hollywood movie then it's extremely likely that the distributor doesn't have permission. At least enough for the purpose of this discussion.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[somersault]

When I've downloaded custom ROMs for my phones in the last few years (which are legal when it comes to Android at least), they are often hosted on RapidShare.

I'm with AC on this one.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 with that

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[91degrees]

My last job, we were regularly sending several gigabytes of HD video between London and Detroit. We didn't actually use Rapidshare for this, but we could have done (We used dropbox because it was more convenient). There would have been about 5 people with access to those files and, no offense intended, but we certainly wouldn't have told you.

It's possible that most users are doing pretty much the same thing. Legitimate:illegitimate ration is going to be near imposible to judge here.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[rts008]

Isn't that just your perspective as it relates to USA laws and POV?

I could claim jingoism and nationalistic viewpoints as strawmen, but why?

Okay, I can accept your viewpoint that from a RIAA/MPAA perspective, but the fact that you can't accept any other POV, or Sovereign Nations POV/outlook, seems both contradictory and ludicrous at the same time.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[xaxa]

I expect RapidShare are carefully selecting their statistic. For instance, the ratio of legal:illegal uploads might be very favourable to them, while the ratio for downloads isn't.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Anonymous Coward]

Chances are that they are not.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Anonymous Coward]

MarkMontor will not have the usage statistics to be able to make these claims. Rapidshare doesn't give out download logs. Only the file sharer will know how many times a file has been downloaded.

Rapidshare provides very fast pipes for a fee. No file sharers receive any payments or kickbacks. Rapidshare provides a solution to connecting the fast pipes from your ISP to fast pipes at a remote server. It's a payment to get access to massive amounts of bandwidth.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[kiddailey]

As someone who manages a fairly large and growing database of user-created gaming content and visits Rapidshare, Megaupload, et al. regularly to grab recent releases, I can assure you that there are quite a few GBs of perfectly legitimate content on those file hosting sites. ... at least, until the files get deleted due to download inactivity :/

There. Now you've heard about many people using it for legal means.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[bjourne]

Pirates who upload content to rapidshare makes it publicaly available. You most certainly would not want to have your hd video published to the world.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Weezul]

That says more about you than about rapid share.

Are you old enough that you've seen ftp used for non-piracy purposes? Does that means we should place a tax on ftp requests that lines the pockets of the MafiAA?

There is a younger variation on RapidShare called DropBox which provide better backup & syncing functionality, but it's not as well suited for just sending a file. You better believe DropBox gets used for piracy though too. Does that mean file syncing services should be illegal?

RapidShare exists primarily because email doesn't transport large files. You cannot expect a client to install skype, gtalk, etc. In fact, you don't want all your client's on your IMs, given how easily one can offend older people on IM. Ditto for firewalls, NATs, sshd, etc. RapidShare URLs just works.

RapidShare also gets used by people trying to save bandwidth, like software developers distributing shareware & crippleware, etc. BitTorrent hasn't exactly been a bandwidth panacea for everyone, plus not everyone understands it.

If you ever left your IT bubble, you'd realize there is a whole world of small business out there that ravenously consumes simple, cheap, and fast solutions to simple problems. RapidShare has hit back hard for defamation partially because that core user base can have fairly stringent sensibilities.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Kjella]

I suspect the statistic is even simpler, what they receive takedown requests for they count as illegal and everything else is by default assumed legal. I doubt RapidShare would permit anyone to rifle through a representative selection and try to determine a real percentage, after all it's a private sharing service and they have no business trying to open them.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Kilrah_il]

Since the parent was discussing how Rapidshare can know whether the files they are hosting are legal or not, my argument stands. RS does have access to the d/l logs and thus can claim that illegal d/l are a minor part of their business. As you said, MarkMonitor doesn't have access to the logs, so it better have some other evidence, or the defamation accusations will probably stick.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Charliemopps]

Here are a few Rapidshare search engines.
Look towards the bottom at "Recent searches" how many of those look legal to you? (in case you're still under any delusions about whats hosted on rapidshare some of the titles are definitely NSFW)
http://www.filecrop.com/
http://rapidsharesearcher.com/
http://blog.egexa.com/download/
http://fileknow.com/recent

I fully support file sharing and the downfall of copyright law, but lets not lie to ourselves please.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Kilrah_il]

This is called selection bias. People who use RS for legitimate use, share the links with the intended recipient only. The files are not searched by anonymous people throughout the web on these sites. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't search http://rapidsharesearcher.com/ for "Presentation for 2011 shareholder meeting.pps".
You are using sites that are used by people who d/l illegal files to show that RS is used for illegal d/l. If you look into Toyota's site, you would see that most of the searches on that site are for cars made by Toyota. Ergo, most people drive Toyota!

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[thegarbz]

You could monitor incoming traffic to identify the referrer. It's not perfect but it is quite possible to know if a file is pirated if the link came from a forum with the thread title "Britney Spears - Greatest Hits" even if the files are in a password protected RAR file. No opening required.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, this 'selection bias' also exposes one of the foundations for the accusations in the article.

After all, how many people would you imagine downloading the 'legal' "Presentation for 2011 shareholder meeting.pps"? One? Maybe two? The intended recipients, presumably. ( Though why anybody would use rapidshare to share such a file is beyond me and if one of my colleagues were to do so he'd be looking for a new job after the internal reviews are done. )

Now how many are going to download "Inception_2010_720p.mkv", the link to which can be found through these rapidshare search engines and has been plastered over various 'piracy' forums?

Just because there's 100 'legal' uploads for every 1 'illegal' upload doesn't make 1,000 downloads of the latter vs 2 of the former* a statistic that should be ignored in these types of back-and-forth accusations.

* Numbers pulled out of ass as RS does not publish any form of statistics so that it is, in fact, impossible to verify either their, or the accusing party's, claims.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[1u3hr]

Furthermore, if they never open up the files put on their servers, how the hell would they know whether there's copyright infringement going on in the first place?

They don't. I'm sure they never said that they could. Can GMail/Yahoo/Hotmail... all guarantee that their services aren't used to transfer files in violation of copyright? Can AOL? The post office?

What they're saying is that they do not take any interest in what is being transferred. They're not like eBay, taking a cut of any transaction, they simply transfer blocks of data. Unless you want to mandate that every service, ISP, etc, that does this is responsible for the legality of every file that passes through their system, you can't insist that Rapidshare does.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Velox_SwiftFox]

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Other types of propaganda.

You certainly might.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Anonymous Coward]

All of their business is done without breaking copyright laws. Rapidshare (as well as other bitlocker-type sites) are only there for upload and download of files; they are not required to know what the files are or to filter for copyrighted materials. Further, they comply with DMCA takedown notices from copyright holders, which is all they are required to do. The point of the possible suit is that they are complying with the letter of the law; therefore, calling them a, "digital piracy site" is defamatory.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[delinear]

You could monitor incoming traffic to identify the referrer. It's not perfect but it is quite possible to know if a file is pirated if the link came from a forum with the thread title "Britney Spears - Greatest Hits" even if the files are in a password protected RAR file. No opening required.

• Trivial to defeat - the referrer just bounces all links via an interim "safe" page, or just point blank doesn't send a referer [sic] header with the request. You could refuse all users that don't come with a referer if you don't mind losing some legitimate traffic, but then the site just puts the links on a "safe" site and links to that (pretty soon RS would see all sites as unsafe) or they use a URL shortener, or then send the links via email.>/li>
• Costly - you will get false positives. The link to some guy's video rant about how awful Britney's latest CD is, posted to a forum with the title "Britney Spears - Greatest Hits" is perfectly legal. You either accept you will ban legal content or you pay someone to investigate false positives. And once the piracy sites figure out it's costing you to investigate false positives, they can trivially make it prohibitively expensive for you to do so by generating thousands of them.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[TheRaven64]

I've seen RapidShare used for game patches and mods and I'd imagine that most of these are downloaded by 10,000 users.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you be absolutely sure that the file from the thread, "Britney Spears - Greatest Hits" isn't just a recording the poster made of their cats wailing or something? You can't be sure it isn't a joke or a parody without opening it and RapidShare isn't legally responsible for doing that.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[91degrees]

Actually we'd rather they didn't. While most of this was promotional material, that didn't add anything new, and there would have been minimal harm if it was released, it just would have been unprofessional to release it without our partner's explicit permission.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[surgen]

At least enough for the purpose of this discussion.

This is all a matter of perspective. We don't have any way of knowing the portion of rapidshare's traffic that is just for piracy. Of course when all we see is the piracy use but that is because legitimate uses are usually not getting passed around publicly online.

When I was programming (the non-code kind) a TV station, if we were getting content sent to us over the internet, rapidshare and their ilk were the most common distribution channel. Of course this made my inner nerd rage, but our providers liked using those services. When I was putting in some time at a radio station? Emailed mp3s from artists/promoters were frequent (and what I requested), but we still got rapidshare links.

Yes, I just provided anecdotal evidence for the other side too, but my point is: _we don't know_, so lets not make assumptions on the content.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Migraineman]

I used Rapidshare for a perfectly legitimate reason recently. I was discussing a topic in a forum that doesn't allow arbitrary file uploads. I wanted to post a schematic diagram, that I drew from scratch. The forum post contains a link to a Rapidshare upload. The upload is a zip archive containing a PDF schematic and a bunch of supporting data sheets - it wasn't just a .jpg, which is why I couldn't include it in the forum directly. This is a nice solution, as I don't have to maintain a dedicated server to support the linked information.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Kilrah_il]

Well, it boils down to what statistics you use: Number/percentage of illegal files on RS or number/percentage of illegal downloads? Of course, RS would choose the former statistics and MarkMonitor would choose the latter.

Oh, and BTW, condolences to your ass. It must hurt after all the statistics you pulled out of it :)

P.S.
Do you know it's very hard to type after drinking a couple of glasses of wine. It took me forever to write this without mistakes.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[haggisbrain]

how many of those look legal to you?

You can't make an assumption of a files copyright status simply by looking at the filename or even the content. The songwriter Edwin Collins is often prevented from sharing his own music because of a belief that it MUST be a big companies "property".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/oct/06/edwyn-collins-sharing-music

What if I create a movie/song/ebook/document and want to share it but the filename makes it look "illegal"?

Surely the assumption must be innocent until proven guilty?

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[DamonHD]

I think I've had one custom-drawn .ico file sent to me on RapidShare recently, so that was about 300 bytes of legitimate non-infringing content that I can vouch for!

All the time I see new links c/o Google Alerts for ripped-off copies of the TV work of a member of my family, so much so that if I see a URL fragment containing one of those as I open my alert mail I know that it's almost always going to be such. Not a force for good IMHO.

Rgds

Damon

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Magic5Ball]

Whether Rapidshare has to demonstrate the untruth of the other party's statements, or the other party has to demonstrate the truth of their statements, will depend on jurisdiction. I expect to see interesting new (to the public) information from both sides (RS logs, the other party's data sources, etc.) should this go to discovery.

Are the media industry groups smart enough to troll RS into a lawsuit like this?

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[SudoGhost]

You're probably right. But last I checked, 'probably' wasn't a good enough standard for any serious study.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Kilrah_il]

I was actually interested in who the burden of proof is on: RS in calling defamation or MarkMonitor in calling RS an accessory to piracy. Any lawyers in the house ready to comment?

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Anonymous Coward]

rapidshare does not provide a search / index facility, is not responsible for user content and does comply with take down requests.

Yeah there is alot of copyright content up there but if it wasn't raidshare it would be someone else - filesonic, hotfile or whatever.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Anonymous Coward]

• So any link I don't like, or belonging to someone I want to dick with, I can post on a warez board and get the file banned? Heh, that's fun. I'm gonna have to go search for legitimate RapidShare links right away so I can get them banned and piss people off. Hell, I don't even have to do that - just visit the forum thread, type javascript:document.write("<a href='http://rapidshare.com/file-I-dont-like.rar'>haha, suckas!</a>");document.close();void(0); in the address bar, and click the link! (For extra credit, have it prompt "Paste RS link here" and bookmark it.)
• That link from the forum thread with the title "Britney Spears - Greatest Hits"? First of all, you have to become a member of the forum to SEE that thread title (the referer header only passes the URL). Secondly, you never even GET that thread's URL, because the referer header is blank because the forum had a strict no-link policy: links get pasted between bbCode [code][/code] tags. They are not clickable. You copy and paste, and there is no referer.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[mcgrew]

"Maybe" doesn't fly in a courtroom. If Sally accuses Jim of being a kiddie fiddler, even if chances are that it's true, She'd better have proof or she's liable for slander and defamation.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[JabberWokky]

Journalists for smaller publications also use it. Videos and large image archives (of an event, for example) that are difficult to send as email attachments tend to be on RapidShare and Box.net.

I loathe both as a result, as there is a tendency for the people who use it to be rather non-technical, so when I get a link from RapidShare forwarded to me from a publisher saying "I can't get this to work", it's usually some kind of oddball strange error in filetype or zero byte files all neatly named in a zip. I'm not sure how they manage to do the latter, but I've seen it from more than a few people sending in stories with photos. Then again, they get paid to write, not be internet savvy.

So *I* associate it with writers with limited tech skills rather than piracy. And that would be another legal use... and those unedited videos being tossed back and forth can be pretty large.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't a courtroom. Actual proof is a requirement for layers to argue over. For an informal discussion you can make some fairly reasonable assumptions such as a several gig publicly shared file named "Tron_Legacy_720p.mkv" is quite probably a pirate copy of Tron Legacy, and that it's not being distributed with the permission of Disney.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[DinDaddy]

First sentence in your P.S. should end in a question mark. Snicker.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Kilrah_il]

It took me forever to write this with just one mistake.

FTFM

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Eil]

I don't think those rapidshare search queries are accurate. For example, one of the recent queries on FileCrop is "John Tesh". That's obviously not a real search. Nobody would search for that. A real search would have been prefixed with the phrase, "how to murder".

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[noidentity]

Well, if you see a file uploaded to RS and then it is downloaded by 10,000 users, it is probably not used for legal reasons.

Wow, have you ever heard of file distribution? Yeah, people actually do this legally all the time, when they create a file and then... distribute it using one of these services.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[sjames]

You are far more likely to hear of an illegal use than a legal one.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Kilrah_il]

Of course, this is not conclusive evidence: A file can be sent to a whole group via RS and still be legit...

Wow, have you ever heard about reading the entire comment before responding? (I can continue with the paraphrasing, but I think you get the idea).

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and BTW, condolences to your ass. It must hurt after all the statistics you pulled out of it :)

it tingles a little, but I'm glad I stuck to low digit numbers ;)

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Kilrah_il]

it tingles a little, but I'm glad I stuck to low digit numbers ;)

It's stuck? Ouch!

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple? Lightweight. It takes more than a couple to affect my typing.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[noidentity]

I re-read your entire comment and don't see anything to change your initial claim, that using one of these services for one-to-many sharing is probably for illegal purposes. At least in my experience, people on discussion forums often share their works-in-progress using these services. It's a convenient way to make a file available to many without having to worry about excessive bandwidth use.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[gstoddart]

Because, if they looked, they would be responsible for what people send.

It is why the phone company (and, to a certain extent ISPs) enjoy common carrier status.

All they have to be is content neutral, and they really aren't in the business of copyright infringement ... They just move data.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Kilrah_il]

Maybe I wasn't clear. My point was that I know usage statistics are not a perfect way to differentiate legitimate and illegitimate uses of RS, however, they can give you some idea of the magnitude of phenomenon, esp. if combined with file type.
I agree that there are other scenarios where RS is used for one-to-many sharing, where the file shared is legal. However, I do believe (no citation) that most cases of a file being downloaded by 10,000 different people (esp. if it is a 700MB movie file), are illegal. If I see a source code file or Excel spreadsheet shared by many people, it is probably a legitimate use.

Again, this is not a perfect method to be used as court evidence, but it can give you a first-order estimate of the magnitude of the problem.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Anonymous Coward]

"Chances" wont cut it: I'm a member of a forum that shares photos and videos via rapidshare (amongst others) and we flag and delete links to unlicensed / dodgy files.

Re:Perhaps Not Defamation

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you're attempting to determine selection bias, you first would have to define what you're actually trying to measure. I can see at least 6 metrics for the legal/illegal ratio at Rapidshare:
1: number of files hosted
2: number of files uploaded (different from previous when uploads overwrite previous versions)
3: number of downloads
4: size of files hosted
5: size of uploads
6: size of downloads
I expect all these to be different. Illegal movie rips aren't updated, are big, and have more downloaders.

More harm than good?

[rts008]

While I support the original intent of both copyright and patent laws, I also think both have exceeded their bounds, and need reform.
The original intent was to BOTH foster creativity and innovation while protecting both, it has currently devolved into protecting/fostering those with the most money.
Major reform is needed.
One thing I learned from my GrandDad[among many, numerous things], was that only stagnant water breeds mosquitoes. Think about the concept seriously for a moment, it is enlightening.

Maybe it seems new to you all, but it's a culmination of 100 year old insight and wisdom to me.
Sonny Bono/Disney should have been stopped in retrospect, but that's how hindsight seems to work!

Re:More harm than good?

[somersault]

Playing devil's advocate here, but here goes:

If all of that stuff is so stagnant, why are you bothered about the copyright lease being so long? Look for cheap or free indie media.

Re:More harm than good?

[CitizenCain]

If all of that stuff is so stagnant, why are you bothered about the copyright lease being so long? Look for cheap or free indie media.

You're missing the point of that adage. The mosquitoes don't stay in the stagnant pool of water once they've bred. They fly off and bite anyone they can find.

Likewise, absurd lease lengths on copyrights don't just effect the works the protect, but impact the entire media realm. Why bother funding new, creative media when you get the copyright on Mickey Mouse extended for another 90 years and keep milking that cow? Or, for that matter, why bother creating anything at all, when you can become a patent troll and makes tens of millions of dollars by suing other people for bothering to create something. (And so on.)

Re:More harm than good?

[somersault]

You're missing the point of that adage. The mosquitoes don't stay in the stagnant pool of water once they've bred. They fly off and bite anyone they can find.

Ah, we don't have mosquitoes here so I don't really think of them as a big deal. I've only ever seen them in movies :P

Our midges tend to stay in the vicinity of the stagnant water rather than roaming.

Re:More harm than good?

[devent]

Such thing as "free indie media" doesn't exists. If you have an internet radio you have to pay royalties, if you have a bar and play music you have to pay, in Germany everyone is paying a royalty on CDs, DVDs, flash drivers, hard disks. The "Content Industry" have such power that they lobbied every government that if you play music you have to pay royalties to them even if you don't play any music owned by them. Either you pay the royalties or you are at a very great risk of being sued to death.

Thanks to such laws that every work falls automatically under copyright the "Content Industry" business methods are not so different to the Mafia. Either you pay up or you get a visit from one of their agents and they make you pay (not by breaking your legs but by threatening to sue you and make you bankrupt).

Re:More harm than good?

[rts008]

Well, maybe something got in the translation, or you cherry-picked a plausible mis-translation, but I will play along!)

If all of that stuff is so stagnant, why are you bothered about the copyright lease being so long?

You missed the whole point here. I apologize profoundly if my intended concept was so ineptly stated. My purpose was to allude to the concept that life, and thus living life was dynamic, and we have to adapt as a species to survive. We have provided a lot of evidence that we are adaptable, dynamically as a species.

As a side note regarding IP[Intellectual Property/Imaginative Property]:
My problem with the 'copyright lease' being so long, is it has devolved into harmful for the public domain at the benefits of Big Corp.
Call me an Anarchist, Libertarian, or Whatever, but it worries and confounds me.
It seems to go against what it was intended to achieve.

I have been vocal about this all along. Check my profile/comments, hell, do a Google.com search for "rts008+/.+RIAA"
That should keep you busy for a few hours. Check my /.Journal...its open to the public.

Look for cheap or free indie media.

I have done so in the past, and currently do so....the bulk of my current music collection comes from just those...thanks for reminding your grandfather/mother how to suck eggs.

Gahg!!!
Monty Python comes to save the day, yet again!!!!...
"Stupid Git!"

I Sneer at your 'Devils Advocate'...Now go away, or I will taunt you a second time. And yes, we are are on the look-out for a Large Wooden Badger.

Re:More harm than good?

[Kjella]

Major reform is needed. One thing I learned from my GrandDad[among many, numerous things], was that only stagnant water breeds mosquitoes. Think about the concept seriously for a moment, it is enlightening.

The trouble if you apply that logic is that it cuts both ways. Long standing rights and principles can be cut down just as easily as old relics that have lost their purpose and meaning. And the answer depends extremely on who you ask, others would say copyrights and patents are more important now than ever in the "information economy". Some would say the second amendment is an old relic from the days of the minutemen, others think it's a vital civil right today. It's only an argument that appeal to people that already agree with you.

Re:More harm than good?

[apt-get moo]

While I support the original intent of both copyright and patent laws, I also think both have exceeded their bounds, and need reform. The original intent was to BOTH foster creativity and innovation while protecting both, it has currently devolved into protecting/fostering those with the most money.

Whatever you may have heard about such idealistic intentions of copyright is pretty much bullshit. The original idea behind the Anglo-Saxon term of "copyright" was just that - the (exclusive) right to copy something. Its primary purpose was to protect publishers from competition (made possible by the invention of the printing press) by granting them some exclusive rights, e.g. on printing and distributing the bible. This was the 16th century. So, nothing has really changed, just the rhetoric.

What you're referring to are author's rights, a term mostly used in Continental Europe. I don't know whether the intentions behind them were even as benevolent as you think. And in any case, Continental and Anglo-Saxon ideas about copyright/author's rights have conflated in the last decades/centuries, anyway.

Re:More harm than good?

[Anonymous Coward]

EVERYONE on this thread HAS to read this:

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/25/1345/03329

Of course, money just kept asking "Can we do it yet? Can we do it yet? Can we do it yet?..." until they got it. Then they asked for more, of course.

Re:More harm than good?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The mosquito illustration was probably throwing people off. I usually try to avoid such illustrations because you're going to get people that take it too far or argue about unimportant points, because the comparison is going to fail if it is taken to far, and it becomes a distraction.

I don't think it's anarchist to suggest reform, that would be a silly accusation to worry about.

Copyright law is very excessive right now, especially when you have a broadly interpreted meaning of "limited", which is functionally "forever" when it is often extended by 20 years every 20 years. They might not be able to extend it to 1000 years because that might actually be obvious to the judicial branch as a stretch on the interpretation of limited, several smaller steps might not cause any problems.

Re:More harm than good?

[Anonymous Coward]

Extremely high ad-to-content ratio alert! You could also look here if you want to learn about midges.

Re:More harm than good?

[somersault]

Sorry, I have adblock so didn't notice, and I liked the Wisegeek article better than the Wikipedia one, which is even lighter on .

Re:More harm than good?

[Attila Dimedici]

I think the poster you are responding to is referring to the clause in the U.S. Constitution that says "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." The idea here being that many ideas and inventions were lost because the originator died before they shared them with others. Some craftsman invented a new device. He made these devices using a technique that no one else knew. He didn't tell anyone else so that he would have a business advantage. He, maybe thought he would teach someone when he got old, but he died young and never did. I know there were several things built in the Middle Ages that no one knows how they were built because the builder never told anyone his secret.

Re:More harm than good?

[somersault]

Yeah, the analogy threw me off a little, sorry. I generally agree with your point, but it also reminded me of those who think that the current music and film industry is too full of crap anyway, and made me wonder if this group intersects highly with the group who want to shorten copyright terms, which wouldn't make that much sense.

Re:More harm than good?

[mcgrew]

Indeed. There was an article in the local paper last year about a bar owner here who hired folk singers. Folk songs are old, public domain music; no copyrights apply. Yet ASCAP insisted on royalties, he refused, and the litigation put him out of business.

Re:More harm than good?

[mcgrew]

The original idea behind the Anglo-Saxon term of "copyright" was just that - the (exclusive) right to copy something.

Yes, in Britain. Not in the US. The constitution describes why congress is given the power to grant copyright. "Section 8, Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"

Re:More harm than good?

[apt-get moo]

The US legal history goes back further than the founding fathers. I guess it's safe to assume that the Statute of Anne had a major influence on US copyright legislation (according to Wikipedia, they copied it almost verbatim). I'm neither a lawyer nor a law student, but I think we can view British and US copyright law as one legal tradition then, which started with the early printer monopolies of the 16th century.

Also note that the US constitution doesn't mention the term "copyright" and is pretty vague about the rights that are secured to authors and inventors, and under which provisions. So the constitution doesn't tell us much about the reality of copyright protection.

Re:More harm than good?

[blarkon]

In Australia in the 80's Aboriginal art became popular. Because most Aboriginal artists didn't live anywhere near tourist areas, unscrupulous whites would copy their art and then sell those copies at high prices to tourists. You want to know what a world without copyright is? It's going to be like that. It is middlemen getting fat by selling copies of other people's works while the person who created the work gets nothing because they have no rights. There are people who are really good at selling stuff - at the moment copyright means that they have to give something back to the person who created the thing that is sold. Under your "Copyright Should Be Abolished" system the artist might never be paid, but their painting, which might be copied a million times, will earn some shifty bastard millions of dollars.

Re:More harm than good?

[mcgrew]

It's true that some states had copyright laws, also that Britain (and perhaps others) had copyrights before the US, and no, the word "copyright" isn't used (indicating that copyright isn't really a right, but a privelege), but it does say "authors and inventors".

But the point is, our constitution is the bedrock of all US law, and it specifically says that allowing authors and inventors limited times monopolies is "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Current copyright law doesn't in any way promote the progress of the arts, but in fact hinders it.

for reals?

[Anonymous Coward]

'these users are in the absolute minority compared with those who use our services to pursue perfectly legitimate interests.'

omfg LOL.

Fact is, they make a cack-load of money from people using their service to engage in copyright-infringement. I'd be surprised if they could sustain more than a third of their profits without the business of said people.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

[drmofe]

Rapidshare says they don't open or inspect the files uploaded by its users

They list a number of 'legitimate' uses

They say copyrighted files do get uploaded

But they say these files are in a minority compared with the legitimate uses

How do they know, without having inspected the files?

Re:Don't Ask, Don't Tell

[tris203]

They will be presuming that all copyrighted files get reported

Re:Don't Ask, Don't Tell

[Anonymous Coward]

Rapidshare is much like the locker room at a public beach house. You have open lockers that are essentially free for everyone to use. Now the majority of users keep a change of dry clothes and other belongings in the locker for when they go swimming. But every now and then you have some people that stash porn or weed in one of the lockers and shares the combination of their lock with their friends.

Does that mean you go rifling through all the lockers with people's clothes and belongings to find and remove the occasional porn/weed stash? Or do you wait until there's a complaint about activity at one particular locker? Is it really that suspicious if more than one person shares a locker for what is considered the legitimate use? Also is the maintainer of the locker room liable for what happens in their lockers? (Particularly when they operate in good faith that the majority of people will conduct their business without going out of their way to exploit the system.)

So I guess the options are:
1. Let everyone keep conducting business as usual, and go after trouble-makers if there are enough complaints about them.
2. Shut down the locker room and deprive everybody of the convenience it provided.
3. Run locker searches and have drug sniffing dogs show up every day. (Despite the fact that it provides great inconvenience and intrusion of privacy to normal users such that the majority stops using it. Effectively being little different than option 2.)

I think I'd go with option 1, but I'm sure some of you out there would argue for the other ones.

search function

[LikwidCirkel]

"...and contains no search function so that other users may look for content." Yeah - that's what RapidLibrary is for. if RapidShare is in any way affiliated with rapidlibrary or other similar sites, they'll have a tough time in court. Personally, I've never heard of anyone using RapidShare for anything other than piracy, but I'm willing to be enlightened.

Re:search function

[jack2000]

Oh you know, hosting mods for games, archives full of images this sort of stuff.

Re:search function

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, I've used it as a dropbox to share stuff like route plans (I'm a cyclist) with other forum members. Similar examples abound.

Re:search function

[jaggeh]

I used to use rapidshare to host custom map files for several games. Ive also uploaded several large photo albums for members of my family to download.

One of my friends is a film editor and she regularly uses rapidshare to transfer stuff from home to work without clogging her mailbox.

People do use it legitimatly, a LOT of people.

People do use it for piracy asweel but these are the only ones you really hear about.

Re:search function

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

"Oh you know, hosting mods for games (a.k.a. Hacks, as interpreted by some companies) , archives full of images (i.e. kiddie porn) this sort of stuff."

Re:search function

[1u3hr]

. if RapidShare is in any way affiliated with rapidlibrary or other similar sites,

And RS has lawyers and knows that full well. So of course they keep themselves well away from indexing sites. They would hardly have issued this challenge if it were possible to trip them up so easily.

By the way, if you look at many of these sites that promise to find stuff on Rapidshare, what they are is simply a customised Google search, plus a crapload of porn ads. DIY and Google for "moviename + Rapidshare" and you'll find thousands of hits, some of them even work.

Re:search function

[jack2000]

What a wild imagination you have there extreme neutralist

*.R00

[metalmaster]

I've pondered on this since the first story broke, but can a company be liable for hosting partial files? A lot of the links i see for rapidshare are partial archives. By themselves they do no harm

Re:*.R00

[Tim C]

Well, copyright prevents you from sharing a chapter of a book just as it does the entire book, so I suspect the same principle would apply to partial archive files.

Re:*.R00

[Anonymous Coward]

Not trying to be a smart-ass, but where does it stop? A paragraph, a sentence, a word?

Re:*.R00

[mapkinase]

You can read the chapter without reading the rest of the book. Archive bits, on the other hand, are useless without a complete set.

Re:*.R00

[thegarbz]

This depends on the content. If the book is stored in multiple chapters and spread over 3 RAR files you most definitely can extract some of the chapters even if you only have the middle RAR file at your disposal. If the file is MPEG video then you can extract part of the video and play it too. You'll have audio sync issues and inability to seek but hey you have some content to work with.

Re:*.R00

[maxwell demon]

What about hosting random data? I guess no one can sue you for that. So if someone encrypts a file with a one-time pad, stores the encrypted file at provider A and the one-time pad at provider B, both individually only get random data. You have to XOR both to get the original file. And it's not even possible to tell which one is the encrypted file and which one the pad!

Or would they demand that random (or seemingly random) data may not be stored? But then, what if someone wants to share his newly generated high-quality random numbers, for use in Monte Carlo simulations?

Re:*.R00

[maxwell demon]

What if you split the file in 8 files, the first one containing the highest significant bits of all bytes, up to the 8th one containing the lowest significant bits from all bytes? I doubt that you could do much with any single file in that case.

Re:*.R00

[thepotoo]

The courts recognize intent. If you're sharing a paragraph of a book with others with the intent to discuss its impact on modern society, that's fine.

If you're sharing the same paragraph with the intent of combining it with other paragraphs hosted by different people, that's copyright infringement.

IANAL

Re:*.R00

[Magic5Ball]

What's the problem that your solution is intended to address?

Storing a set of data in different physical or logical formats doesn't change the abstraction of the data that is subject to copyright since representations are all derivatives of some protected fixed form. The copyright holders no more care about the (almost certainly unique) patterns of magnetic fields on your hard disk that represent a work than you do about the patterns that represent your spreadsheet.

Re:*.R00

[Magic5Ball]

One or more of the following would have to be true:
a) You upload such files, but do not disclose that the two parts contain a copyrighted work. No one would notice or care, and your action would not be worth the cost of a lawsuit.
b) You upload such files, and you do disclose that the two parts contain a copyrighted work. We're back to .RAR parts unless you can demonstrate that you came upon two random chunks of data, that when combined via your algoritm, yields a format correct work that, by chance alone, happens to be indistinguishable from a representation of a copyrighted work.

In either case, the algorithmic result of the combination of a particular set of random numbers with a copyrighted work would still be a protected derivative work of the original.

Re:*.R00

[Anonymous Coward]

We geeks like to think through technical questions like that, but in the past it seems that judges just see through such technicalities.

Re:*.R00

[lgw]

Intent matters to the law. If you host content with the intent of sharing it illegally, that's illegal, regardless of the technical measures used to obfucsate it. Geeks tend to forget this. It's not the format of the content, but the intent of the human who uploaded or hosted it.

Re:*.R00

[maxwell demon]

What's the problem that your solution is intended to address?

If you had read the complete thread (or ad least the last few parents) you would have seen that someone claimed that distributing partial files was forbidden because you could still get something watchable/listenable from such partial file. Therefore I thought of a method which would make the single partial file completely useless (splitting by bits of the byte, instead of splitting the file in several chunks). If that claim is true, then distributing any of the files separately would not violate copyright (of course a person uploading or downloading all 8 files would violate the copyright in any case).

In any case, nobody can reasonably be expected to check if for a given file there exist seven other files somewhere on the net which together with that file might give a copyrighted work for which they don't have the license to distribute, therefore anyone hosting it should be secure (unless it's a service intended specifically for such partial files).

Re:*.R00

[maxwell demon]

In case you didn't notice: The subject here isn't whether the uploader or downloader does copyright infringment (of course he does). It's about the responsibility of the hoster. And it's obvious that a hoster cannot be required for each file someone uploads to search for another file which, if combined with it, would happen to give a copyrighted work he's not authorized to distribute.

Re:*.R00

[Renraku]

As the law stands now, it would currently work. Especially if the file is encrypted and you can't see that .R00 is actually a part of some copyrighted work. As in, you can't extract some of the movie/song/etc and see what it is or see file names, etc.

However, either a new law would be passed to hold each site responsible for sharing the whole work (as if all sites that hosted a piece hosted the entire work), or old laws would be stretched to apply to this situation as well. Given the amount of things I would like to see debated in court and the things that are actually debated in court, we'd never get resolution on this. It would just be pay up or we'll absolutely crush you legally because we can afford better lawyers. It wouldn't make it to the supreme court.

Re:*.R00

[thegarbz]

Then I would agree you can't claim copyright on an incomplete download. ... But what compression currently in use works like that? It seems strange to suggest this as a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, as if you didn't want people to read your file just don't distribute in the first place :)

Re:*.R00

[Magic5Ball]

The hoster doesn't need to impose basic file format trickery on its users to plausibly deny knowledge of hosting content without permission. There's no reasonable expectation that they are able to screen the sheer volume of new content arriving daily, nor the encrypted stuff which passwords are trivially found. As the YouTube adventure has shown, even advanced file format trickery may be circumvented if the copyright holder is sufficiently enthused about having that capability.

Again, what was the legal or social problem was your solution intended to address? It seems to me that it just imposes a minor inconvenience without providing any party with any new benefits over the status quo.

Re:*.R00

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel the pain. Whatever problem maxwell demon thinks he's addressing, it's clearly not the one in the wild. His suggestion appears to be to extend the key length of the passwords used to encrypt RARs from release_group_URL to (annoyingly) to several hundred megabytes in length. No one could possibly benefit from that change alone except for companies interested in selling bandwidth.

Sounds like typical (management | techs) forgetting the social part of the situation.

Everything can be used for Piracy.

[Haedrian]

Everything can be used for "Piracy".

Before we had tapes, then Floppies, then CDs, then P2P and websites...

I can send illegal files by email, by handing them over on a thumb drive...

Its easier if we just add "Everything" to the list of Piracy and let it be done.

Re:Everything can be used for Piracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Im already preparing pigeons with papers with 0's and 1's of illegal content

Re:Everything can be used for Piracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'm already preparing my monitor tools to check out all pigeon traffic and bring legal action against the sender and the receiver of the pigeon if those 0's and 1's are copyrighted.

Re:Everything can be used for Piracy.

[Drethon]

Yeah, the open pandora gaming system http://www.openpandora.org/ got blocked on e-bay for a while as a pirate system that could play imports. After some discussion the pandora people were able to get e-bay to understand it is simply a tiny linux laptop and has little more/less capability than any other computer being sold on e-bay...

Re:Everything can be used for Piracy.

[Ihmhi]

Is that thing actually getting sold finally? I've seen the release date pushed back over and over again and I'm reluctant to spend money on what might just be an elaborate scam.

Re:Everything can be used for Piracy.

[seeker_1us]

Everything can be used for "Piracy"....

Its easier if we just add "Everything" to the list of Piracy and let it be done.

That's EXACTLY what the copyright cartels are trying to do.

Re:Everything can be used for Piracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this the way copyright and patent law encourages creativity? Due to DRM, law suits, etc. I've noticed an incredible growth in creativity as how to share pirated content. The guys behind copyright, like Disney et. Al. should be actually proud of such achievement!

Re:Everything can be used for Piracy.

[Drethon]

Check out pandorapress.net. The device is out of its latest crysis and if nothing else happen mass production is a go.

The slightly longer story is they finished the cases last spring with production beginning in the summer but the nubs were found to be defective. After a few months of nub redesign production has started back up. ~1500 have been shipped and they are completing and shipping about 300-500 a week now.

If you are concerned I would probably monitor for a week or two and if nothing happens then it could be smooth sailing from here.

Note, I'm just a customer for open pandora, not part of production so some statements may not be fully correct...

Re:Everything can be used for Piracy.

[Dabido]

I agree. You could even use old punch cards and store the contents of a pirated movie that way and put them in a large box and send them any where in the world. Australia now has dogs that are trained to sniff out illegal DVD's and CD's etc, but I doubt they'd pick up anything wrong with a box full of punch cards.

RapidShare

[Anonymous Coward]

RapidShare has saved my bacon more than once when my radio station server was borked and I couldn't ftp to it, so I uploaded my news stories to RapidShare and the news director could get my stories before the deadline for final editing (and I got to be the tech hero).

I've also used it for sharing my personal files, photos, video, etc. with friends all over the world.

RapidShare is a great service for legitimate uses.

Same here

[oiron]

FTP down, nonexistent or blocked in a client's building. You need to transfer a few hundred megs of data. Rapidshare to the rescue.

Re:Same here

[jovius]

I read that you were locked in a client's building. I can confirm that at least your data is getting out .

Uncorrelated...

[MagnusE]

Piracy? RapidShare? NOOOOOO!!!...

No search? Yeah right.

[jack2000]

While it may now offer a function to search, other sites do. For example 4chan's automated scraper that catches rs links posted all over it and offers them for search via /rs/. There are other less legit sources for rapidshare searching but why even bother. There are way more convenient ways to find specific data.

Re:No search? Yeah right.

[Anonymous Coward]

filestube.com is pretty good...

Missing the point

[ProbablyJoe]

Sure, RapidShare is used a lot for copyrighted material, but it's not as if it's their doing. On the contrary, they seem to make a lot of effort to remove copyrighted material - at least a lot of the links I see are deleted. Whether or not this is them specifically searching for it, or it being reported, I have no idea.

What next? FTP is used for uploading copyrighted material too. What an evil protocol.

Slashdot loves car analogies right? Clearly cars that can drive over the speed limit are also to blame for speeding.

does Porn count as "legitimate interest"?

[deisama]

Didn't even know they had any piracy on there. Maybe the porn is meant to distract people from noticing?

Re:does Porn count as "legitimate interest"?

[jaggeh]

The porn is pirated...

How do they know a minority pirate?

[Sockatume]

If Rapidshare doesn't inspect its users' uploads, how do they know that only a minority of uploads are pirate? Genuinely stumped for a good hypothesis here, just trawling the web for Rapidshare links and classifying them doesn't strike me as an easy thing to automate.

Re:How do they know a minority pirate?

[Anonymous Coward]

The acknowledged (reported) copyright files get taken down, the rest are classified as legitimate as they should be.

Re:How do they know a minority pirate?

[Sockatume]

It's exactly as it should be as far as accusations of mischief by the content providers are concerned, but that's likely to comically underestimate the amount of actual piracy that's going on.

Re:How do they know a minority pirate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rapidshare should not being inspecting users uploads. That is a clear infraction on a user's privacy. They are providing a service. How that service is used is not their fault. It would be like a phone company monitoring your calls to make sure you are not doing something illegal, calling porn or calling your mistress when your wife is not home.

This article is meaningless

[uxbn_kuribo]

RapidShare actually seems pretty gung-ho (and somewhat efficient) about removing copyrighted content, so I can understand their outrage. They've made alot of effort to ensure that what copyrighted content does get uploaded is removed to the best of their ability. I mean, hell, YouTube does the exact same thing, and you can almost certainly find copyrighted material there right this minute. I would reckon that Google is used to an extent in piracy. How many people do you think find cracks via google? And anyway, there was a time when UseNet was the most active means of software piracy. Does that mean that UseNet should have been shut down? (Trick question: most people don't use UseNet anymore anyway)

Re:This article is meaningless

[SuricouRaven]

There is one key difference: Google has enough skilled lawyers that the copyright organisations know not to mess with them. Rapidshare is small fry, and can easily be crushed beneath their expensive designer boots.

Rapidshare? Are you kidding?

[EnsilZah]

I guess their data is just out of date.
Maybe a year ago you could have seen a lot of traffic on Rapidshare, but slow speeds, low filesize limits and long wait times have made Rapidshare go the way of MySpace.
Now you have a completely different set of players, there's Hotfile, Fileserve, Netload, Filesonic, Depositfiles, and a whole bunch of others.
If you go to a site that posts such links you'd be hard pressed to find one Rapidshare link in fifty.

And I bet the **AAs are just about getting ready to do something about Rapidshare.

But it has the word "share" in its name!

[betterunixthanunix]

Have you not heard? "Sharing" is a bad thing. If the website were called, "rapidfiletransfer," maybe they wouldn't be facing these sorts of accusations...

Re:But it has the word "share" in its name!

[TaoPhoenix]

Sh-Sh-Sh-Share Share the Share is the scare! The **AA loves to say that sharin' ain't fair.

Did you hear the news? No? It was of a certain ... economical distribution variety.

Sh-sh-Share Share, the Share is the Scare!

Re:But it has the word "share" in its name!

[iammani]

I knew it, that is why Windows calls it Folder Sharing. Windows is EVIL! I cant wait for RIAA to sue microsoft.

Re:But it has the word "share" in its name!

[theArtificial]

Clever but I've got that melody in my head now. Argh, curse you! ;)

go after "linkers", not "storers"?

[mapkinase]

When someone calls his favorite episode of House HS1E8.rar and uploads it with a password to rapidshare, he is not breaking any laws. He just wants to be able to access it from everywhere he goes using whatever device with whatever limited memory.

The laws could be broken when he or someone else who deciphered a very cryptic name of the file and a sophisticated password ("monkey") posts a link on his blog:

Check out my favourite episode of House (Season 1, episode 8): Download here. Use the usual pass, guys.

This is the actual moment of so called "illegal" "sharing".

There are many reasons why MPAA (probably!) won't go after linkers, the legal challenges would be insurmountable.

The tide is definitely against ??AA folks. The content they distributed is easily redistributable and the traces of it quickly disappear in the vast ocean of Internet. Besides, they are not dealing with separated people, they are dealing with an anonymous spontaneous self-organized structure.

This structure is like Al-Qaida of Internet: (1) it has very loose, very horisontal organizational structure and (2) it's very popular among vast army of moral and physical supporters.

No wonder ??AAs act like our previous president: they go after storage providers (say, analogous to Taliban of Internet) or completely irrelevant guys (they demand their "fair share" from ISP's, for example, evil they are, like Saddam's of Internet).

Rapidshare does respond to complaints

[rebelwarlock]

Rapidshare does remove content that has been flagged as illegal. How does it find out? It gets reported, or the copyright holder files a complaint with them (with the offending links in question, obviously). They have never condoned piracy, and always take it seriously. Is it convenient to upload files? Sure, I'll give you that. Is it harder to upload illegal files than legal ones? Unlikely. They can't comb through all their uploaded files manually; that's just silly. Filenames would be useless too. Even if someone named their file 'adobe_photoshop.rar', that isn't grounds for removal. As long as they don't promote piracy, it's simply unjust to accuse them of such, regardless of how many people do break the law with it. Many, many things can be used to break the law. That doesn't mean we can go after everything.

Re:file names

[TaoPhoenix]

NASA_Space_Sex.rar

The Situation...

[Anonymous Coward]

New wii for Xmas, first flat panel TV to go with the wii. You need a few hundred iso's to load from a USB hard drive since you are now broke. Megaupload and hippyfreak to the rescue. For 9.99 premium account you can download about a Terabyte in less than a week.

I knew this was coming

[Anonymous Coward]

And I also called BS on that article I read calling them a piracy site.
Two things I didn't care about it.

1. Hell you might as well call Google a piracy site too, since surly you don't think that people searching for pirate copies search through rapidshare, do you?

2. I know for a fact rapidshare does attempt to take down illegal files. I've lost count of how many "this file has been removed" links I've got from there.

Isn't (nearly) everything copyrighted nowadays?

[cpghost]

From TFA:

RapidShare acknowledged that copyrighted files do get uploaded to its site, however 'these users are in the absolute minority compared with those who use our services to pursue perfectly legitimate interests.'

What are "copyrighted files"? Everything created recently, i.e. before 70 years after the death of the author, IS copyrighted... unless explicitly being put in the public domain by its author. Including your favorite Linux distro, and files released under CC and similar licenses. Including the home video you took and uploaded to RS & Co. for your friends. Add or take a few weird exceptions in local copyright laws depending on your country, but that's essentially what the Berne Convention says. So, what's wrong with copyrighted files anyway? It's not the copyright status of the file that matters, it's the permission (or lack of permission) of the copyright owner that does. And this is something that is impossible to query automatically, even for RS, because there's no global database of permissions. Just because a file is copyrighted, and most of them are, doesn't mean it must be excluded by file hosters.

RapidFire

[scurvyj]

RapidShare, SHOOTS BACK, PUNK

WTF are you babbling on about?

[rts008]

Under your "Copyright Should Be Abolished" system ...

I would appreciate you not lying about what I wrote and then forming an attack on me based on your own lies.

I NEVER said anything about abolishing copyright.
What I wrote was:

While I support the original intent of both copyright and patent laws, I also think both have exceeded their bounds, and need reform.

That's a simple copy-paste directly from my comment. Go back and re-read my comment, it's still there in all its original, unadulterated /. clarity.

For that matter, I have three written works that have been published commercially I still own the copyright to, and have turned over to public domain with no restrictions.
I got paid for all three at the time they were published. (not much pay, but I was satisfied-I was more interested in getting the knowledge out to be put to use with two of the works, and the third was strictly for the entertainment value)

So from now on, keep your lies to yourself. Maybe you should go back to school and learn some reading comprehension, you seem to need it.

test

[biplsqa]

testing