Megaupload Shutdown: Should RapidShare and Dropbox Worry?

An anonymous reader sends in an article discussing whether other commonly used file storage sites are in danger of being shut down now that Megaupload has been closed. Quoting: "In the wake of the crackdown on the file-sharing website Megaupload, sites offering free content-sharing, file linking and digital locker services, such as RapidShare, SoundCloud and Dropbox, could be next in the crosshair of anti-piracy authorities. ... RapidShare and MediaFire are two of the biggest services left after Megaupload's exit. However, these sites have undergone a revamp, and now ... no longer host pirated content that could lead to a permanent ban. Others in the line of fire are DropBox, iCloud and Amazon S3, which support hosting any file a user uploads. Though their intention of supporting open file-sharing is legitimate, there is really no control over the type of content being uploaded."

Comments

Yes

[tehlinux]

Yes they should.

Re:Yes

[FreeCoder]

You're correct, and there's big difference between RapidShare and the likes of Dropbox. MegaUpload, RapidShare etc is clearly profiting from copyrighted content. They pay users to upload popular files, and in 99% of cases it is pirated content. In turn they profit when users want to access those files. It's a huge "industry", and there will most likely be many more arrests when the list of affiliates that directly made money by uploading copyrighted content without permission goes public.

Dropbox doesn't have any such incentive for users, and they're free to download from. It's the uploader that pays for file upload space just like with web hosting, and he (nor Dropbox) cannot make money by uploading pirated content.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

The standard created by the grokster SCOTUS case rest upon if they are "inducing" users to infringe copyright. I think that rapidshare and megaupload clearly fit that standard based upon their business models but dropbox does not.

Probably not

[Zeikcied]

Not unless they're paying users for posting popular pirated content like Megaupload was.

Paying pirates for pirating stuff is illegal, and it left MU without the excuse of "We didn't know." At least the other sites, as long as they don't reward pirates, can claim they're doing all they can to keep the site clean.

Re:At least on dropbox

[eldorel]

if they close it I've still got my files locally

Are you certain of that?
If I delete a file from my dropbox folder on my laptop, it gets removed on my desktop.

What happens is someone with access to the dropbox server deletes a file?

Online "backup" services ARE NOT A VALID REPLACEMENT LOCAL BACKUP PROCEDURES.

They are for convenience and additional protection only.

Re:At least on dropbox

[Canazza]

It's not a backup solution. It's a Sync tool. Like SVN. If they took the servers down tomorrow drop box wouldn't get the latest list of files and wouldn't change the data on your pc.

Re:At least on dropbox

[eldorel]

While both you and I are aware of that, there are many people who are mislead into believing that dropbox is a backup service.

Heck, go look at their sales pitch.

"Dropbox - Secure backup, sync and sharing made easy"

This is plastered all over their web site, advertising, and over a million linked sites

And you are probably correct, if they took the server down no data would be deleted.
That would be why I specifically asked about the data being deleted.

However, consider what would happen if someone disconnected the front end web farm from the storage system during a federal seizure. Also, what about catastrophic failure at the datacenter?

Are we certain that the dropbox servers wouldn't assume that there was no data for a little while?
I haven't seen the code, so we can only hope that the system is properly designed.

Or, we can do exactly what I said in the original post, and KEEP LOCAL BACKUPS.