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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."
I am not sure about Rapidshare and others, but I think that Dropbox has not a lot to fear. I guess most people (including myself) only use it primarily as a backup service or to synchronize stuff between computers, occasionally to share things with friends and even rarer to share things with the general population (using the Public folder). Of course this could be used to share movies with friends, but this is not much different than sharing them via USB stick. Using it to share illegal stuff with the general public could be done (it has been tried in the past), but this is easily detected and people caught are likely expelled from the service. This can not be done for anonymous services like Megaupload or Rapidshare. Dropbox is thus largely used for innocent activity (as seen by the RIAA/MPAA), while in case of Megaupload it was the contrary (mostly illegal stuff and the occasional innocent use).
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
Uh... I don't support the core idea of SOPA at all. Because the core idea there is this: Lets make new laws to cover events we've already got laws to handle, but this one lets us do it with less abuse prevention baked in.
The core idea is not to make society better by reducing the harm done by piracy. Because the harm done by piracy is ... pretty fucking close to zero. The media companies have ... really only themselves and that crazy competition nonsense to blame. The amount of available media is so staggering and is growing so much that nobody is going to be buying a notable percentage of it. There are those who just won't buy, can't buy, and those who can't buy everything they have. Those who won't, won't even when there isn't anything to pirate. Those who can't, won't even when there isn't anything to pirate. And those who can't buy everything, still won't be buying the things they weren't buying. New media will come out and they'll go after the new stuff, not the older releases that didn't make the cut before.
The harm done by rampant unchecked government is staggeringly high (hyperbole, it works both ways). First, its expensive. Second, if politicians wanted to make society better, they'd get the boot heel off everybody's throat. Cure is worse than the disease. Piracy is just a fact of internet life. Like shoplifting is a fact of retail life. We don't have laws letting police go bashing in doors of shoplifters just because some twit says 'yep, that's the guy. ..Maybe. We don't need due process for this, right guys?' Shoplifting is more damaging than piracy. Yet we get laws that are far more aggressive against piracy than shoplifting..