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Filesonic Removes Ability To Share Files
Ihmhi writes "In the wake of the Megaupload takedown, Filesonic has elected to take preventative measures against a similar fate. The front page and all files now carry the following message: 'All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.' Whether or not this will actually deter the U.S. government from taking action remains to be seen."
Filesonic becomes useless.
US government requires written permission for moving files on your desktop.
The sharing scene for the music I listen to mainly transitioned from P2P networks or Bittorrent sites to indexes of Megaupload/Rapidshare/whatever uploads. The advantages cited were the inability to track IPs and more dependability since one didn't have to wait around for seeders. These recent developments might be enough to send people back to Bittorrent, especially as legal challenges have not sufficed to bring down The Pirate Bay, let alone some of the (IMHO more useful) lesser known torrent communities.
If things go back to Bittorrent, remember that the community depends to a degree on you, so please seed.
This is the new thing. Make a shit ton of money from customers (advertisers, publishers), and after you've hit your goal, close down and never pay anyone or refund any of the advertising money. Etology (of etology.com) did the same thing about 5 months ago - stole advertisers money and essentially stole money that publishers were owed (for displaying their ads). Megaupload cut off their affiliate program and didn't pay anyone out some time ago. Rapidshare.com went through 5 different version of billing and affiliate methods a couple of years ago - in the end, screwing everyone in the same way rapidshare.de did a year or two earlier. The only company that I've dealt with that has actually paid out what they owed, after cutting off their affiliate program, was Wupload.
Why would anyone ever have to "share" backup files with anyone else.
I predict, within a week filestube and the like will be utterly useless and this facade (of legal file sharing)will be completely stopped just like Napster was.
If these sites can be shut down with lawsuits now, why do we need SOPA and PIPA?
I'm not anti-social, I'm anti-idiot.
Basically, they're now competing with the free services of Dropbox, iCloud, Box, SpiderOak, et al, and are charging money for it.
Great business plan.
Trolling is a art,
Why would anyone ever have to "share" backup files with anyone else.
Because it was really useful for collaborative projects.
Because it is my freedom to do what the hell I want with *my* files, including backup files.
Bleh, most people don't know about IRC (internet relay chat), many networks (EFnet and Undernet mostly), have mp3 and download xdcc bots, IRC is harder to take down because it comprises of multiple servers and some in other countries.
Ever emailed yourself a 600+MB file?
Megaupload is being taken for a ride in the Party Van and Filesonic has chosen self obliteration, though there is no shortage of competing services. On first glance Wikipedia lists 70+ of the most popular file hosting services.
Some curiosity:In Bulgaria and also most other eastern European countries there used to be a funny practice amongst ISP's:Each internet provider used to have a NAS/LAN server, accessible only to subscribers/customers, loaded with warez, pr0n and movies, in a catalog type of way, year by year. This was way back in 1999- 2005. So You basically see what your monthly fee is, now much Mbps you get up/down, and also what kind of "bonus" warez this particular ISP has to offer, lol! I almost canot believe this was the de facto standard for many years! After some time the laws got changed and the ISPs were forced to quit this practice. But then torrents came in place. So what i am thinking is - we have at least a dozen trackers that are registered/hosted in Switzerland, Netherlands and other locations, like offshore islands or that Transnistria in Russia, where our local Bulgarian/EU laws do not apply. The servers/trackers themselves are configured to answer to requests only from Bulgarian peering IP addresses. So basically those servers remain unseen for the rest of the internet, including authorities, unless you use a Bulgarian proxy. My humble guess is that this kind of "localized" trackers will never go away, also i know for a fact that in Russia they have the same private trackers, DC hubs, and other p2p based ways of sharing warez. Just my 2 cents on this subject - i don't really care about the Filesharing hosts like MegaUpload, WUpload, Hotfile, RapidShare and so on, because they want money, because they have their pages bloated with ads and because of the crappy CAPTCHAs. Yeah.
Voices echo up suburban stairs - "Mommy I will be a little late with your stories tonight"
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
And then some jerkoff will change the password
Jacob Appelbaum spoke about self-censorship at his keynote at LCA2012.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMN2360LM_U
In this case, its a company choosing to censor themselves so the government doesnt have to.
...to the rest of the world: we don't want your business. We don't want any tech companies to set up here. We're going to make this the most hostile nation to internet and technology start ups by bullying anyone who dares defy our notion of imaginary property.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
MediaFire doesn't have such a paid affiliate program AFAIK; they seem less guilty of obnoxious behavior in general.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
and all the other sites that are just massive abuses of the 'good faith' idea.
its one thing to be a neutral admin. but lets compare youtube and wikipedia for a moment.
on wikipedia, if you see copyright violations, you can take them down yourself. or, you can report them to a specialized group on wiki that actually cares about removing copyrighted content that was uploaded without permission of the copyright holder. they also have a system to verify whether or not works have been granted permission, and whether they are in public domain, by a large amount of research done with licensing and legal systems around the world.
now, lets take youtube. its full of people just uploading music albums and putting a still photo as their 'video'. now, the only person who can ever report that as a copyright vio is the artist themselves. nevermind you could probably listen to their music for free on bandcamp or something. . . youtube is not going to provide a link to bandcamp. youtube just does not give a shit.
I have noticed since the crack down more and more people have been taking NAS boxes to LAN parties and sharing files. The reality is I find it easier now to get stuff now than before (download 20 gig per hour on a decent LAN). People will always share stuff especially if they know someone who cant afford it. When I was in college in the 80's we used create our own mix tapes and share them all the time. I did buy music but only stuff I liked and the rest I got was just filler that I deleted after 6 months.
Github's public repositories can of course be used for illegal file sharing, and some infringing material probably exists right now, because it is impractical for the site operator to monitor all uploaded data. However, without such functionality, participating in (or even just forking) an open source project will be much more cumbersome.
Well, an hour spent writing open-source (or other) software is an hour not consuming MAFIAA's stuff, so maybe this is what they actually want...
FileSonic was one of the hosts most beloved by for-profit autoposters, who spam links everywhere they can to rack up rewards payouts for lots of downloads, all while ignoring forum rules and drowning out people who actually want to share with other community members.
I'm not sad to see some of the for-profit whores exit the file sharing scene. Good riddance.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
The great technocratic war is now upon us my brethren! Join with me, & we shall wipe the imperialist scourge from these lands at last!
Bankruptcy!
Everybody - myself included - signed up for file sharing not online storage and if they stop providing this service I want my money back! - As do 99% of their other (former) customers so that will put a massive dent in their finances... probably fatally massive.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
...compromised instantly and used to send out e-mail regarding viagra, sure, use FTP.
SFTP. Learn it. Love it. Or the Internet will make you curl up into the fetal position.
RIA, MPAA, and related vicious companies have won. They've created fear that they can do whatever they want without any problem WORLDWIDE.
Does anyone know how to kill them?
...before the US government as the prolonged arm of the "content industry" ( what a hateful word, by the way ! ) is not a solution. Cowering before any government never is. Never.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
I am slightly confused. I actually have a 3 months subscription there as I use it every now and then, and don't really want to work under the restrictions for non-registered users. Now that Filesonic basically removed a good portion of their functionality, does this entitle me to a refund of some kind? Then again, I probably won't lose any sleep over those few Euros I paid.
Yes, we need a Stop Our Politicians Act.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
The injuries claimed by the R/MAFIAA that drive these things are NOT the result of theft. They're not being harmed nearly as much by this as they claim, many people share because they prefer not to be burned to the tune of 20-30 dollars when someone puts out a CD with two or three great songs (that they play the shit out of on radio) and about 10 tracks of pure, unlistenable shit. After you've paid 100+ dollars for several CD's and get maybe 20 minutes of music you like, and garbage you wouldn't tie your worst enemy down and make him listen to, you get tired of shelling out the kind of money they demand for nearly nothing.
(I won't bother to rehash the argument that the sales they allege they're losing are from people who either wouldn't or couldn't buy the music they're listening to (or movies their watching, etc.,) anyway, because there's no real objective way to measure this without an observable parallel universe in which they could and would, but decide to download anyway, just for the thrill or spite... but anyway...)
Problem is, years of people getting paid to entertain has given someone the thoroughly incorrect notion that they're ENTITLED to be paid for entertaining, whether or not people think they're entertaining enough to pay to entertain. One way to fight back is to boycott the fuckers, and use, (for example) Jamendo.com, which is free, and you can support artists directly, without RIAA parasites getting the majority of the money, or opt not to, perfectly legally, and enjoy, and often even share the music, free and LEGALLY.
Every time someone buys a CD or a DVD or watches a movie in a theater, he/she is contributing to the war chest which is used to try to reduce people's liberties so that the rich (note, NOT the artists themselves, in most cases) can get obscenely richer.
Once upon a time, this business model made sense. Recording industry execs performed a valuable service of knowing the tastes of the listening public, and vetting would-be recording stars by whether or not people would like what they proposed to record. This function is now completely unnecessary because with the power of the internet, people can rate these things themselves, and don't need someone else to vet. Case in point, (and no, I'm not affiliated with, or employed by Jamendo) Jamendo.com ranks albums, etc., they make available for free under various types of Creative Commons licenses, by their popularity, so you can actually see what everyone else is listening to WITHOUT, let me stress this, WITHOUT recording "industry" executive parasites' input or interference.
They are slowly realizing WE DON'T NEED THEM ANYMORE, and that is what they're REALLY scared of. It's not that theft hurts their bottom line, it's that we, the PEOPLE deciding what we like, and not needing their input anymore making their jobs unnecessary and redundant, that makes them want to frighten the people into continuing with the old paradigm, in which they continue to get paid their ridiculous salaries, continue to have musicians suck their dicks and kiss their asses, and be treated generally like their hot shit, when in fact their NOT shit. On the contrary, they're like the human appendix, and music today needs a fucking appendectomy.
'Nuff sed.
From the other side of the world, it is appalling how copyright law likes to screw everything over the entire globe.
Here in Australia, there is only one main source of multimedia online - iTunes. And it has a limited selection compared to the US version, and massive markups. What costs you guys 99c-$1.69 costs us $1.69-$2.19 (AUD and USD are practically at parity)
Amazon doesn't work outside the US.
Google Music doesn't work outside the US.
Zune only started in Australia recently - but there are DRM restrictions.
Also, with TV episodes, there is a large delay between US availability and AU availability. At least months difference, and it is still overpriced and DRM locked on iTunes. We can't access iTunes US without a credit card. We aren't allowed to pay for it basically. So what is the easier option? Just download it.
Another common example among friends of mine:
We all love k-pop. But we can't get Korean music in Australian music stores. We can't buy it online from iTunes. We can't set up an account for iTunes Korea. We can't order the CDs online either. So what is the obvious solution? Download it.
As long as the Music/TV/Movie industry make it extremely difficult to pay, there will be a large amount of people who pirate around the world because they aren't given the option to pay for it easily. However if paying for music was easier than downloading, there would be more people paying for music.
In the US, forcing someone to give up encryption codes is generally considered to run afoul of the self-incrimination principle. So once the police ask someone for their codes, which they can do, they lose the ability to convict that person for what they find. So, given the prevailing legal opinion on the matter, and giving the fact that most congressmen and senators are either lawyers or judges or other parts of the legal system, I doubt this will come to pass. Even if it does, the US has precedent, and the self-incrimination thing is established by precedent and is part of the constitution, so it's unlikely judges would play ball.
Add to that that it's not necessary. You can "bait" p2p networks. At some point, no matter the encryption or routing tricks, you have to tell someone you don't know about the content you want. It is prohibitively expensive not to use direct routing once you get past a certain file size (so while tor is useful for downloading hacker texts, it's not useful for movie downloads). How do you know you're not asking an MPAA server ? You don't. 2 or 3 states consider that to be entrapment, but most don't, and that'll be enough.
Of course, most other regions like Europe or China don't consider the self-incrimination thing to be a problem at all. Nor do they consider forcing Americans in their jurisdictions to give up codes even the slightest bit objectionable (you don't have the right to private encryption anywhere in Europe, and let's just shut up about China and the rest).
Is that link safe? What's an Octet Stream that it wants me to download?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
FileSonic is the most extreme, but other sites have started mass-banning, mass-deletion, and other measures to combat piracy on their systems.
I think it's too late for them, if there are criminal charges coming... But maybe they think they can get off lighter if they comply before they are asked.
Or maybe they've already been asked.
At any rate, there are major changes taking place, and pirates everywhere are shifting their focus. The last time this happened, torrents were born. As an IT professional, it's going to be interesting to see what pops up to fill this gap. Adversity tends to spur innovation.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Piracy is wrong. While I do have my reservations on whether such file copying should be considered wrong, for now (seeing as it is against the law) and for the purposes of this post, we'll take that as a given.
But the increasing trend of government crack-downs on File Sharing sites is becoming alarming. While it shouldn't be very surprising that sites like MegaUpload get taken down, we have to wonder if the reasoning against them can be used against more "legitimate" sites. After all, not all the traffic on MegaUpload was illegal. And now sites that provide a great deal of honest usability may come under fire.
Let's take DropBox for example. I and a team of computer programmers that I'm working with have been making great use of DropBox. We set it up so our IDE workspaces upload directly to a DropBox folder where our team members can access all our work and import parts into their own, thus we can stay on the same page in our development process, giving each an opportunity to contribute before comparing implementations and finally fine-tuning a final candidate.
Yet we have to ask ourselves, will DropBox come under fire in this wave of government crack-down? And if so, what will become of our files which we have entrusted to DropBox? It's not that I am saying that MegaUpload was innocent, but the prevailing reasoning against them could easily be transfered to any number of file-sharing sites and services which have made a great contribution to the power and effectiveness of the web.
Proponents say that the government must regulate the Internet for the protection of society. Yet can you imagine if that same logic were applied to the "SneakerNet"? I for one do not want the government checking to be sure that everything I am taking over to share with others meets their approval—whether on the Internet or the Sneakernet.
Protection for companies and their legitimate interests is important. But we cannot sacrifice personal freedom in order to do so.
~theCzar
Millions of former MegaUpload and FileSonic customers are looking for new service providers... That's a massive business opportunity for anyone with balls of steel!
Just make sure it's *only* about file sharing, nothing else. The US cannot touch anyone doing just that, but if your business model is more complicated - like MegaUpload - it opens up for bullshit charges of money laundering and racketeering.
Looks like the last of the old great ones are the winner. RapidShare is 'unconcerned' about the MegaUpload case and it's business as usual when it comes to the daily dose of downloadable entertainment from there. They're in Switzerland where the US have extremely few puppets on strings they can pull.
FileServe can only be used to download and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally. If this file belongs to you, please login to download it directly from your file manager.
Who else will follow?
...."Have you mooed today?"...
Movies and music aren't illegal so it's not a good analogy. And alcohol distribution and advertising has actually become WAY more regulated since prohibition ended. You can't rationalize stealing by trying to call it other names or trying to glorify it. It's a product that someone made for a commercial purpose and if you obtain it for free without permission of the maker of that product then you have stolen it. It's just that simple. I don't think that media piracy has hurt the industry as much as it has helped point out the flaws in their business model. But trying to call stealing something else just to rationalize doing it is childish. Own up to the fact that you are stealing someone's product and are a criminal for doing so. Because that's exactly what you are doing and what you are.
Seems that fileserve.com has followed filesonic.com and removed the ability to download shared files! Surely they will loose subscribers en masse now?
Music: http://www.jamendo.com/
Films: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Films
Remember to donate to any artist you really enjoy!
Personally, I would have guessed that the EU would be light years ahead in regards to privacy and encryption keys. Thank you for teaching me something today. :D
News commentators have been asking, if the US government already has the power to shut down websites under existing law, why do we need SOPA and PIPA? It's a very good question to be asking, I think.
This may have been mentioned already, but the text of both SOPA and PIPA say it would be illegal to stream copyrighted material. Creative Commons videos and those licensed under one of the Open Source licenses would fall under this definition. What happens to videos that are copyrighted (or copylefted) where the content creator encourages distribution?
File sharing is, of itself, a legal activity protected by the 1st Amendment. If you own or have rights to use the copyright.
Look on the bright side. The FBI just put a big quash on all that "Everything in the future will be in the cloud" hype. I wonder if "Nothing will be in the cloud because everyone is too afraid to store files on their servers that might be pirated, lest the FBI kick down their doors and throw them in prison" will fit as well on a magazine cover.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
While the position that sharing sites exist for purposes other than "piracy", it's also most of their business like it or not.
Fight against corporate content. Do not want RIAA/MPAA products in the first place. You do not need them.
If no one put their shit on sharing sites, there would be no grounds to prosecute those sites!
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
We still can't obtain a lot of the stuff shared legally. I want to watch the new Underworld movie tonight but I can't because it's not out in any form I can buy.
I refuse to watch movies in a theater, too, but I'm not so arrogant as to use that as an excuse for file sharing.
For the last hour, I've been trying to cancel my FileSonic premium account, which is set to rebill me in a week's time. It is now apparently impossible to do so. Upon filling out the cancellation form with the correct info and clicking "Cancel," all one is presented with is a screen titled "AN ERROR OCCURRED" and the helpful message "application error." One might suspect they've intentionally disabled their cancellation mechanism to stop the mass exodus of users (and therefore money).
Next they'll be going after Nike!
My other account has mod points!
Many more have pulled the plug..Since I only just got sent the summary by /. i would have thought the fact that a dozen other sites have since also called it quits, would have rated a mention..
I was DL'ing a rare world beat LP, of the kind that would have *never* got exposure before these services appeared..
So, of course no, it's not for linux and freeware..and nobody ever really believed it was.. but a line has to be drawn between people sharing (c) rap artists that sell millions, and really aren't hard to get legally, and regiional albums that would *never* get world distribution..
Fact is , THAT was one of the most common uses for this, and the main benefit of all this. it was , actually, the best hope for many of these artists, in order to get exposure. Most real musicians aren't going to make any money from their recordings *anyways*.. not with the glut on the market now.. And that world beat album, that I no longer can download? It happens to be my old drummer's.. who had a gold record in South America. Now I'll never hear it.. as *he* (Charlie, my old drummer, who was playing then with with Lord Rhaburn) certainly doesn't have a copy..
As an European, I feel that my right to visit the site is blocked by the FBI. This has such a weird effect on me.
I am not devoid of humor.
You could email your account name, password and file hash to your downloaders.
That guy Anon (password:arrr) will be restoring his online backups a lot more often. And from a lot of ip addresses. And all his works are in the pubic domain.
The real blow is financial - no more payments to the uploaders.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.