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RapidShare Urges US To Punish Linking Sites and Not File-Sharing Sites
hypnosec writes "RapidShare has said that the U.S. government should crack down on linking sites rather than punishing file-sharing sites and strangling innovation. The file-sharing site is understandably a little worried about the recent crackdowns on sites involved in or found to be promoting piracy. Daniel Raimer, RapidShare's Chief Legal Officer, is to meet with technology leaders and law enforcement at the Technology Policy Institute forum. Responding to a public consultation on the future of U.S. IP enforcement, the company emphasized that linking sites are the real problem. It wrote, 'Rather than enacting legislation that could stifle innovation in the cloud, the U.S. government should crack down on this critical part of the online piracy network.'"
The problem with cracking down on "linking sites" is that it's way to broad. When you start attacking sites that provide users a collection of links, you're effectively attacking the basis of every web site on the Internet. It will no longer be safe to provide links. Further, it will undermine search. What is google but a collection of links?
How about we don't go after file sharing or linking sites and instead go after the RIAA and MPAA for buying our politicians and extorting money out of people by their frivolous lawsuits. I buy my content, but when they go after the basic foundation of the Internet, it makes me rethink that. No revenue means no buying politicians.
I doubt anybody would punish linking somewhere without punishing outright sharing too.
The problem isn't that I'm offering fake Rolexes for sale, it's that some law breaker is telling people about it!
It is hard to go after the linking sites, they are way too much. The storage sites are just a few, and is easy to go after them.
Shouldnt they actually go for the uploader and not hosting company or the ones that link? Ahh going for uploaders would hurts their business, so they would rather have the authorities going for the ones that link.
"Rather than enacting legislation that could stifle innovation in the cloud, the U.S. government should crack down on this critical part of the online piracy network.'"
I guess that's Newspeak for "Do it to Julia, don't do it to me, do it to her!"
But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
As the first poster mentioned, it's not a crime. I can even link to a criminal site if I want, with the link saying "Look! Here's a criminal site! The bastards!"
If they start regulating what you can link to, the internet is doomed. Don't go there.
Besides, at least in the U.S., free speech is very much an issue when it comes to links.
The "problem" isn't file sharing. That's legal. It's not linking. It's legal. What's against the law
are violations of the law (e.g. copyright).
HOWEVER, in saying "don't come after us, go after linking sites" rapidshare has thrown the
babies to the wolves in hopes that they can evade a similar fate.
Rapidshare, for that, deserves to die. Linking sites and sharing sites are legal. The US Federal
government and its ICE dogs will sooner or later be brought to task. (Rojadirecta probably).
We'll still remember that Rapidshare threw everyone else to the dogs.
E
Your post advocates a
( ) technical ( ) legislative (X) government ( ) market-based (X) finger-pointing (X) political
approach to fighting illegal file-sharing over the Internet. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws.)
(X) There is no centralized authority that will force people to carry out your plan
(X) Your plan is incomplete or contains too much "needs to be further discussed." phrases
(X) Requires a consensus on whether a problem actually exists
(X) Requires a consensus on the definition of where the problem lies
(X) No one can agree on the definition of the problem
(X) Proposal is philosophically inconsistent in mulple places
(X) Computers and frequently people can't tell if a copyrighted item is being hosted legally or not
(X) The item at the end of a link can change over time
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
(X) Existing court decisions protecting the very activity you want to restrict
(X) Scalability
(X) Extreme opportunity for mischief when abused
(X) Technically illiterate politicians
(X) Stupidity on the part of some people who do business over the Internet
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(X) A near-consensus that the activity you want to restrict should not be restricted
(X) Many people download illegally because it is not feasable to obtain content otherwise
(X) If file-sharing ended tomorrow and everything else remained the same, gross revenue wouldn't increase all that much
(X) Is this really the purpose of government?
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(X) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
Looking forward to similar posts by others who can do "funny" better than I can.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You say that they should go after the uploaders. That sounds like a good principle (in fact, I favor this approach - although in my view rapidshare would not be an innocent bystander either).
There's just one problem with what you are suggesting - how do you suggest they go after the uploaders?
Have you ever sent an e-mail to rapidshare asking for information on the user who uploaded a file? Did you get that information? Were you able to use that information to get additional information required for legal action from the ISP? Were you then able to successfully bring forth legal action against the person?
Note that at every single question mark above, there are at least a dozen reasons why you would be answering 'no', and half a dozen more from privacy advocates who would rather that the above were, in fact, impossible - from strong defenses to weak ones. Just think of the very last one.. have you seen the discussion here since, well, forever, that a subscriber is not necessarily the person actually uploading? Could be somebody else in the household or maybe the WiFi was hacked.
So how, exactly, would you suggest that they actually go after the uploaders?
Though you are right that it might hurt their business - seeing as every single case against an actual uploader that's been covered here has resulted in very, very negative comments on the action.
It seems the only acceptable response to many is to do nothing. Let piracy happen. Or offer better alternatives (and accept that piracy will still happen because it'll never be 'better' enough for everybody.)
But in the interim, I would guess that targeting the hosting sites AND major indexing sites is at least the most efficient, even if the effect of doing this lasts at most a week (at which point pretty much everybody using the site will know of the alternatives to go to).
OKAY EVERYONE, we just all need to stand in a big circle and each blame the person to your immediate right.
Cops, please follow the chain of blame until you reach the end and find your culprit.
It's the guy who posted the file! No, it's the guy providing hosting for the guy who posted the file! No, it's the blogger who posted the link to the file! No, it's the guy who reblogged the link! No, it's the guy who aggregates blog links! No, it's the guy who wrote a Google custom search which spiders links from those link aggregators! No, it's the guy who figured out that math can be used to obfuscate the "original source" of a data leak! No, it's the guy who came up with a distributed data storage model based on it! No, it's the guy who figured out that the Streisand Effect applies to every piece of published data! No, it's Barbra Streisand herself!
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
The problem is not the file-sharing sites nor the linking sites: it's copyright law.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
that they went after Rapidshare instead of Megaupload.
Only a united front can beat back the MAFIAA. Winston Churchill's statement on appeasement seems apropos here: "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last".
Real world examples never seem to translate well online and that one was terrible. It would be more like a fake Rolex in a pile of absolutely everything in a giant bin.
Almost impossible to find by itself, but if someone attached a string to it and told you to pull...
RapidShare, MegaUpload, Demonoid, etc all provide competition to the distribution monopoly of the RIAA members. That's their real problem. It isn't about piracy. The RIAA member/cartel are more worried about artists deciding that the middlemen are no longer necessary.
As long as the RIAA has their way, it will be impossible to operate a file locker/linking service without being arbitrarily shutdown by the "piracy" boogeyman. That's what they want, and right now they're the ones writing the laws.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
much bigger problem.
Sir, I would mod you insightful if I weren't absolutely disgusted by the undercurrent of truth in your words.
As it is, I cannot be positive towards the truth you have unfolded as it would require re-examining my own responsibilities as a potential file-sharer, as well as giving some in-depth thought to more than just a few current business models.
I think this pretty much sums it up. http://i35.tinypic.com/o9mtf4.jpg
Yup, why fix the problem when you can fix the blame? It's certainly cheaper to do that than it is to come up with some kind of solution, in this case, fixing the goddamned copyright laws or something.
Course, I could be wrong. And severely caffiene-lacking...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Almost impossible to find? Really? Let me introduce you to this new way of finding things on the internet called a Search Engine.
No, the Rolex example was spot-on. If my non-tech-savvy folks can find illegally shared stuff online in less than fifteen minutes, anyone can do it.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Quit thinking about business models, and start thinking about models for society and for culture. A world full of piracy may be a shitty place to try and make money as a publisher, but it's a marvelous place to grow up as a child with a love of music or film or literature. No one has ever said that publishing has to be a profitable business in order for a market or a society to thrive, except for publishers.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Everybody is making jokes when the simple fact is just like the VCR there are plenty of non copyright uses for these sites. lets take myself for example, i have used sites like Rapidshare to send some of my own musical works to someone halfway across the planet so they could load it up and add their own tracks, I've used them to send .reg files for basic fixes like the PITA "Windows no sound device even though the drive is installed" bug, used them to store zip files of family photos so I can send them across the country to distant relatives, plenty of things other than the latest Titney Spears you can use these sites for.
In the end it shouldn't be their job to have to constantly go through everyone's stuff to make the *.A.A happy, we've already seen that doesn't work as you can simply change the name of the files and you are back to square one. No they should be treated no different than Google who takes things down when they get a request. Problem is the *.A.As are lazy bastards and want to pass all the expense to everyone else and they have no problem with bribing officials to write the laws to let them pass on the expense.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I've never seen any evidence of RapidShare actively encouraging pirating (unlike MegaUpload, who offered cash incentives to prolific pirates)
This is historical revisionism. RS had a reward program like every other host did, they were just the first to give it up because they were on the legal battlefield first and saw which way the wind was blowing.
Pointing to MU as the exemplar of "pay to upload" hosts is always a clear sign of someone with very little personal filehost experience. MU was one of the choices avoided by uploaders with a focus on making money, because it was way too hard to get paid using them.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
I distinctly remember reading allegedly leaked emails in which MegaUpload staff discussed selecting specific uploaders to offer financial incentives to upload more, and it was alleged that they knew full well that these uploaders were not quite legit. This is what made MegaUpload the easy target for the copyright litigation lobby. NOT that they're sharing profits, but that they (allegedly) were knowingly and actively complicit in the sharing of infringing goods. If this is proven wrong, fine. But the allegation is that MegaUpload went beyond other hosts.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'