How RapidShare Plans To Avoid MegaUpload's Fate

concealment writes "On November 27, RapidShare will start putting a tight cap on outbound downloads for its free users. Paid members will still have 30 gigabytes in outbound downloads per day, but everybody else will be capped at one gigabyte. The change is expected to further deter pirates from using RapidShare to distribute copyright material on a large scale."

Comments

This sounds like a money grab

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would this reduce piracy more than it would reduce legitimate uses?

Re:This sounds like a money grab

[kontos]

Probably wont, but it is win/win. They can "do something" about the pirates, and get a bump in revenue from the few pirates that will pay for an account to get around the restrictions.

Re:This sounds like a money grab

[leromarinvit]

This explanation is incomplete, of course, since presumably the uploader is also on the hook for copyright violation, and you have to register an account to upload anything (I think), but there are few uploaders and many downloaders, so the explanation above could still work on average.

Who registers accounts with real personal data?

This post brought to you by Mr. Jesus Christ, Downing Street 10, Washington DC, Russia.

Re:This sounds like a money grab

[Frosty Piss]

Who registers accounts with real personal data?

I *always* do, it's a matter of principle.

I know what you're thinking - YES, high school (and Jr. High for that matter) was a bitch for me, what with "Hey PISS this and PISS that..."

All I can say is that it made me a better person with thicker skin. This helped when I joined the military - Recruit PISS, Airman PISS, and finally, Sgt PISS...

But I used the GI Bill to get ahead, and all you asshats can now call me Professor PISS, if you want t decent grade. To my cook and maid and gardener, I'm Mr. PISS.

But my friends just call me Frosty P...

And I *NEVER* misrepresent my bona fides on line. Never.

Re:This sounds like a money grab

[bfandreas]

It might be a money grab. But riddle me this, holy Antisharkspray.
Legit services will do this to you:

Steam will cut you off of your sizeable and paid for and possibly extensive games library simply for moving into another region.
Amazon will cut you off of your whole Kindle library simply for moving into another region.

This is not even for real but only contractual law since publishing rights still honour the outmoded notion of country borders.
Would you accept if you were to move to Europe to forfeit everything you ever bought on Kindle, Steam, or any other sevice?

Copyright stuff has moved beyond the usual 100 years after creator's death + Disney shenanigans into the crazy realm of publishing rights into however the world got carved up into publishing rights areas.

I for one have deDRMed my whole Kindle-bought Batman collection just in case I might want to move away and if I put it onto Rapidshare just to protect my investment then it shouldn't be viewed as outlawnessnessitude but a failure of copyright law. Took me a whole weekend. Which in turn made me realise I spend too much on Batman.
Also, Batman.
Copyrightpublisherlaw shouldn't stand a chance of a snowball in hell but it instead thrives like The Penguin in Nomansland. How come?
Comply?
COMPLY!

Sorry, try as I might, the pirates offer the better service.

While I deDRMed my Batman collection I went on search for my favourite childhood radio show. Amazon had an offer for the first 4 shows of 40. The second episode cost 30€ from "affiliiates". Nada, zip, zilch for the next 36 episodes. So I went for another online shop. Same misery, less cutthroat. 36 episodes not published. And even if they were, it still would have been 10€ per episode. Pay 400€ for stuff I recorded from radio to tape as a kid? I could afford that but guess who took to Teh Mighty Internets to torrent that stuff from kids who managed to have backups of their old tapes? Worse even still, the originals got lost and they tried to restore it from amateurs who still had recordings in their attic.


Current copyright reality is worse than the fire in the Library of Alexandria. Copy that floppy and shoot a lawyer.

I beg of you, just because somebody carved up the world into publishing areas and only stuff that will offer short term yield will get archived(read: put into the back catalogue) copy the hell out of that stuff. Future generations will thank you.

Re:This sounds like a money grab

[jovius]

Incidentally by the way, at the modern Library of Alexandria resides the mirror of the Internet Archive.

You are not alone in commenting about the service. Valve's Gabe Newell has said "In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem."

Re:This sounds like a money grab

[Solandri]

Steam will cut you off of your sizeable and paid for and possibly extensive games library simply for moving into another region.
Amazon will cut you off of your whole Kindle library simply for moving into another region.

It gets worse than that. I was on vacation in Germany last month, and had a couple extra hours to kill at the hotel one night. So I fired up my Amazon Prime account to watch some movies on Amazon instant video. Not authorized in the area. Same with Netflix and Hulu.

I had to run an SSH proxy through one of my web hosting servers to trick these services into thinking I was still in the U.S., but very few people know how to and have the resources to do that. This whole anachronistic distribution and publishing rights by region has got to die. I try to be a legit customer, paying for my movies and music. But if this is what's going to happen, I'm ripping everything I buy and making my own copies regardless of what silly laws they get passed. If I can't bypass the DRM, I'm downloading the pirated version of my legitimately bought media.

Who cares?

[leromarinvit]

Please wait 1 minute to read this comment.

Not paranoid enough

[poity]

Since they can probably:
1. Locate the retail card reseller from the account number
2. Cross-reference security video with receipt time stamp
3. Look up your license plate number or enhance your face

So make sure you walk or ride your bike, and maybe wear a fake mustache. In the future, all mustachioed cyclists will be suspected of piracy.