Dropbox's New Policy of Scanning Files For DMCA Issues

Advocatus Diaboli (1627651) writes "This weekend a small corner of the Internet exploded with concern that Dropbox was going too far, actually scanning users' private and directly peer-shared files for potential copyright issues. What's actually going on is a little more complicated than that, but shows that sharing a file on Dropbox isn't always the same as sharing that file directly from your hard drive over something like e-mail or instant messenger. The whole kerfuffle started yesterday evening, when one Darrell Whitelaw tweeted a picture of an error he received when trying to share a link to a Dropbox file with a friend via IM. The Dropbox web page warned him and his friend that 'certain files in this folder can't be shared due to a takedown request in accordance with the DMCA.'"

Comments

Re:Drop box .... Meh!

[Alioth]

> Viola!

I fail to understand what a stringed instrument, slightly larger than a violin, has to do with it...

Re:Later Dropbox!

[MightyYar]

And then mail it to your friends and colleagues? Might slow things down a bit, but it makes me feel nostalgic. Just today I considered faxing something, just for the pure walk down memory lane. Beeep. Beeep. Beeep. X-FER FAIL.

Cue the raging content copiers

[GodfatherofSoul]

"Waaah, someone won't let us share another person's products I torrented for free! Now I have to find another free site to find stolen binaries! DropBox is the Man!"