Rapidshare tells world+dog: Stop PIRACY now!

"small independent film-makers (without powerful and expensive lawyers) must spend their time playing whack-a-mole, filing takedowns "

Why ? A torrent download isn't a lost viewing (they probably wouldn't have gone to see it anyway). What it will do is generate merchandise sales.

It's the same as music and any other pre-digital industry; the incumbents needs to go DRM-free and pay-once, ASAP, or loose out, like they did when Amazon started selling MP3.

I'm impressed, really

I mean, it takes a fully-matured politician (or a lawyer for THE Rapidshare, not rippedshare, or rapidshear, or other such clones), to say:

"we're reinforcing our efforts to eradicate it"

- and not twitch a single muscle in his face

This one beats ALL other quotes of this week for me. This week, last week... I guess the Register should run a best quote of the year competition.

ok, maybe the google quote on the "can't bother to search our employees' emails" might give it a close shave...

It doesn't matter what Rapidshare want

They have absolutely no way of preventing a general file upload / download service being used for piracy.

They could scan file names and pirates would pick random ones.

They could look for audio / video data matching particular fingerprints and pirates will just zip up the content.

They could unzip the content to scan it and pirates would simply encrypt the content with a strong password which they disclose elsewhere such as on a forum.

They could ban encrypted zips but then pirates will start throwing data into other seemingly innocuous container formats.

They could monitor referrer links but pirates would start redirecting download links through seemingly innocuous thirdparty sites.

They could monitor downloader's IP addresses at which point they start using Tor or other anonymizing services.

It's an arms race. There is absolutely no way Rapidshare can police or prevent all but the crudest forms of piracy. They can include a "report this link", they can flag content which is suspicious, they can facilitate legitimate takedown notices but there isn't much else they could do without annoying their legit customers or hurting their own service.

I wonder if the answer isn't to know more about the data but to know less. To require all uploads to be encrypted and to give all uploads incomprehensible names. Then they can respond to takedowns as they come in but they are not in a position of having to police the content because they have no idea what it is. They're basically carriers.

Pathetic

After years of knowingly allowing users to share pirated content, only now after fears that they might be in legal jeopardy, do they pretend to take the higher ground only wanting to create terms that hurt their competition still offering pirated content.

A simple mind could think, they are trying to be noble and law abiding, but the rest of us know the truth. They're just selfish bastards like the rest of us but arrogant enough to write about it as if they're fooling everyone.

Of course, they won't propose the real solution to piracy, aka registering the IP of all uploaders and handing it over to the copyright holder after he sends the takedown notice. "we 've taken down the files and here are the IPs of the wrongdoers, dear copyright holder", But shh.... we europeans suffering from delayed releases (compared to the US) don't want that to happen, right?

Cut them off...

Would it not be more prudent to simply block North American users of the service? Move all servers offshore and simply implement a blanket rejection of packets from North America.

The only way I can see lawmakers here in the US actually pushing back against the MAFIAA and protecting other industries' fledgeling business is if they suddenly find these businesses fleeing the United States thus depriving them jobs, economic benefits and innovative services.

a little off point .. however ..

over 11 years ago I had some jerk republish a bunch of my game mod artwork on rapidshare.de bragging on forums how he had put my files up in a "more convenient form" .. I told him on the forums myself to take them down .. he refused .. I sent rapidshare samples of my file dates and they asked their customer/jerk to take them down .. he did not .. I sent another email and they canceled his premium account

a lot more options today of course, but back then rapidshare was one of the few for people to easily share .. I was pleased with their response considering I was in the US and they Germany

these days when people put up large legal game mods .. they use torrents

Ship all pirates off to prison

It will be a good learning experience.