Say What?
Wait - you mean Rapidshare can be used for stuff other than downloading pirate software? The wonders never cease
Rapidshare wants to lose its notoriety as a haven for copyright infringement – and become a legitimate cloud service. The cyberlocker’s chief lawyer Daniel Raimer has written a four-page "anti-piracy manifesto" and hopes this will head off stronger laws that will make legitimate takedowns of infringing websites easier. …
"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.
Inides can't really go the Spaceballs route ("Merchadising, merchandising--where the REAL money from the movie is made"), so when the only possible revenue you'll get is from the movie itself, and if your distribution options are ALREADY limited (remember, not a lot of pull), how else do you maximize your return on the movie?
"A torrent download isn't a lost viewing (they probably wouldn't have gone to see it anyway)"
If you want to see it, you want to see it. If it's so bad that you don't want to see it, you don't want to see it. Someone downloading something and saying that you didn't want to see it, but just fancied something to pass the time has always been and continues to be a piss poor argument. It furthermore serves to tell the production companies that people actually do want to see their output, they just don't want to pay.
If you want better entertainment, don't pirate the crappy entertainment because it sends the message to the content producers that people like their stuff, but are just cheapskate.
""A torrent download isn't a lost viewing (they probably wouldn't have gone to see it anyway)"
If you want to see it, you want to see it. If it's so bad that you don't want to see it, you don't want to see it"
Ah, but you can break it down a bit...
"I would pay to see this in the cinema"
"I'll get it as soon as it comes out on DVD for £16, but don't want the cinema experience"
"I'll wait until it drops to a £12 DVD. Can't be bothered to pay more than that."
"I'll wait until it's a £5 DVD. Can't be bothered to pay more than that."
"I'll see if it turns up at a car boot sale or charity shop for 50p while I'm there."
I don't mean trawling car boot sales LOOKING for the movie. I mean the "Oh yeah, that film. 50p? Why not, let's see what this is like." encounter.
I think the studio gets the same money from a second hand sale as from a download.
Downloads can also be used the other way.
"Film X? What's that like - don't want to be bitten again with crap in the cinema. I'll check it out on a telesync download and if it seems good, I'll go to the cinema and see it properly"
Sadly, I don't think even innovation will help here. The market has moved on. Just how you cannot sell Tapes anymore, soon even CDs will be obsolete (sales dived this last quarter).
People do not need or want tapes in a high enough quantity to make it economical to distribute on them. Same could be said about most music now. Perhaps only the smaller bands and media outlets can afford to run a business now?
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...
Agreed about the poker face.
I have noticed that of the remaining cyber lockers that Mediafire has been very busy deleting questionably legal content from its servers, whilst a lot of the content remains mirrored on Rapidshare. If they can hire a lawyer to try and put out a press statement, I would hope that they would follow through in it and give some credibility to their claims.
What will happen, is hardcore infringers will simply form closed communities, requiring a nominal subscription, and then upload the requisite media, chopped up into many pieces - each piece RARed (and maybe encrypted to boot) and then distribute the links to these files in forum postings.
That was what happened BEFORE the days of the Internet--private Bulletin Board Systems with selective member lists (basically, you only got in if someone--usually more than one--already trusted individuals vouched for you). I have a feeling it's still happening today with private forums on "bulletproof" servers (so no one else can peek in) and darknets (small P2P networks open to only a few select nodes).
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.
What if they do traffic analysis? What kinds of legitimate resources could suddenly hammer a site like Rapidshare. I wouldn't think Linux distros would touch Rapidshare since the disto makers can usually host with own content and seed BitTorrents (since they have nothing to hide--all their stuff is legit). Wouldn't a particular file that suddenly gets a lot of hits raise a red flag and warrant a closer inspection?
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?
The miscreants would simply employ proxies and probably offshore mule machines to relay the registration. The US gets the IP and finds it's outside their jurisdiction (and maybe even in a country that isn't too keen on extradition, so even that route's closed). The gubmint loses again.
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.
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
Would that be the same Rapidshare that:
A: When they got their .com domain made it inaccessible to all their original .de domain customers. So they had to set up and fund new accounts to access files on the .com domain
B: Changed their pricing system a year or so ago and introduced a virtual currency called "Rapids" to replace the 'real money' credit people had in their accounts. Existing balances which were sufficient for several months more membership were converted to Rapids which weren't worth the equivalent amount. So people were forced to either buy more Rapids to get back to were they were or [as I did], put it down to experience and look forward to the day when the thieving twats at Rapidshare get their comeuppance.
I guess that puts me in the unusual position of being on the side of "the man" in this one.
rapidshare made all there money along with all other file sharing site that charge, did they complain about all the not to legal stuff on there sites No, not until someone comes along to complain, then sod you mates and all who made us what we are today rich, we will leave you to the wolves, while we go count our money.