cant agree with acrsn any better.. and i dont understand why ppl here are mixing it with other issues like egypt rev?!, and now what rapidshare is next?
RapidShare "not concerned" about Megaupload takedown While customers of Megaupload, both legitimate and otherwise, try to figure out where to turn next, other file sharing companies are ready to step up to fill in the gaps—at least for legal uses. And RapidShare, the next largest "digital locker" service, claims to be unconcerned about the MegaUpload case's precedent. But the case could have a broad impact on companies that offer storage as part of their services, depending on the outcome. "We're not concerned or scared about the raid," Daniel Raimer, a spokesperson for RapidShare, told Ars in a phone interview. "File hosting itself is a legitimate business." If a manager of a bank got arrested for money laundering, he said, it wouldn't lead to the shut-down of all banks. And he said Microsoft's SkyDrive and other cloud data storage and backup services," from a technical standpoint are doing what we do." In a statement, RapidShare's CEO Alexandra Zwingli enumerated the ways in which RapidShare is different from Megaupload, pointing out first that RapidShare is set up in a much more transparent way than the Mega empire, and under the actual names of its founders. "RapidShare AG was founded in Switzerland and in fact, it was always located at the address given in the company details and was always run under real names without any anonymous intermediate businesses. The radical measures against Megaupload were apparently required since the situation there had been totally different." Zwingli said RapidShare is "an absolutely legal service—like Swisscom or YouTube", with services comparable to Dropbox, and doesn't offer a rewards system like Megaupload did for frequently downloaded files. "We act rigidly against copyright infringement," Zwingli asserted, and added that the company has "established a constructive dialogue with politics and society in the United States and in other countries." Raimer said the MegaUpload raid wasn't about file sharing itself, but the alleged criminal actions of the company's staff. "As far as I can tell, the allegations are based on their closed eyes to the pirate scene, and that they financially supported (pirates) and uploaded infringing content themselves. If they turn out to be true, then law enforcement had to go this way." RapidShare has designated a Digital Millennium Copyright Act agent to deal with takedown requests, Raimer said. Frank Kenney, the vice president of global strategy for Ipswitch File Transfer (a company that provides a managed file transfer service for corporate users) and former analyst at Gartner, told Ars that he believes that the Megaupload case will create issues for companies like RapidShare—and anyone else who offers online storage as part of their services. "The question will be," he said, "how on the hook are these companies because they don't look at what their customers upload or download?" He said that the impact of the Megaupload case may be further reaching than SOPA and PIPA may have been if they had been enacted. While sites such as RapidShare and FileServe offer unlimited storage and high-speed downloads, Dropbox and other companies more focused on point-to-point file sharing and synchronization discourage using their services for piracy by charging large premium rates for bigger storage (about $200 a year for 100 gigabytes, and $795 a year for their unlimited "team" account) and by throttling the amount of bandwidth allowed for downloads of files. But Kenney said DropBox and cloud backup services like Carbonite could still find themselves forced to deal with issues over content. Kenney also pointed out that among the alleged pirated content on Megaupload, there were likely significant amounts of corporate content being shared for legitimate reasons that is now lost or exposed by government seizure. Of course, Kenney's company is in a position to benefit from those concerns. Ipswitch's product is intended to replace services like Dropbox for corporate use, by allowing companies to host it themselves and add features like data loss prevention and other safeguards to prevent the accidental leakage of sensitive data by employees. Source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...e-not-concerned-about-megaupload-takedown.ars
A few other sites like Filesonic now have also disabled the sharing of files. The dominoes are falling.
@ acrsn very good article indeed, thanks.. one far reaching consequence of this ill-considered closure by the american gvt would seem to be that users will have to think twice about storing their own, legal data in the cloud, since this closure simply proves, that they are just not safe there. it is not just megaupload, filesonic is no longer usefull either. more will follow.. here in holland we have an old saying; the rats are leaving the sinking ship. for years now, the big companies have been encouraging storage in the cloud, and they would prefer us to have our os and software from there too.. [ i have always been distrustfull of this attitude, and this closure goes a long way in proving me right.] if all users will see the light in this, then maybe the copyright tentacle is tearing at the big company tentacle of the very same octopus now...... regards, nodnar
How the US government interacts to the world: A personal opinion (Yen). (I have discussed that a lot and I am not alone here who is thinking like that). The aggressor US government has exaggerated it again. It’s typical for the US government to go for their own interests no matter what happens to others. The US government is known to start wars (USA has started most of the wars since they exist). The official reason therefore is always to fight international theorism to fight threats (chemical weapons which never existed in the Iraq). The real reasons are : They want to strengthen their economical power, because they still want to be number one (btw: they aren’t it anymore a long time ago already). To start a war boosts the arm industry and even more exiting is to attack a country which has oil reserves. But this time they have shut down megaupload. Their motives are exactly the same. To ‘protect’ and strengthen their economical interests at any costs. So here came the US world police. Playing the judge of the world. Telling us all what is wrong and what is right. They don’t care about national laws. They don’t care about legal upload contents. It is absolutely unbelievable that one ‘government’ can affect the entire world. And it is ALWAYS the US that plays the big boss. The US government is not my government, but they affect me whilst restricting my interests. Not only illegal contents (btw what is illegal in the US must not be illegal where I live), it are legal contents as well. I wanted to download projects (cooked Android ROMS). And they are gone as well. I do not tolerate that the US government is affecting me. Sadly what I think about the US government as been proven true again. US world police. Respecting other’s rights: No chance! Imperialistic fuss, they do anything to support their economy. M$ is doing exactly the same. The US should recognize that they are not alone in the world. It is no coincidence that US is target number one to become attacked. (Some did it with the FBI already) US government, leave me alone! It cannot be that ONE particular government has the ability to seize a domain which is somewhere else. This is sick! If you (the US government) thinks megaupload is illegal then block it for the USA as the Chinese restrict their people! But then don’t call you to be a democracy anymore!
hi yen! gratifying to have your opinion here too.. no surprises 4 me, just maybe a bit overdue? the trouble with the octopus having an arms industry, [ the revolving door..] is that the arms have to be comsumed, just like apple phones or M$ windose.. so every now and then they have to start a nice little war to achieve this noble goal, and never mind te consequences.. but what they are doing here, in closing down megaupload, may well backfire on their own interest, i hope. who is going to have his os on the cloud, when they can close it down as they please, so that your machine finds itself without os, all off a sudden, i wonder?? regards, nodnar.
I think the people who are panicking are the ones who have something else to hide besides the file sharing issue and copyrights. Places like Fileserve and Filejungle are all US, or maybe just the ip , and I don't see them panicking.
A side note: The "citizen's united" decision in the U.S. supreme court has allowed corporations to be seen as people. In short what this has allowed is for corporations to give unlimited political campaign contributions to the political candidate that is sympathetic to their corporate bottom line. The will of the American electorate is no longer being represented. The U.S. is for sale to the highest bidder. This is a whole other topic but is at the core of how this came about. I am not sympathetic to the U.S. government but IMHO the corporations from around the world are paying for the U.S. government to be world police.
Another side note to my side note in Post #65. It is important for those tempted to put the people of the U.S. in the same category as it's government to step back and rethink this. The influence peddler's (corporations) of the world would like to be able to manipulate you in this way. Please don't be fooled. The U.S. is losing it's democracy fast. This is a high stakes chess match. Peace