RapidShare Within Legal Limits, But Now Has to Monitor Links

That's no victory, not even a small one. All that does is give added length to the noose that's already been wrapped around there necks. You'd think with all the money these shady "file-sharing" services are offering, whether profiting off illegal content or not, that they'd find some common ground and bind together to lobby governments Internationally. I mean even organized crime finally came to there senses that a politician is worth the extra cost for the benefits you get in return.

because they aren't criminal and don't see the need.

here let me pose this to you.

you make, lets say a program, movie, illustration, whatever, and you want to offer it to people
some file share sites offered you part of the ad revenue that you generate for them to you...
yes the practice can be abused for copyrighted content, but should lets say youtube be taken down because it can host a copyrighted movie?

these places comply with dmca laws and take down files, they have to be alerted to it though, and most of the time because the database isn't searchable (legitimately on the sites) you get a harder service to have it taken down.

you have to look at legitimate uses for these services, and think that if its worth protecting movie and music rights, especially with how messed up their business practices are (star wars on the books has never turned a profit, so they dont have to pay percentages, as an example of one)

limited online exploitation laxative
passes every thing right through

Monitoring content for GEMA and book publishers? RapidShare should send them a BILL, and then file a lawsuit for "theft of services" if they don't pay - that's what happens in any *other* industry if you expect somebody else to do your job for you...

Illegal content has been getting deleted quickly on rapidshare for years already. I don't see how this is any different.

passes every thing right through

Regardless of one's opinion, was there really good reason to make a new Tom's account just to say that? Besides that, it's Rapidshare's job to make sure that their own services aren't used for illegal purposes. I wouldn't hold them responsible for the illegal actions of others abusing their services, but I would hold them responsible for not taking action to prevent the illegal use of their services. If they can't keep illegal usage of their services down, then they shouldn't be allowed to provide their services. It seems that Rapidshare is able to do their job properly, so I won't complain about them. Rapidshare also has high download speeds even for free users, so I like them a lot more than most of the other file sharing sites I've used.

It definitely isn't the publisher's job to look through Rapidshare's servers for illegal content and they shouldn't be penalized for it through bills or lawsuits either. Sure, they're probably all greedy trash, but that doesn't mean the law shouldn't be upheld, nor does it mean that they should be penalized for something that actually isn't their doing. Penalize them for what really is their wrong doing, such as collusion, anti-competitive business practices, and other such offenses they have committed.

So, if you want to put questionable content on rapidshare, archive it in 7zip format, because more than likely their algorithms can't scan that type of compressed file automatically. I know that I have never encountered an email scanner that can scan 7zip, including Intel.
I had an Intel instructor at my college, it was a programming class (x86 assembly FTW), and I needed to turn in an exe to his work email. 7zipped it no problem but anything else and it was blocked.

Most warez on file sharing sites is encrypted with random names. Only the members of the warez groups know what it is and the correct encryption key.

Will they block content they can not check ?

If not, password protected ZIP files or a TryCrypt file will solve the problem.

Sure, but at least that way they can't be held accountable for it because it's not there fault. When there's a 3GB .avi file called "Live_Free_Or_Die_Hard" on rapidshare.com, then there's a problem. If there's an encrypted .7zip file called tghtht on rapidshare.com, it really isn't their fault so much anymore because they can't know what it is. They could also simply change the file extension and name and it probably wouldn't be caught.

Not that that condones the actions of the uploader, but that does seem to make it no longer the problem of the data hosting service provider.

people on rapidshare calls things lime "Microsoft windows 7 OEM FUll.rar" they deserve to have there asses taken, not many if any really obscure the file names

I fully agree. If they want to distribute illegal copies, well that's obviously illegal. However, if they're gonna be stupid about it, more power to them and I'll laugh if they're caught.