File-storage sites like Megaupload, Sendspace, and Rapidshare are the “sharing” tool of choice for those people who don’t feel like throttling their computer’s memory with a BitTorrent client; according to PC World, RapidShare and Megaupload “account for 9 percent of all Internet traffic in the Middle East and 4 percent in Germany,” and traffic to both of those sites has especially gone up over the past year.
I’ve been wondering for a while when third-party hosting services would start feeling the heat that has been turned up on other file-sharing sites–obviously, they do have legit purposes (particularly for those Gmail-deficient people whose e-mail clients choke on larger attachments), but it would seem to me that they’ve simply been outnumbered, particularly with the rise of leak blog/.rar blog culture and the fact that some of these sites charge for “premium” access, which allows people to suck down files faster and more often. All the third-party-hosting sites will take down files if they get cease and desists from copyright owners, but how much longer are those owners going to want to engage in the “we’ll only let you do this until it becomes really noticeable” charade? With BitTorrent trackers falling one by one and media attention–including poorly written, vague articles that pile together leak blogs and those that clear all their MP3s first–it only seems like a matter of time before those sites–particularly those hosted in the States–start getting takedown notices. (Good thing I never put down my credit card info with RapidShare, I guess.)
As ISPs choke file-sharing, users look elsewhere [WP via The Daily Swarm]
If they take away my Mediafire I WILL cut a bitch.
Yeah, if these go down i’ll know how all the oinkers felt.
The mission statement of these sites are vague enough to probably (hopefully) not suffer a fate as bad as Oink’s. It’s possible that the site could be sued first and be forced to turn over records similarly, which is scary.
But what would most likely happen is that the sendspace type companies would work out an out-of-court deal with publishers and labels kinda like with YouTube. Anything that looks like or resembles popular media files will be removed or filtered out from being uploaded, or could be yanked at any time (which is the case now, but just, you know, enforced this time)
Thing about these sites is: the links are only good for a short amount of time, then you have to reseed them, which is arduous — at least for a prospective filesharer d00d. Blink and you lose. (Was there a time limit on Oink if you were a member?) That alone may have saved these companies so far, stressing “so far.”
Anyway, something to ponder.
“I’ve been wondering for a while when third-party hosting services would start feeling the heat that has been turned up on other file-sharing sites”
Yeah, me too.
I’ll be interested to see how this shakes out…
cough MEDIAFIRE cough
Damn, I rapidshare. Do I need to get nervous?
and here all this time I thought no one would catch up with us. I feel so naive. Some nerd needs to come up with something if these start dropping out of the internet landscape. File uploading sites are more or less responsible for allowing me to not be bothered by the “food vs. music” dilemma for the past few years. Hopefully the whole “there is a legit use” argument will slow things down.