Quote:
Originally Posted by ottopottomouse
The termination emails were part of a phishing scam. Bit of wonky reporting there.
Without piracy RapidShare wouldn't have a business. The whole thing was founded on illegal file sharing and recently they have obviously found that people will be willing to buy a premium account to still download files once they put up their no free download slots available message. Got 9 out of 10 parts of something and they tell you it's pay up or maybe not get the last part and people seem to pay up.
It is a big step though to expect people who can download anything they can find on a forum for an annual RapidShare fee of $75 to actually start buying things. Everything on the internet is very fluid and I don't think people have brand loyalty to sites as much as to brick-and-mortar shops. Make it too awkward to get something from one place and someone will move in with a different upload/download site or method with an attractive incentive scheme and the big uploaders just move. They already have everything pretty much automated, both the uploading and forum spamming their links, so changing filehost won't hurt them much at all.
Seen more and more hotfile links recently and only after looking just now have I found they have an affilliate scheme with $$$ for high download numbers. With all the forums there is a huge promotional network and it wouldn't surprise me if there are people with $1000+ a month coming in from sharing stuff and aggressively posting it everywhere. |
Good points, here is some more:
1. Yes there are many alternatives now, but pre 2010 links posted at forums and blogs are predominantly (80-90%) rapidshare. If they're going to get pulled fast with the blocking of accounts of reported infringers, that would mean forums are going become much less attractive for visitors, at least for awhile until new piles of content are uploaded (but it is also much easier to monitor and promptly remove current uploads than to scan the whole phorum).
2. Yes uploaders can move on but rapidshare has a great number of fanatic uploaders who can dig and post rare stuff, and for whom the idea of "sharing" is more important than earning and cashing some download points. If rapidshare is no longer an option, they may quit uploading altogether, which will mean significantly less new stuff uploaded - if you monitor forums regularly you probably even know those fanatic uploaders of your content by name, and know they're more of a threat to your business because unlike just random uploaders who earn download points they really know stuff and can pile up on-topic collections quickly. They know were to search for it, they'll regularly search for passwords to your site specifically etc. Random uploaders are not that much of a threat because they're not focused on your site/niche and just post a clip or two randomly, or sometimes full site rips too but if nuked they just move on to the next site.
3. Yes hotfile seems to be gaining popularity quickly, but they're almost as easy to work with as rapidshare - they usually respond to DMCAs within 12 hours so if the next preferred hosting is going to be hotfile I'm not worried at all. Lesser file hosters are more problematic to remove files from, and their rising popularity is bothering me much more than hotfile. But... (4)
4. Any file hoster who got to a point of where it is noticable enough will have to become more compliant because lots of anti-piracy watch groups will focus on it. So hopefully the new shift in rapidshare policies is what's looming on the horizon for the rest of the bunch. Rapidshare is just the biggest one so they had to do it first, but all the rest will follow sooner or later, and blocking accounts of repeated infringers will become a standard upheld in courts, which will eventually lead to the scaling back of our current piracy problem.