Is Rapidshare a promoter of e-book piracy?

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by Daithi

Of course they are promoting piracy.

The vast majority of files on this site are not the Intellectual Property of the people posting the files. Rapidshare's owners know it and don't care. Rapidshare's users depend on it.

We can argue over legalities, but it's really disingenious to argue that they aren't promoting piracy.

How do you know it?
Have you seen them all?
Have you openend all the files, or know somebody who did?

Exactly how many files have benn posted there, and how many of them are not IP of the poster?

And, most of all, can you expalin why "don't care" equals "to promote"?
In my limited understanding of English, to promote implies some action. Have you got an example of a promotional action performed by Rapidshare toward piracy?

Thank you for your answers.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Format C:

Exactly how many files have benn posted there, and how many of them are not IP of the poster?

At least one. The fact that it wasn't suggests that Mobileread staff only check uploads that personally interest them, or that jump out as illegal even just from reading the thread title.

- Ahi

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by Daithi

The point I was making is that Rapidshare and illegal pawn shops are analagous in that they both knowingly sell stolen goods. The fact that one business can SEE the person who originally stole the goods does not in any way invalidate this analogy.

The Yellow Pages provide addresses, phone numbers, and Ads for legitimate businesses. They are nowhere close to being a business like Rapidshare.

Rapidshare doesn't sell goods, not even files. Rapidshare rents disk space, and give a code to access it.
The user of that space can give that code to other people to let them read that storage.
Someone may use it for spread illicit material. But it's not at all it's purpose.

Trying to give them responsibility of piracy is like to try the landlord for partnership in crime because his tenant is a criminal.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Format C:

Rapidshare doesn't sell goods, not even files. Rapidshare rents disk space, and give a code to access it.
The user of that space can give that code to other people to let them read that storage.
Someone may use it for spread illicit material. But it's not at all it's purpose.

Trying to give them responsibility of piracy is like to try the landlord for partnership in crime because his tenant is a criminal.

The transportation company promotes piracy by allowing the public lockers to be used by criminals for putting illicit goods and criminally-acquired money in there to exchange with their shady fellows.

I mean clearly it's the transportation company's responsibility to thoroughly screen the contents of their public-use lockers.

Same with self-storage providers. If anything illegal makes it into their little closets, even if it is something very small inside an inconspicuous unmarked box... the whole company along with the entire upper management should be brought down by the subsequent lawsuit. If nothing else it would make the self-storage market more dynamic!

- Ahi

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Format C:

How do you know it?
Have you seen them all?
Have you openend all the files, or know somebody who did?

Of course not. They did the same thing the content industry always does, make assumptions that help push their agenda.

[Daithi]

Originally Posted by Format C:

Rapidshare doesn't sell goods, not even files. Rapidshare rents disk space, and give a code to access it.
The user of that space can give that code to other people to let them read that storage.
Someone may use it for spread illicit material. But it's not at all it's purpose.

Trying to give them responsibility of piracy is like to try the landlord for partnership in crime because his tenant is a criminal.

You are misrepresenting their business model. They don't rent disk space to people and provide code to access it.

Here is what they do. They allow people to load anything they want on their servers for free, and they allow everyone else to download those files for free. However, downloaders can also pay a fee to download the files quicker if they want. That is how they make money. Plus, if you are one of the people that uploads files that other people download a lot then they give you free access to their quicker downloads.

I know how their system works because I've used their free service before. I was stealing. I guess I'm just one of those weird people who is dishonest enough to steal, but honest enough to admit it.

I'm not going to lie to others, or to myself, and try to justify stealing based on some convoluted logic about an illegitimate business occasionally getting listed in the yellow pages, or a legitimate file occasionally getting listed on Rapidshare.

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I wouldn't call it lazy. According to the DMCA for example (I know, they don't fall under US law), that's exactly how it's supposed to work. The suggestion that they should proactively filter stuff is made by people that have no idea what they're talking about.

I know that is how the DMCA is supposed to be, and I'm not saying I disagree. I just know how nuts it is to try and be proactive on it. Just isn't feasible.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by Daithi

You are misrepresenting their business model. They don't rent disk space to people and provide code to access it.

Here is what they do. They allow people to load anything they want on their servers for free, and they allow everyone else to download those files for free. However, downloaders can also pay a fee to download the files quicker if they want. That is how they make money. Plus, if you are one of the people that uploads files that other people download a lot then they give you free access to their quicker downloads.

So far, it's giving free space and bandwith. Which is not even close to "promote piracy".

Originally Posted by Daithi

I know how their system works because I've used their free service before. I was stealing. I guess I'm just one of those weird people who is dishonest enough to steal, but honest enough to admit it.

I've used a similar premium service, and I did not steal anything. I did not even "share" nothing, because my files was kept private.
It was just the fastest way to send one hundred of large photographs to a guy with the best printer I've ever seen. He used Fed Ex for the other way around: is FedEx promoting piracy also?

Originally Posted by Daithi

I'm not going to lie to others, or to myself, and try to justify stealing based on some convoluted logic about an illegitimate business occasionally getting listed in the yellow pages, or a legitimate file occasionally getting listed on Rapidshare.

Again: will you please give us numbers? Haow much is, exactly "occasionally"?
And, most of all, how can you be certain of those numbers?
I beg your pardon for my English, but I assure you that saying "Rapidshare does not promote piracy" I'm not justifying stealing at all.

[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by Format C:

How do you know it?
Have you seen them all?
Have you openend all the files, or know somebody who did?

Exactly how many files have benn posted there, and how many of them are not IP of the poster?

And, most of all, can you explain why "don't care" equals "to promote"?
In my limited understanding of English, to promote implies some action. Have you got an example of a promotional action performed by Rapidshare toward piracy?

Thank you for your answers.

Gee. Lotsa questions listed in order to sow doubt. Shame you use it in a fairly unambiguous context.. It's way harder to argue that torrent sites "make available" than RS.
How many files have been posted: Hundreds of thousands to millions; there are lots of forums these days where (especially music and video) are being shared via RS. Most of these forums require one to register before being able to see the forum contents. It became more popular when demonoid and other large websites were having trouble, and have become more popular because seeding is highly dependent on upload speeds.

Have I seen them all?
Huh? We're talking about statistical significance here, not about whether they offer only IP not owned by poster. (and/or downloader, depending on your location)
And a second indication as to how many files they offer would be the fact that the service has been adding servers at an astounding rate. This happens through demand, not because RS particularly cares about redundancy. The files that cause increase bandwidth to be necessary are big files rather than small ones; i.e., music/video content. I'm guessing books are still a rather minor part in all this, but they have higher RRPs per megabyte. (which is a poor indication of worth, but still.) Public domain videos of course do exist, but they're generally already hosted on sites like archive.org, or youtube, and do not need to be mirrored 200x on RS.

Have you opened all the files?
My, how you must annoy your friends with your rigorousness.

And, most of all, can you explain why "don't care" equals "to promote"?
They don't need to promote; mouth-to-mouth advertising works very well for them. So no, they don't actively 'promote' themselves. That said, why is this proof of anything?
If they were to 'promote' it, it would be ever so much easier for a IP owner to complain to a judge to have them shut down; this way they can play the plausible deniability card. So no, they won't blatantly advertise the fact that you can put anything on there, especially IP content; but that's like saying the Mafia doesn't admit to being a criminal organization, and then using that as proof.

Anyway, the most criminal thing I would want to accuse RS of is trying to bully everyone into buying a subscription. Especially the captcha stuff was just nasty last year, though they've cut down on that now.
The biggest difference between torrent sites and RS is that torrent sites run on donations, RS actively makes people pay for faster service, knowing they're hosting what they're hosting, and trusting that the take-down rate will be low enough for them to be able to turn a profit.

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Daithi

Here is what they do. They allow people to load anything they want on their servers for free, and they allow everyone else to download those files for free.

... which they can only do if somebody explicitly gives them the download link.

You definitely are misrepresenting their business model.

- Ahi

[Elfwreck]

Geocities promoted piracy for years by not policing content. I've seen thousands of stories, pieces of artwork, and articles on various topics copied from other spots around the web without permission of the owner.

Of course, bloggers don't have the political clout that publishing companies do, so they were stuck filing individual complaints... just as the law requires.

If the law isn't adequate to protect people's interests, it is perhaps worth considering why, and asking if the public in general--rather than the tiny fraction who feel their rights are being infringed--wants or needs that law in place. Certainly, the purpose of law is not to enact more and more draconian restrictions on many people, in order to protect a tiny number from unproven damages. (Anyone got any indication that Dan Brown's sales are off because of unauthorized downloads? That Rowling would've sold more books if they hadn't been digitized & shared around the web?)

[ahi]

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

Have I seen them all?
Huh? We're talking about statistical significance here, not about whether they offer only IP not owned by poster. (and/or downloader, depending on your location)

Given that you can only make a value judgment about files whose download links have been explicitly shared, I'd be curious how you think one could possibly gauge the statistical significance (i.e.: weight) of anything knowable about RS by outsiders.

In other words, the fact that you are able to identify 100,000 RS download links with pirated materials doesn't mean that legitimate use doesn't utterly dwarf illegitimate use. And while checking all links is certainly not feasible, there's no other method either that is bound to get you accurate data.

- Ahi

[Daithi]

Originally Posted by ahi

Given that you can only make a value judgment about files whose download links have been explicitly shared, I'd be curious how you think one could possibly gauge the statistical significance (i.e.: weight) of anything knowable about RS by outsiders.

In other words, the fact that you are able to identify 100,000 RS download links with pirated materials doesn't mean that legitimate use doesn't utterly dwarf illegitimate use. And while checking all links is certainly not feasible, there's no other method either that is bound to get you accurate data.

- Ahi

Do you honestly believe that Rapidshare is offering a legitimate service that has nothing to do with piracy? Do you really believe that they aren't making their money from people paying to quickly download copyrighted material? Do you really believe you have to explicity share a list for others to find it? These are rhetorical questions as I know the answers already.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Daithi

Do you honestly believe that Rapidshare is offering a legitimate service that has nothing to do with piracy?

I believe that Rapidshare, like the Sony VCR, has great capacity for copyright-infringing use, but also substantial non-infringing use. And Sony v. Universal established that:

a manufacturer of a product is not liable for contributory
infringement as long as the product is "capable of substantial noninfringing uses."

Are you arguing that Rapidshare is not capable of substantial noninfringing use? That it can't be used to share gutenberg ebook collections and creative-commons video movies (like Micheal Moore's documentary, Slacker Uprising)? That it can't be used to share personal self-published collections of writing, art or music?

The issue isn't whether infringers are using Rapidshare--some are. The issue is whether Rapidshare is required to find out who they are and stop them.

Many parking lots are used to purchase illegal drugs. Does that mean the stores are required to hire security guards to patrol their parking lots, and must search each car for drugs or other contraband when they park there?

[ahi]

Originally Posted by Daithi

Do you honestly believe that Rapidshare is offering a legitimate service that has nothing to do with piracy? Do you really believe that they aren't making their money from people paying to quickly download copyrighted material? Do you really believe you have to explicity share a list for others to find it? These are rhetorical questions as I know the answers already.

Perhaps you are aware of a Rapidshare search engine out there, and I am wrong. To the best of my knowledge, Rapidshare download links are not discoverable unless the uploader provides them (and/or those who were provided by the uploader subsequently pass them on). Do you know this to work differently?

- Ahi