News US Copyright Group sues 50,000 individual BitTorrent users

[TSPenguin]

I think the minority these days is using Usenet (at least from what I know of several forums and my circle of friends).

It always astonishes me, that for germany, this holds true.
AFAIK, it is cyberlocker, P2P then Usenet here. Whilst most usenet users use UseNeXT. The most ridiculous usenet provider I've ever seen.

What bugs me about cyberlockers, is that the uploaders actually make money if many people download their files. Not only from rapidshare itself, but often from ads on the sites they post their links on too.
Mind you, they get their files from other rapidshare sites or usenet...

 

[ar81]

So probably cyberlockers want to discourage P2P so they can make money...

 

[eveningsky339]

It's not too difficult to find free wi-fi in a public location these days, and I've found that many of these internet connections do not block torrents or torrenting. It's not too difficult to access the internet through a proxy and download torrents, either. Some proxies block torrents, but some don't.

My point is, people may claim that this event heralds the beginning of the end of internet piracy, but there is always a way around.

 

[AirSimming]

I think that to discourage P2P is not a big deal. It also worked in my case. I felt already from the beginning that P2P is a pain since you always depend on others. It's not a miracle that a lot of torrents are going to die slowly. How stupid could I be not to use the ability to get something always with full speed and depending on that seeding and leeching nonsense.

---------- Post added at 02:00 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:30 AM ----------

My point is, people may claim that this event heralds the beginning of the end of internet piracy, but there is always a way around.

I even think that the end of internet piracy will always remain a myth. It is simply not possible to stop people from uploading and downloading copyrighted stuff. My impression is that you can get everything, no matter if it is software, movies or TV series, via Rapidshare. I might be wrong but for now I've never heard that somebody got sued for using a one-click-hoster.

And just look to those sites, like Kino.to, which offer movie streams. Companies and lawyers really have a hard time to do something against it for years. Although I don't use it (seriously), those sites are used by millions each month. Not a lot of people of the business do talk about, but the "fight" against piracy is a lost one. Everybody actually knows it. In fact, German music producer Dieter Bohlen did say in a talkshow that preventing internet piracy is not possible at all. He said he even does not care, and it should be legal to download music for free because you don't make money anymore by selling discs anyway. He said he sees no difference in recording the music from radio, from youtube or just download it somewhere else in the web, since when he was young he also recorded it (from radio back then, just like anybody). The reporter asked him if he offeres his music for free. Bohlen replied: if you know the right places you can get it for free already.

Seriously, the entertainment industry is not stupid. Just think about how it could be possible that movies, which have just arrived in the cinema, already are availabe via internet, not recorded in a cinema, no, just in HD quality already. Where do they come from if not of their own ranks? And one can only speculate how many people, who have to cry for stopping internet piracy for occupational reasons, actually do own illegal copies. I know a lawyer who is a big MSFS fan (and his son as well). But he did not pay for only one payware addon he uses. But lawyer are shyster anyway. How says German cabaret artist Volker Pispers? "He is a jurist and anyway not particularly clever" :lol:

 

[SiberianTiger]

I even think that the end of internet piracy will always remain a myth. It is simply not possible to stop people from uploading and downloading copyrighted stuff. My impression is that you can get everything, no matter if it is software, movies or TV series, via Rapidshare. I might be wrong but for now I've never heard that somebody got sued for using a one-click-hoster.

Does Rapidshare use specific data centres? If yes, it's still theoretically possible for a police to come in in such and lay claim on the entire hardware. I don't want to point my finger at, but I know a country where police did just that recently - twice with different file sharing hosters, in search of a content prohibited by law.

This is where P2P networks have an advantage.

 

[AirSimming]

Does Rapidshare use specific data centres? If yes, it's still theoretically possible for a police to come in in such and lay claim on the entire hardware. I don't want to point my finger at, but I know a country where police did just that recently - twice with different file sharing hosters, in search of a content prohibited by law.

This is where P2P networks have an advantage.

Well, Rapidshare does only log which user/account does download how much data. They don't log what is being downloaded. For free users, that information will be deleted after 2 hours, for premium members that information will be deleted after 60 days if I remember correctly. But the police or lawyers or whosoever, can't do anything against downloading anyway, since you never know what was being downloaded by whom. What they can do, and what they already do, is to delete illegal stuff from servers. But as soon as they do so, it appears again anyway by another account/member :lol: Of course, they could still get logs from uploaders, but I've never heard they did. They delete or they rather force Rapidshare to delete illegal content. But it happens rather rarely since it's a lost game anyway. You'll always find deleted files elsewhere, by another, different Rapidshare link...

---------- Post added at 11:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:48 AM ----------

Though, I even might be wrong regarding the uploader. I think also for uploading they just log how much has been uploaded by a specific account but not what, just to keep the limits. I think all that can be done is to delete illegal stuff but that's it.