Filesonic Removes Ability To Share Files 412
Ihmhi writes "In the wake of the Megaupload takedown, Filesonic has elected to take preventative measures against a similar fate. The front page and all files now carry the following message: 'All sharing functionality on FileSonic is now disabled. Our service can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.' Whether or not this will actually deter the U.S. government from taking action remains to be seen."
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Informative)
Why would anyone ever have to "share" backup files with anyone else.
Because it was really useful for collaborative projects.
Re:Thigs swinging back to Bittorrent and P2P? (Score:2, Informative)
Three years ago or more.
If you're looking for classical music and jazz, as well as .iso files (full DVDs) of films instead of low-quality transcoded files, Demonoid's selection is extremely poor compared to certain websites that link to Rapidshare et al.
Re:Obvious (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sooo... (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, even Dropbox and SpiderOak have "sharing" support on their free offerings (at least, assuming they don't follow this lead themselves).
Two down... (Score:5, Informative)
Megaupload is being taken for a ride in the Party Van and Filesonic has chosen self obliteration, though there is no shortage of competing services. On first glance Wikipedia lists 70+ [wikipedia.org] of the most popular file hosting services.
Re:MediaFire (Score:2, Informative)
you'll see how the child molesters
Who is a child molester? If you meant the people on that website, in order for that to be true, they'd have to actually molest someone.
Re:Thigs swinging back to Bittorrent and P2P? (Score:3, Informative)
BitTorrent makes many small data requests over different TCP connections to different machines
Re:Correction for the title. (Score:5, Informative)
This hunting file-sharers is meaningless, they will just switch over to encryption and other distributed forms of transfer like i2p2.de for example. Encrypted anonymizer written in Java so it runs on all platforms.
The side-effect is that real criminals will also benefit from this development and use the same means to communicate. Great, the pirate hunt will make it impossible to catch real terrorists. Is this really worth it?
Re:Thigs swinging back to Bittorrent and P2P? (Score:5, Informative)
Then you get Freenet. It's anonyminity is as good as it gets - it's designed for use by dissidents living under oppressive regimes, so tracing either source or destination is all but impossible even if someone could compromise many nodes. The cost of this is performance: You can download whole TV episodes and movies, but at a fraction of the speed of a less paranoid network.
Re:Thigs swinging back to Bittorrent and P2P? (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with private trackers is just that - they're private.
Sure, they might be able to keep the MAFIAA out, but as it seems they had an insider at MegaUpload (they appear to have every internal mail going back to the start), nothing will prevent the same thing from happening everywhere else. So that protection only works as far as someone isn't corrupted by the MAFIAA.
The downside is two-fold:
1) Hard to get access. As you get accounts on more private trackers, it tends to be easier, but it's still not like just doing a general search and clicking on a link.
2) Lack of general access. The secondary purpose of any means to share files is the political side. Besides providing the data you want, they also need to make a statement through easy access to the data for everybody, thus massively undermining any and all attempts at stopping it. It must be a flood that makes it trivial to find and get whatever you're looking for, no matter what.
The Pirate Bay does just that. It's public, it's run by idealists, it's loud and in your face about file sharing. It makes sharing easy and access to the shared equally easy. Sure it provokes but that's just the idea! - It's all about saying to the media business that they were too late. Too little and too late. We still can't obtain a lot of the stuff shared legally. I want to watch the new Underworld movie tonight but I can't because it's not out in any form I can buy. They simply won't provide it even at a price. That's not what the world wants and if they won't sell it we have to steal it. We need to repeat this until they get it. We want access to it all - globally and simultaneously. I'm sure a lot of the so-called pirates are honest people at heart, but they're forcing us to become criminals. All these people will be happy to pay for the stuff if they were only able. I would as I want to support the production of stuff that I like. But so far they won't let me. So we need to push even harder and if necessary push them out of business if they continue to refuse common sense and basic business knowledge (supply and demand).
Re:Thigs swinging back to Bittorrent and P2P? (Score:5, Informative)
> If every law were taken to a referendum then we'd still be living in the dark ages.
Switzerland has had direct democracy for the last 150 years and is certainly not in the dark ages, it is working rather well. Thanks for the insult.
They do not take every law to a referendum, but the key is that they _can_ if they want. They can and they often do veto crazy laws. The ability to legally stop crazy laws without having to resort to fighting, protesting, boycotting, begging politicians, i.e. how "democracy" is obviously understood in the US, is the key.
Encryption in US is safe (Score:5, Informative)
In the US, forcing someone to give up encryption codes is generally considered to run afoul of the self-incrimination principle. So once the police ask someone for their codes, which they can do, they lose the ability to convict that person for what they find. So, given the prevailing legal opinion on the matter, and giving the fact that most congressmen and senators are either lawyers or judges or other parts of the legal system, I doubt this will come to pass. Even if it does, the US has precedent, and the self-incrimination thing is established by precedent and is part of the constitution, so it's unlikely judges would play ball.
Add to that that it's not necessary. You can "bait" p2p networks. At some point, no matter the encryption or routing tricks, you have to tell someone you don't know about the content you want. It is prohibitively expensive not to use direct routing once you get past a certain file size (so while tor is useful for downloading hacker texts, it's not useful for movie downloads). How do you know you're not asking an MPAA server ? You don't. 2 or 3 states consider that to be entrapment, but most don't, and that'll be enough.
Of course, most other regions like Europe or China don't consider the self-incrimination thing to be a problem at all. Nor do they consider forcing Americans in their jurisdictions to give up codes even the slightest bit objectionable (you don't have the right to private encryption anywhere in Europe, and let's just shut up about China and the rest).
Re:Encryption in US is safe (Score:5, Informative)
So, given the prevailing legal opinion on the matter, and giving the fact that most congressmen and senators are either lawyers or judges or other parts of the legal system, I doubt this will come to pass.
You are making the mistake of assuming that because most of congress and the senate is made up of lawyers that they have any problem whatsoever doing something vastly illegal.
The politicians have broken laws and even the fundamental founding principles of our nation in some fashion nearly every year since this country began. (The earliest I can think of is the suspension of habeas corpus in the Civil War.)
Re:Thigs swinging back to Bittorrent and P2P? (Score:5, Informative)
AFAIK downloading (leech style) is not illegal in any western country
Well, I can't tell for other countries, but the law about that recently (2011-12-20) changed in France (if that's western enough for you).
For those interested and that can read French, it's article L122-5 [legifrance.gouv.fr] of Code de la propriété intellectuelle, modified by law 2011-1898. There is no decree for that law yet.
Before, the author couldn't oppose "copies or reproductions strictly reserved for private use". Now, the author can't oppose "copies or reproductions made from a lawful source and strictly reserved for private use".
This happened shortly after (2011-10-04) the Court of Justice of the European Union reaffirmed that the receiver was not infringing in a case about satellite video streaming. (I have not the source from the CJEU, but from a law firm [poulmairejacob.com] (in French)).
Re:Correction for the title. (Score:4, Informative)
"So what you're saying is, piracy funds terrorism."
Physical piracy yes.
"That sounds like a great reason to stop piracy don't you think?"
It's a great reason to stop physical piracy yes, but as you can't beat it with law enforcement and legislation as decades of failed attempt to do so have shown, then the only solution to date that's decreased physical piracy of content is digital piracy, then legislating against digital piracy actually works counter to stopping funding for terrorism from physical piracy.
Yes, I know you're too caught up in your own simplistic world view to get this, because you demonstrated in your post that you completely and utterly missed the point, which is also why you posted AC because you didn't want people linking your lack of ability to talk rationally about such a topic with your comments elsewhere where you may or may not have a clue what you're on about, but I figured it's worth clarifying anyway in case anyone else needed it explaining.
Still, have fun calling pirates stupid whilst simultaneously demonstrating a complete inability to follow what is frankly a quite simple argument to understand- any pirates reading this will at least be quite amused by the irony of that I imagine, so no doubt they'll thank you for that at least.
Re:Encryption in US is safe (Score:5, Informative)
(The earliest I can think of is the suspension of habeas corpus in the Civil War.)
The earliest prominent example was 1798, with the Sedition Act [wikisource.org]. Set to expire the day before John Adams left office, it was used by Federalists to punish journalists and even a Congressman who wrote mean things about the Federalist government.
Re:Correction for the title. (Score:4, Informative)
Paying for piracy does, in the same way that moonshine funded the mob back during prohibition.
You know what the solution was there though? It wasn't to make alchohol even more regulated - it was to legalize it. Once their funding source is cut off, the mob lost the vast majority of any power it had.
Leave the internet alone and piracy quickly becomes a no-money-involved activity, and as such can't be used to fund a damned thing.
Re:Thigs swinging back to Bittorrent and P2P? (Score:3, Informative)
AFAIK downloading (leech style) is not illegal in any western country, it's uploading that's the problem.
Yeah, you'd be wrong. Copyright infringement includes distribution - e.g. "uploading" as you note. However, it also includes copying - e.g. "downloading". Under US law, downloading material under copyright without permission is illegal.
That said, you're close... The RIAA/MPAA never go after downloaders because (a) if they also have a legitimate purchased copy, they can make a colorable argument for fair use format shifting; (b) unlike distributors, leechers can legitimately make the argument that damages for their sole download-with-no-upload actually is only 99 cents; and most importantly (c) there's no way to discover a leecher unless you're the seeder... and if the RIAA/MPAA is seeding files to catch downloaders, then any copy obtained from them is actually legitimate! They have permission to distribute, so it's not infringement to receive.
But don't kid yourself... leeching is still illegal.
Disclaimer: I am an IP lawyer; I am not your IP lawyer. This post is for (my) amusement purposes only and should not be relied upon for legal advice.
Re:Correction for the title. (Score:5, Informative)
The discussion was about sending files to a recipient which were too large to attach to email. Anything to say that is on-topic?
Re:Correction for the title. (Score:5, Informative)
Ah yes, [Citation needed], AKA, "I'm far too lazy to check the facts, but I'm going to disagree with you regardless, because I prefer to wallow in my own ignorance."
What are you disputing exactly? Here, have a bunch of links, not that I expect you to read them if you can't even be arsed to use Google to confirm a point:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3074669.stm [bbc.co.uk]
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NsJGLW_hX3IC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Film+piracy,+organized+crime,+and+terrorism&hl=en&sa=X&ei=P3QdT6CWNsvOsgbIm9xI&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Film%20piracy%2C%20organized%20crime%2C%20and%20terrorism&f=false [google.co.uk]
http://cryptome.org/ltte-vigil.htm [cryptome.org]
There's plenty more sources out there, it's a pretty well researched area. I'm not sure what exactly you're disputing, because you just posted a meaningless one liner, but terrorist groups of all shapes and sizes have long used counterfeit goods as a source of funding, as has organised crime. If you're not disputing that I can only assume you're disputing that these groups act in the UK, and if it's that you're disputing I can only ask, where have you been for the last few decades? There's been many cases of individuals linked to terrorism being guilty of financing terrorism in the UK- and they're only the ones the police have detected and been able to build enough evidence for a criminal case against. You only have to look at my 3rd link to see the scale of the Tamil operations in the UK to see that they absolutely are operating here.
Honestly, I'm all for defending digital piracy, but let's please not try and blur it all in together and hide the ugly facts of physical piracy. Read my other post in response to the AC that replied to me - I made it quite clear that I actually see digital piracy as the cure to physical piracy which genuinely does fund terrorism and organised crime.
If people are going to start lumping physical piracy in with digital piracy and argue that piracy is fine, then the battle is already lost, because those defending piracy really are genuinely being irrational at that point, and the MPAA really can bill them as terrorist sympathisers. That's not right, because digital piracy is a separate issue, with separate knock on effects - the effects of digital diracy are IMO harmless, and potentially even beneficial (increased access to knowledge, no evidence of decreased profits as a result), whilst the effects of physical piracy are quite problematic (funding of organised crime etc.). As I say, the former can actually act as a market that counters the latter, which means digital piracy likely actually decreases funding for terrorism and organised crime because people are no longer buying counterfeit content when they can download it at home. They will though, if that option is taken away.