Rapidshare corruption

[Dan Gould]

All these folks whining about not being able to get free stuff. Dang!

With a 10 MB email attachment limit, its easy to need a file-sharing service for non-copyrighted material. And the best thing would be a free service that actually functions when you need it.

[neveronfriday]

I can only repeat: People who think that services like Rapidshare won't screw them over as free customers are delusional.

We heard you the first time, but apparently Dan's reply (which I heartily agree with) did not sink in. The fact that their fee for service works well is irrelevant to his point. Rapidshare sucks because they are lying about their free "service". It is not unreasonable to expect a functional free service IF THEY SAY THEY OFFER SUCH A THING, WHICH THEY DO. But that service effectively does not exist.

Ergo, RAPIDSHARE SUCKS, regardless of whether their "service for a fee" is great or not, because they are lying about their free "service". They are purporting to offer something which they do not actually offer. This isn't about naivete about how services like Rapidshare operate. We all understand the whole bait and switch technique, no need to lecture us on that. The point is that it is fair to expect an online business to provide what they say they provide, and call them out on it if they don't.

You know, actually reading what people wrote helps prevent getting high blood pressure.

I'll repeat it for you and mark the passage in bold letters (much easier to see, I guess):

"Not much on the Internet is really for free, and Rapidshare is the Devil's den when it comes around to luring delusional people into its web of deceit."

Clear enough?

If you read that again, it pretty much covers what you were yelling about.

Like I said, reading first helps.

[Dan Gould]

Rapidshare is the Devil's den when it comes around to luring delusional people into its web of deceit."

So, we can therefore conclude that, since at some point you became a paying customer, it is you who

A. was delusional

B. found himself lured into Rapdishare's web of deceit.

And, like a victim of the Stockholm Syndrome, or maybe a long-term cult member, you can't brook any criticism of your group.

Thanks a lot, reading first really did help me understand it all.

[neveronfriday]

Rapidshare is the Devil's den when it comes around to luring delusional people into its web of deceit."

So, we can therefore conclude that, since at some point you became a paying customer, it is you who

A. was delusional

B. found himself lured into Rapdishare's web of deceit.

And, like a victim of the Stockholm Syndrome, or maybe a long-term cult member, you can't brook any criticism of your group.

Thanks a lot, reading first really did help me understand it all.

Dan,

it's always fun watching you go off the rails.

Let's just assume that you fit the general populace over on Rapidshare (and I'm sure you do), then you are one of millions of people (also) using the service to get stuff illegally. Of course you're now going to shout "No! Not me!" but I don't think anyone is going to believe you.

So, what you are in fact doing here is beating your fists on the table like a two-year old yelling "Want! Want! Want! ... For free, because they SAID so."

It's laughable, really. You could at least pay some cash while ripping people off.

Disclaimer: I'm not a huge fan of Rapidshare, but it works fine once you are a paying customer. That's all. Besides, other services (which I also use once in a while) have similar shortcomings. I'm just really tired of people who insist that what they rip off from other people should, in addition, be totally free of charge.

That's not only delusional, it's stupid.

Waiting for your top-spin return.

Should be fun.

Ah, and don't forget to say hello to your very own cult, those Megaupload people.

[Dan Gould]

This is really hysterical. What was a discussion of whether or not a company that offers a free service should honestly provide such a service in a usable way or simply stop claiming that they offer a free service at all has turned into "Oh, you're just a guy stealing stuff and you think its your right to get it completely free."

That's a great way of changing the subject after you've been slammed from several directions for being asinine in defending the indefensible. Good job!

Since you've bought it up, do you somehow think you are pure as the driven snow because you "at least pay some cash while ripping people off"?

Let's take a look at Rapidshare's business model:

Take as much money as possible from suckers who are willing to pay for the privilege of downloading copyrighted files of one type or another, especially the ones that these downloads are so important, they want to maximize their convenience by getting instant downloading, faster download speeds, and no download restrictions. Rapidshare is profiting from theft, and you are proud that you pay them for the privilege? Furthermore, we can also conclude that you are a "typical" Rapidshare user, downloading copyrighted material with the rest of us, but you are so dedicated to that act that you pay Rapidshare to maximize your personal convenience while stealing from copyright holders.

Pot, meet kettle. This is even more hysterical than your swerve.

And here's my full disclosure: I only download the kind of copyrighted works that have soundtracks that involve pizza deliverymen and start "bank chink a wow wow". Believe me vintage smut is a helluva lot harder to find than OOP Blue Notes. And the Japanese have their own reissue programs.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

This is really hysterical. What was a discussion of whether or not a company that offers a free service should honestly provide such a service in a usable way or simply stop claiming that they offer a free service at all

There are not simply two ways of looking at this, Dan. There's an in-between position, which is the one Rapidshare appear to take; they make it difficult, but not impossible, as several people have said here, to use the free service. If you don't want to pay, you have to put up with the inconvenience; it used to be a little bit inconvenient, now it's a lot more inconvenient, but still not impossible. I don't think this is an unreasonable attitude (ie one that no reasonable person in the world would take) for a firm to take.

There are other providers of this service. They get cash from showing you adverts while you're waiting (but you don't have to wait long). RS doesn't, I think, show you ads (except for its prenium service). You don't pays your money and youse can still take your choice.

MG

[neveronfriday]

[...]

Pay for it or stop whining.

It's really simple

[Dan Gould]

Obviously the truth is difficult to handle, which is why you've been reduced to yet another non sequitur.

I think we're done.

[neveronfriday]

I think we're done.

Yep.

[riverrat]

This is really hysterical. What was a discussion of whether or not a company that offers a free service should honestly provide such a service in a usable way or simply stop claiming that they offer a free service at all has turned into "Oh, you're just a guy stealing stuff and you think its your right to get it completely free."

That's a great way of changing the subject after you've been slammed from several directions for being asinine in defending the indefensible. Good job!

Couldn't agree more.

It is probably time to let this sorry thread die, but I very much want to avoid any appearances or assumptions that I'm part of the camp that allegedly expects to download copyrighted material for free. So a few clarifications...

This thread was (originally) about false advertising, and the utter lameness of a service that is offered, ADVERTISED but not provided in any practical sense. This thread was NOT (originally) about whether or not a person is entitled to either 1) free service or 2) free access to copyrighted material. Any assumptions about CONTENT that I or anyone else might download are just that- ASSUMPTIONS, and in any case not the original thread topic.

Rapidshare advertises a free service that doesn't really exist in any practical form. When a firm advertises a service, they should provide it. Simple as that, seems pretty reasonable. The fact that some of us are willing to call Rapidshare on their dishonesty in no way implies that we are surprised by such actions as NOF mistakenly assumes. NOF, you are certainly entitled to your opinion that dishonest or misleading advertising is "just the way it is" and that we should just get used to it. Such meekness and acceptance in the face of corporate BS is commonplace. One could also argue that it is a waste of time to fight it. But your assertion that those of us who choose to discuss or complain about certain examples of it are "delusional" is ludicrous and insulting.

Am I surprised that Rapidshare's free "service" sucks? No, I'm not. Does that make it acceptable? No it does not- they offer it, actively advertise it and therefore should provide it. If they don't want to offer a usable free service, they should quit saying they do. (And yes thanks I understand that the paid service works much better- that is clear as can be from their site- don't need that pointed out.) To repeat once again, I fully understand their business model and have no gripes about it, makes sense in fact. But I draw the line at dishonesty. The free "service" Rapidshare purports to offer is, in my experience anyway, a farce.

Lastly, a few thoughts regarding the touchy area of CONTENT that gets downloaded, which this thread veered off toward. The files I've personally tried (unsuccessfully) to download through Rapidshare were a couple of bootleg live recordings by a certain well-known "greatest rock & roll band in the world". I'm a longtime fan, and have spent hundreds of dollars on their recordings, stretching back almost 40 years to at least 3 copies of Exile on Main Street vinyl bought with my hard-earned paper route money and on to several different CD versions of many of their official releases. Tons of Stones vinyl and CDs in between. And I plan to step up and buy the forthcoming Exile reissue too.

Do the Stones make any money off the bootlegs I have acquired? No, at least not directly. But Keith Richards has actually referred to some of them in interviews as some of their best live material, which they unfortunately don't seem to be able to release through official channels for copyright reasons. So is my acquisition of such material "legal"? Well technically I suppose not. Is it wrong? Well, that's a gray area with no definitive answer, IMO. I can tell you I sleep just fine at night.

In short, when discussing downloading, please be careful what you "assume". I do understand that illegal downloading is a huge problem for the music industry and hits small independent labels, (e.g. Nessa's) particularly hard. There is no doubt a wide spectrum of moral behavior WRT downloading but IMO it is a mistake to tar every person who downloads with the same feathers. My $.02 on that.

Edited March 6, 2010 by riverrat

[neveronfriday]

Ah, finally something well thought-out that I'd like to respond to.

Actually, we both agree pretty much. The problem is that we are looking at it from two different places on this planet.

See, in Germany, Rapidshare is not a "firm" per its business model, it is considered to be an illegal offering that has removed itself to Switzerland to avoid legal issues in Germany. So far, three courts have decided that Rapidshare is, for all intents and purposes, a company mostly enabling illegal downloading (which very few people would doubt), having veered wildly off course from the original idea of offering a place where one can upload and easily either store or offer for download to friends private material, larger (work) documents, etc.

It doesn't really matter if it was the users that took the business model off course or if it was Rapidshare encouraging this misuse because it noticed it was making millions of dollars that way. Rapidshare is acutely aware of these legal issues and is either slow or reluctant to respond to the various court decisions against it. Yes, they are acting quite quickly (they have to) to copyright claims (Chuck mentioned that above), but they're not trying hard. Why should they? There's always that new upload to replace the one they took down (a recent article by some guy who watched the most popular downloads for two weeks concludes that Rapidshare is fighting a battle it can't win. As soon as one file is taken down, 50 others pop up in its place. In that article, it was clear to see from a long two-page table that this was happening in the single-second range).

So, from a legal German perspective, we are talking about a company that is - again legally - placed squarely in the camp that encompasses just about everything that can be termed "organized crime".

The same goes for several other European countries who have tried to level similar cases against RS. Considering recent legislative work of the EU one can safely assume that it won't take long until RS is considered to be a criminal outfit EU-wide (read this: ACTT to see what I mean, depending on how far this agreement will reach when done).

So, from my perspective, you can't compare RS to, say, IBM. In short, asking Rapidshare to stick to its advertising is like asking the MAFIA to sell its drugs and whatever at "promised" prices, follow free market principles and be held accountable for what they are doing by state legislature. Hell, they aren't even allowed to advertise in many European countries because they have been legally placed even below the rung on the ladder that is the "Pirate Bay" one. So, the German perspective makes it a ludicrous statement (and, if you read the ACTT link above and if public opinion will not bring those behind closed doors discussions down, that German perspective might very well turn out to be a world-wide perspective sooner than we think). I have no idea what American courts have said/would say about Rapidshare, but I'm quite sure that with the even tighter copyright control in the US, Rapidshare would end up in a cell next to your local Mafia hitman.

Now, what do I use Rapidshare for? I use it for activities that are largely illegal in my country. Years ago, I decided to go the "digital way" and get every single CD and DVD I have into digital formats. It didn't take me long to figure out that ripping, checking and tagging more than 10.000 CDs is not a viable way of doing this. I would probably have to go through about 5 to 10 dead Plextor drives (probably more), etc. Additionally, it is illegal in my country to bypass copyright protection so, legally, I cannot make copies of some of my CDs (Blue Note "non-CDs", etc.) and hardly any of my DVDs (99% of my DVDs are, of course, copy-protected).

No matter what, I soon found out that besides about 1000 CDs (and about 200 DVDs) or so that cannot be found online, everything else was freely available on RS. Ripped, often tagged to perfection and error-free. So, yes, I have started downloading illegally one copy of every CD and DVD I have paid for and own. Again, I own this stuff (!) and still, I'm a criminal in my country and have absolutely no doubts that the legal system would break my neck if I was taken to court. Idiotic and schizophrenic from my perspective, but that's what life is like over here.

Last, but not least. If you spend quite a bit of time in various places where these CDs and DVDs can be found, you also notice that there is hardly anyone willing to pay for anything. In fact, most people throw endless tantrums when they simply cannot get free slots to download 1080p Bluray copies in the 20GB range. For hours, days and weeks, they will rant and rave about the inanity of the service but, mostly, they will not pay 1 single dollar for the bandwidth they are stealing from others who just might (unfortunately, I'm not one of these people) use this service for legit purposes.

Edited March 7, 2010 by neveronfriday

[Shrdlu]

Lighten up babes!

[Swinging Swede]

Rapidshare has definitely become a real drag in a really short period of time. Since I am a night owl, I am able to occasionally get on for free, but it's real hit or miss. What I find so strange is that there hasn't been a mass migration from the blogs to megaupload or mediafire or some of the others that are vastly superior to Rapidshare.

At least one big jazz blog has recently switched to Megaupload instead.

Rapidshare has also recently worsened the rules for how soon a file that hasn't been downloaded in a certain amount of time is deleted. They may have done it because they felt they had established a market leader position and thus could get away with it, but I'm not so sure about that. People don't want their files deleted soon and it seems like more bloggers contemplate switching to something else.