WTF? Rapidshare.de Complains About Illegal Links?
January 1st, 2009 at 11:48 am by Mark
Tags: copyright, dmca, humor, internet, law, porn, rapidshare, responsibility, sarcasm
On one of the Support Foums I hang in, I found this message, supposedly from a Rapidshare.de Support member. Some information has been removed in order to protect privacy/stupidity, but you’ll get the gist:
Im one of the support members who work for Rapidshare.com/.de who is responsible to make sure that no illegal software is uploaded to our servers. Recently about 1 week ago we have found out that one of your users who is hosting with you – domain: http://XXXXXX1.com indexes illegal links on his/her website.
Myself and other members of our support team has sent number of emails to your departments legal@YYYYY.com and abuse@YYYYY.com tho with no reply and no action taken.
I hope as a respective hosting provider you will take immediate action regarding this issue ASAP as we will have no other choice but to take this action further and report to IWF (Internet Watch Foundation).
Awaiting reply.
Kind Regards,
ZZZZZ
An hour and a half later, ZZZZZ adds the following information:
Just to add our sytem has found out another domain'(s) hosted by you:
http://www.XXXXX2.com
http://www.XXXXX3.comwhich contains illegal content too.
In case you’re unfamiliar with Rapidshare, they’re a file sharing company who lets users put up whatever they want for download. Of course, this creates all sorts of illegal uses, and Rapidshare.com is pretty quick about getting stuff taken down — when there are complaints.
The German side, however, Rapidshare.de, is notoriously lazy in responding to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Requests, complaints about Pirated Software, RIAA Music Complaints, Terrorist Content and, of course, some of the most vile atrocities involving children. Due to their “slow” nature and their extremely strict adherence to bureaucray, they’ve become the haven of choice for illicit file sharing.
XXXXX1-3.coms are, for all practical purposes, search engines for the content stored on Rapidshare.de, and host no content of their own. Instead, they cull the Latest files as published by Rapidshare.de and put them into a nice, easily searchable engine so that most anyone can find whatever content is stored in the Fileshares at Rapidshare.de.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is an anti-child exploitation organization based in the United Kingdom. They work with police, in the United Kingdom, to assist in the prevention of child exploitation over the Internet. As noble an effort as they are, their jurisdiction is still only in the UK.
YYYYY.com is a US-based entity. Neither are XXXXX1.com, XXXXX2.com nor XXXXX3.com operated or owned by anyone in the UK.
So, basically, ZZZZZ asserts that YYYYY.com is hosting the sites, XXXXX1-3.com, and that YYYYY.com should take those sites down because they are hosting “illegal links.” He doesn’t provide those links, of course. But him, being from a German-based file sharing company, threatens to report a US-based host to a UK-based enforcement organization due to failure to act in removing content that is solely hosted by Rapidshare.de?
Excuse me, but *cough*bullsht*cough* what?
This is clearly a case of the Pot calling the Kettle an African Slave, captured by armed men somewhere in the Transvaal region of South Africa in 1789, and the Dutch bastard selling him to the Portugeuse for shipment to the New World says to call him “Stefan.”
i.e. The irony is so thick you’d have to cut it with industrial machinery.
And per ZZZZZ’s complaint, anyone can completely understand YYYYY.com not taking the threat seriously…
Can you say, “Bureaucratic Posturing,” boys and girls?
I knew you could. 😉
Note: I have nothing to do with XXXXX1.com, XXXXX2.com, XXXXX3.com, YYYYY.com, ZZZZZ or Rapidshare.de. I’m just sayin’… *shakes head*
January 1st, 2009 at 12:26 pm
A legal quandry so early for a hangover!
Interesting idea that they would declare “links” illegal. Legally that is a privilege reserved for the sole owners of content. Since Rapishare.de is a user-supported community who is now claiming a linking policy, they are thereby taking ownership, and thus responsibility, for the illegal content.
However, since ZZZZZ is merely an employee, under German Law this does not constitute a “representative” of the company unless specifically noted. Therefore his complaint is baseless unless he can contribute some evidence that he was asked to make these complaints, allegations and threats by a superior.
At that point, he could merely turn around and report them to German authorities for prosecution as the owners and distributors of illegal content.
More than likely, ZZZZZ will be fired immediately and held liable for the entire matter.
January 1st, 2009 at 1:12 pm
That’s the nice thing about not drinking last night — no hangover.
And — one Hell of a nice legal catch!
And yeah, I assume he’ll get fired… He certainly doesn’t seem to be the brightest light on the Christmas Tree, anyway…
January 1st, 2009 at 3:16 pm
I’m thinking ZZZZZ is a total tool now.
After explaining your legal premise there which makes him personally liable for the conent, I went on to give him a couple pointers about the IWF and a few things that might “assist” in weeding out the offending crap — *if* he actually works there, which I’m beginning to doubt.
One of the nice things about Rapidshare.de search engines is that they serve a dual purpose. Sure, they may link to some heinous stuff. But they really help in UNDERLINING content removal issues at Rogue hosts. And, long after the offending content is removed and hidden, there’s still a record of it in those sites. And that’s just bound to piss off the guilty, isn’t it? 😉