Rapidshare

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
RapidShare AG

logo
legal form Corporation
founding May 27, 2002
resolution March 31, 2015
Seat Baar , Switzerland
management vacant
Branch Internet services
Website rapidshare.com

Rapidshare (spelling: RapidShare ) was a provider of online services based in Baar , Switzerland , which had specialized in the storage, management and simple exchange of particularly large files (so-called share hosters ). It financed itself through paid premium access. According to its own information (February 2010), Rapidshare was the world's largest file host with over 160 million uploaded files and 42 million visitors a day. The total hard drive capacity of the Rapidshare server was around 10 petabytes (10,000 terabytes ) in 2011 , the servers were connected with a data transfer rate of around 920 gigabits per second.

The company had made headlines over and over again because of copyright issues surrounding the files it stored.

Companies

The company headquarters in Baar ZG .

The company with around 60 employees (as of September 15, 2010) achieved an estimated turnover of five million euros per month. The founder and managing director of Rapidshare was Christian Schmid. According to data analysis company Alexa Internet , Rapidshare ranked 180th among the most visited websites in the world in October 2011 on a three-month average. Previously, the website was in the top 20 for months, with 10th place in mid-2008 as the highest ranking so far. On April 20, 2010 it was announced that Rapidshare had separated from its managing director Bobby Chang. On May 17, 2013, it was announced that 45 of the 60 employees would be laid off.

At the beginning of 2014, 23 of the remaining 24 employees left the company because they were given the choice of either resigning themselves or being terminated by Rapidshare. At least 20 employees did the former.

history

Rapidshare.de was developed by Christian Schmid and went online in August 2004. The service was originally designed as a supplement to the web forum hosting service RapidForum , also operated by Schmid . This is where one-click file hosting began. No other One Click filehosters are known before this date. Shortly afterwards, numerous imitators made, in some cases very precise, copies of the increasingly popular service offer. After Rapidshare.com was founded and was able to serve the international market much better than Rapidshare.de, Rapidshare.de was discontinued on March 1st, 2010 with a redirect to Rapidshare.com.

Rapidshare AG was founded in October 2006, based in Cham, Switzerland. Shareholders are the founder and chairman of the board of directors of Rapidshare Christian Schmid as well as unknown investors. The books were checked by the auditing company Examina AG. Shortly after the founding, the message "Unfortunately, all RapidShare.de's hard drives are currently full" appeared on the German site, which meant that normal users could no longer upload. In the meantime, the German company only offered uploads from paying customers. The Rapidshare servers were located in different countries. a. in Germany.

In March 2013, all free users were asked to delete all data that exceeded a total size of 5 GB.

On July 1, 2014, all free user accounts were deactivated and an offer similar to that of many online data protection providers was created. The upload was only possible with a higher-priced user account compared to other providers (300 GB for 49 EUR).

On March 31, 2015 Rapidshare ceased operations.

Main functionality of Rapidshare

Offer files

Until July 2014, users could upload files of any size, regardless of whether they had a paid RapidPro account or not. During the upload process, a. a progress bar, the upload speed and the expected time still required are displayed. The free and official upload application Rapidshare Manager 2 was able to automatically upload multiple files one after the other.

A direct link to it was required to download a file. The uploader distributed these itself after the upload. The Rapidshare pages did not contain any download links or a function with which the infrastructure could be searched. The files could also be deleted again via a link that was to be kept secret or the RapidshareManager interface (a tool to organize and organize your Collector's or Premium account). RapidPro users' files were only deleted when RapidPro was no longer available. Files from users with a free account were automatically deleted 30 days after their last download. In order to upload files, a paid user account was required since July 2014.

Free to use

The free use was subject to various restrictions, which have been changed several times over the years: A "free user" first had to wait a few minutes before he could download the desired file, then enter a captcha and wait a certain time after the download depending on the size of the previous file (up to two hours) to be able to download additional content. However, since this restriction could easily be circumvented by disconnecting the Internet connection (new IP address ), the transmission speed for non-paying customers was throttled to 0.2 Mbit / s. In addition, the captcha has been abolished and the waiting time before a subsequent download has been reduced from a maximum of two hours to a minimum of 15 minutes. During “peak times”, which usually began in the afternoon and lasted until late at night, the free download of files with an indication of “overloaded servers” was completely excluded. A download was only possible again when "enough server capacity" was available, which many users viewed as an aggressive marketing measure for the sale of "premium" contracts.

From April 2011, free use was possible with almost unlimited speed, long waiting times before and between several downloads were also eliminated. Multiple downloads at the same time were still not possible. Since the beginning of 2012, however, short waiting times have been introduced again for free downloads, shortly afterwards the waiting times have been replaced by throttling the transmission speed to 30 kByte / s; canceled downloads could not be continued either. Since October 2012, downloads have been possible again at full speed, there were no more waiting times.

In November 2012, the company announced that it would set the download limit for downloading files from non-paying users to 1 gigabyte per day from November 27, and to 30 gigabytes per day for those from non-paying customers. This ended the file sharing on Rapidshare, as files could in fact no longer be downloaded by several unfamiliar users.

From April 2013 there was the "Freedom" account type on Rapidshare. This offered no traffic and storage limits, but was still free. The account was limited by the fact that files were deleted after 7 days of inactivity and RapidDrive is not available. However, the retention time was soon increased to 30 days. In mid-May 2014 it was announced that Rapidshare's free service would be discontinued on July 1, 2014. However, this was not carried out after all, the free download was still possible.

Premium access

In order to avoid the waiting time, a fee-based access could be purchased. With this system, the user could purchase credit (called Rapids) in advance, similar to a prepaid cell phone. The basic price had to be 990 Rapids (since May 18, 2011, previously 495 Rapids) to get a 30-day Premium Account (called RapidPro). There was also the option of buying 150-day access for 2,990 Rapids or a 2-year account for 9,990 Rapids. Premium access included unlimited traffic and unlimited secured storage space in which uploaded files were not deleted even if they were not loaded for 30 days.

Rapids were available in three packages between 990 and 9990 units at prices between € 9.90 and € 99.90. This resulted in a price per rapid of one cent. Payment was made either via PayPal , Paysafecard , Moneybookers , instant transfer , online transfer, bank transfer to Switzerland - which has been a member of the inexpensive European Payments Area (SEPA) since 2008 -, VISA, MasterCard, American Express, telephone payment (only with the 30-day package / 990 Rapids), or through certified national resellers . In addition, you could get free rapids if you used the deals from Deal United, Sponsorpay or Trialpay. To do this, you usually had to shop in certain online shops, fill out surveys or take part in competitions.

A special feature was the so-called remote upload. With it, files could be mirrored directly from another server to Rapidshare without having to go through the user's hard drive. Management of the uploaded files was possible via the file manager. Other unlimited features of "Rapid Pro" were: download volume, data transfers (256-bit SSL encryption also when downloading) and parallel transfers including resumption of interrupted downloads. As of November 27, 2012, the daily download limit for files uploaded from premium access was set to 30 gigabytes; Downloading files from other users was subject to the same restrictions as users without an account.

Download payment system

From August 27, 2005, there was a remuneration system for uploaded files, which became effective from a file size of 5 Mbytes, provided that the downloader did not generate more than three "RapidPoints" within the last hour. Each time the file was downloaded, the owner of the associated collector or premium account was credited with a "RapidPoint". With 10,000 of these points, a new account with a term of one month could be created or an existing premium account could be extended for another month. It was also possible, with points on the up rewards program Amazon vouchers (50 € 55,000 free-Points + 20,000 Premium Points) to procure or other objects. Since July 2, 2008, “RapidPoints” have also been credited if the downloader is a premium user. Previously, only free users could generate such points.

On August 22, 2009 the remuneration system was changed due to increased fraud. From now on, Premium RapidPoints could only be obtained by generating traffic. For 100 MB of traffic generated by premium users by downloading other files, the premium user who uploaded the file received a premium RapidPoint. Free RapidPoints were generated by downloading a file with at least 5 MB (by a user without premium access). However, only three Free RapidPoints per hour could be generated by a user, whereby Premium RapidPoints could be accumulated indefinitely.

For several months it was also possible to have the Premium RapidPoints paid out directly. Depending on the current Rapidshare exchange rate, the value for 1000 Premium RapidPoints was around € 1. You could also still transfer the Premium RapidPoints to Free RapidPoints at a rate of 1 to 1.25. This was necessary to renew or create a new premium account, as well as to participate in the reward program.

Since March 12, 2010 there has also been the possibility of donating your Premium and Free RapidPoints to a charitable cause. The offer was called RapidDonations. On June 18, 2010, Rapidshare announced that the RapidPoints and RapidDonations program will be discontinued on July 1st. In doing so, the company was responding to claims that the rewards system rewards uploading of copyrighted files.

Professional file hosting

Since May 23, 2007 Rapidshare also offered professional file hosting . The offer is aimed primarily at companies that want to outsource files with particularly high traffic volumes. For this purpose, packages with a contained traffic of 100 GB up to 2.5 TB could be purchased. The difference to the normal free download links was that the user could download the file directly and without waiting at maximum download speed, even if he did not have a premium account. Secured links made it possible for advanced users to only allow downloads via their own website and to counteract deep links . Each premium user had a one-off 5 GB available to test the offer free of charge.

Open programming interface for developers

Since June 10, 2009 Rapidshare has offered developers a freely accessible programming interface (API). This programming interface was no longer actively maintained from April 2013, so that the relevant Warez websites could no longer be informed about current changes in the API.

Legal disputes

On January 18, 2007, GEMA announced that it had obtained temporary injunctions against the Rapidshare.de and Rapidshare.com services. This was also confirmed with the judgment of March 21, 2007. In detail, it was about the “illegal use of works from GEMA's repertoire” , according to GEMA in a press release. According to GEMA, Rapidshare.de advertised at times that up to 15 million files could be accessed on their servers. In particular, the company demanded an exact number of works from its repertoire that are on the Rapidshare servers.

The Cologne Regional Court issued an order that prohibited the company from making certain musical works publicly available. Rapidshare then announced that it wanted to have the injunction canceled as part of an objection procedure. Managing director Bobby Chang put the copyrighted files that were unauthorized for download on Rapidshare at a low single-digit percentage. "We delete all pirated copies that become known to us, we also use software filters and a whole team of abuse employees," said Chang.

On March 21, 2007, the Cologne Regional Court announced that Rapidshare can be held responsible for copyright infringements as part of its service and must control the illegal use of works from GEMA's repertoire. A week later, the Swiss corporation announced that it would appeal. Chang believed that the district court "refused to go into the details of the matter in the necessary depth." One therefore hopes to be able to clarify the situation in the second instance. Opposite heise online Chang justify it, the judgment that the dissemination of protected musical works refer, however, only files are provided with as provided names RapidShare, from which one can draw easily not indicative of any underlying music.

In April 2007 Rapidshare filed a negative declaratory action against GEMA. The Swiss company wants to gain clarity about the legal obligations of a web host to prevent copyright infringement.

In September 2007, the Cologne Higher Regional Court determined that Rapidshare must remove copyrighted works from the server as soon as the company becomes aware of specific legal violations. However, there is no comprehensive control obligation on the part of the filehoster, as this exceeds the reasonable effort. Rapidshare therefore only has to act on request. Both GEMA and Rapidshare welcomed the verdict.

In April 2008 the legal situation for Rapidshare changed. According to a ruling by the Düsseldorf Regional Court, the web host is liable for copyright infringements committed by its users as a disruptor . The court is of the opinion that filtering the MD5 sum of deleted files is not sufficient. The judge said: "There are more effective measures with which the plaintiff could have prevented the distribution of the disputed musical works in particular and the committing of copyright infringements via its platform in general." Rapidshare must do everything possible and reasonable to prevent similar legal violations. A registration obligation would be such a solution for the judge, since "[...] someone who does not surf the Internet anonymously has much greater inhibitions about committing legal violations than a user who is not registered." In order to prevent false information, data was even compared with the Schufa or the use of the Postident process declared reasonable.

On June 24th, 2009 the district court of Hamburg found it proven that Rapidshare hosts music files worth 24 million euros.

The Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court (Az. I-20 U 166/09 12 O 221/09) revoked an initially obtained injunction against Rapidshare on April 27, 2010 in appeal proceedings against Rapidshare. According to the judgment of the Düsseldorf judges, Rapidshare is not liable for any copyright infringements by its users. Contrary to previous decisions, Rapidshare was not used as a co-interferer and there is also no increased obligation to check. Rapidshare does not publish the content itself, but only provides storage space for its users to upload any files. Rapidshare thus represents “a business model that is thoroughly approved by the legal system”, which is also “widely used legally”. Since Rapidshare does not provide a list of the stored content itself, it depends entirely on the user whether third parties have the opportunity to access the content stored on Rapidshare's servers.

In the legal dispute (Az. 09-CV-2596H WMC) between the online erotic magazine Perfect 10 and Rapidshare AG, the issuance of an injunction before a federal court in California was rejected. The presiding judge, Marilyn Huff, rejected the motion because the plaintiffs were unable to substantiate either a direct copyright infringement or a benefit from Rapidshare. According to Judge Huff's statement, there is no doubt that Rapidshare can download copyrighted images of the adult entertainment provider and that this violates the plaintiff's rights. However, Rapidshare cannot be held responsible for this violation, as Rapidshare does not offer the possibility to search a catalog for the desired material. The publication of the material stored on Rapidshare is the sole responsibility of the user, and Rapidshare is therefore not liable for direct copyright infringements within the meaning of US copyrights.

According to the judge, the plaintiff could not justify the allegation of aid or favoritism. However, there are violations by third parties on Rapidshare.

Rapidshare wanted protection by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in order to benefit from the "Safe Harbor" regulation. Judge Huff rejected this for formal reasons, as Rapidshare had failed to name a contact for the US Copyright Office.

The Federal Court of Justice ruled on July 12, 2012 that Rapidshare was obliged to filter all posted data in order to examine them for illegal content, if rights holders have pointed out their existence. In the present case, Atari SA sued that the game Alone in the Dark had been discontinued there. According to the BGH, providers would have to manually search through the link lists posted by the rights exploiters, even in individual cases, if they were to be made aware of this by the rights exploiters. The BGH referred the case back to the lower court for further clarification. Rapidshare should show whether filtering illegal files and research effort are unreasonable for their business model. However, the BGH does not assume this.

literature

  • Daniel Hofmann: Secret giants on the net - community pooling around sharehosters using the example of an online swap exchange . GRIN , Munich 2008. ISBN 3-640-21181-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rapidshare does not want to control uploads. In: onlinekosten.de. Retrieved February 24, 2010 .
  2. ↑ Dirk von Gehlen: RapidShare - the unknown web star. In: sueddeutsche.de. Retrieved February 24, 2010 .
  3. ↑ Self-image of the filehosters "We are also victims" , Spiegel Online
  4. ↑ "We are also victims". In: Spiegel Online. September 15, 2010, accessed February 9, 2011 .
  5. ↑ Raid without penalty? In: Börsenblatt Online. September 14, 2007, accessed February 24, 2010 .
  6. ↑ a b Alexa Web Search, usage data from rapidshare.com , Alexa Internet , April 3, 2011
  7. ↑ RapidShare AG separates from managing director Bobby Chang . April 21, 2010. Archived from the original on May 8, 2013. Retrieved January 1, 2012.
  8. ↑ RapidShare AG dismisses 45 employees . May 17, 2013. Retrieved May 17, 2013.
  9. ↑ http://www.pctipp.ch/news/firmen/artikel/rapidshare-ohne-fuehrung-und-angestektiven-70690/
  10. ↑ Dirk von Gehlen on Jetzt.de : "Why isn't everything a lot easier?" , March 13, 2011
  11. ↑ Rapidshare.de was permanently switched off on March 1, 2010 ( memento from January 25, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), gulli.com/news, February 20, 2010
  12. ↑ Commercial Register of the Canton of Zug - Internet full extract: RapidShare AG ( Memento of December 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), October 10, 2006
  13. ↑ Sorry, we are full ( memento of September 7, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), Gulli.com , July 30, 2007
  14. ↑ No more developers at Rapidshare , Golem.de, September 21, 2014
  15. ↑ Thorsten Neuhetzki: RapidShare: No free memory more, instead high monthly fee. teltarif.de Onlineverlag GmbH, May 16, 2014, accessed on September 21, 2014 .
  16. ↑ Sharehoster Rapidshare will delete all user data , Golem.de, February 10, 2015
  17. ↑ a b Rapidshare introduces traffic limit for downloads . heise.de. Retrieved November 9, 2012.
  18. ↑ Chip Online: Rapidshare: Free hosting will be discontinued. May 16, 2014, archived from the original on May 17, 2014 ; accessed on May 16, 2014 .
  19. ↑ Comparison of free and paid use (JPG graphic)
  20. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: advantages of premium accounts , Rapidshare (jpg graphic)@1@ 2Template: dead link / img19.imageshack.us
  21. ^ Rewards program ( Memento of January 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Rapidshare.com
  22. ↑ RapidDonations ( Memento of 15 March 2010 at the Internet Archive ), RapidDonation
  23. ↑ Rapidshare: RapidPoints program is being discontinued ( Memento of January 24, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), Gulli.com, June 18, 2010
  24. ↑ Rapidshare open to developers. In: futurezone.orf.at. June 10, 2009, accessed October 16, 2016 .
  25. ↑ API Documentation. Archived from the original on May 4, 2009 ; Retrieved July 9, 2009 .
  26. ↑ Press release of January 18, 2007 ( Memento of February 17, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), GEMA .
  27. ↑ GEMA prevails against RapidShare , RauteMusik .FM, March 28, 2007.
  28. ↑ Landgericht Köln 28 O 19/07 .
  29. ↑ Rapidshare must prevent future violations of the GEMA repertoire , heise online , March 27, 2007.
  30. ↑ RapidShare appeals in dispute with GEMA , heise online , March 28, 2007.
  31. ↑ RapidShare hosting service is suing GEMA , heise online , April 18, 2007.
  32. ↑ Limited inspection requirement for Rapidshare , futurezone.ORF.at, September 24, 2007.
  33. ^ LG Düsseldorf confirms the liability of the web hosting service Rapidshare , Wilde & Beueger Rechtsanwälte, April 21, 2008
  34. ^ Court Orders Rapidshare To Proactively Filter Content .
  35. ↑ Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court: Rapidshare is not liable for copyright infringements , heise online, May 3, 2010.
  36. ↑ a b c d e Volker Briegleb: Stage victory for RapidShare in the US copyright process. May 20, 2010, accessed June 30, 2010 .
  37. ↑ AFP / fp: Rapidshare verdict: Downloading illegal files becomes more difficult. In: welt.de . July 12, 2012, accessed October 7, 2018 .