After the takedown of the Megaupload Empire, piracy watchdogs have become more active worldwide. Recently, a German court has ordered RapidShare to filter all user uploads. It is a well-known fact that no file-sharing service is free of illegal content. The ruling confirms three verdicts from a lower court, all in cases started by book publishers and music rights groups. Although RapidShare has made early efforts to comply with piracy laws, those efforts do not in any way guarantee a safe passage, when it comes to cases like these.

The case leading up to this ruling was started by the music rights group GEMA. They, along with some book publishers started a case that resulted in a ruling that none of the books or songs from the plaintiff should appear on RapidShare. Clearly, RapidShare has to deploy massive filtering and signature checking mechanisms for files uploaded by its users. There are over 4000 files in the filter list.

The Chief Executive of German booksellers association, Alexander Skipis, celebrated the victory, saying

Internet sites can no longer avoid their responsibilities, and profit from copyright infringing uploads of anonymous users.

However, little did he know that the verdict of this case was contrary to the one passed by the European Court of Justice in a similar case last month. The verdict rejected any possibility of filtering copyrighted content to protect the privacy of users. Clearly, RapidShare will appeal this ruling, given the history of a similar case, which is in favor of them.

RapidShare has issued a press release on the premature celebrations of GEMA.

Baar/Switzerland, 16 March 2012. On 14 March 2012, the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court of Hamburg affirmed injunctive relief sought by GEMA and the publishers Campus and De Gruyter against RapidShare in three separate judgments. Both the German Publishers and Booksellers Association and GEMA issued “jubilant statements” immediately afterwards. In doing so they are conveniently ignoring the fact that it is considered unprofessional to evaluate a judgment before the written reasons for the judgment are on hand. Only then will it become apparent which party can truly celebrate a judgment as a success.

However, the Higher Regional court of Hamburg has issued a press release indicating a possible reason for the plaintiffs’ hectic actions: in the present cases the Court has amended its previous position, according to which RapidShare’s business model was not approved by the legal system. For the first time, the Court has also acknowledged that files only become “publicly accessible” when users publish the links in the Internet. In the past the previous diverging assessment had resulted in extensive obligations, already when uploading a file. Accordingly, the Court now sees the duties of RapidShare in particular in fighting the issue of piracy where illegal files are actually distributed, namely on the respective link pages. That is exactly what RapidShare has already been engaged in for years.

Alexandra Zwingli, CEO of RapidShare: “Of course, we will only make a detailed statement once we have the complete text. However, I am convinced that our tried-and-tested actions against copyright infringements are the right way to go, and I am pleased that the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg has confirmed as much in its press release. This demonstrates that we are not only technological, but also legal pioneers in cloud storage.”

PyShare is a application for Linux which makes sharing pictures and other files very simple. The current version (0.6.1) of the application supports uploading images to TwitPic and ImageShack and non-image files to RapidShare. After uploading the files, users can copy the URLs to share it with others, directly from the application.

Features

After installation, the application acts as a Nautilus extension and users can right click on the pictures/files and upload it from within Nautilus. The Nautilus menu for PyShare consist of the following:

• PyShare_GTK – Selecting this will open the PyShare window. From the PyShare window, users can configure PyShare, look at the history etc. Users can also drop files on the PyShare window to upload them as well. Changing the PyShare configuration from this window never worked for me though.
• sendDesktopScreenshot - The name is fairly self explanatory. On selecting this, PyShare will take a screenshot and upload it to either TwitPic or ImageShack.
• sendFiles – This will upload the selected files to the appropriate service. If the selected files are images, they will be uploaded to TwitPic or ImageShack. However, non-image files will be uploaded to RapidShare.
• sendWindowScreenshot – This is somewhat like sendDesktopScreenshot. Instead of uploading screenshot of the desktop, this will only upload screenshot of the selected window.

After using the application for almost a day, I feel that it still has a lot of rough edges. I certainly find the sendFiles function useful. However, for taking and uploading screenshots, I would prefer Shutter to PyShare. Shutter has more features and is more polished. I would certainly welcome support for Flickr and imgur as well.

Installation

If you want to install PyShare download it from GNOME-Looks.org, extract it and run the file install.sh. Then install python-pycurl and scrot.

If you prefer to do it from the command like interface, open the Terminal and execute the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get install python-pycurl scrot
$ wget http://gnome-look.org/CONTENT/content-files/100952-PyShare0.6.1.tar.bz2
$ tar -xjvf 100952-PyShare0.6.1.tar.bz2
$ cd PyShare0.6.1
$ ./install.sh

Now restart Nautilus and you should see PyShare on the right-click menu.

RapidShare has hired an entire lobbying firm to fight its cause in the US. RapidShare was accused of promoting and allowing illegal file sharing. The charges were laid by the RIAA/MPAA and the lobbying firm will defend RapidShare’s case in the US. RapidShare servers are based in Germany while the headquarters are in Switzerland. This has made it hard for the RIAA to issues a takedown notice. In addition, RapidShare has much to lose from a takedown.

The  RIAA has rightfully accused RapidShare of illegally hosting digital media, especially pre-released television series and movies. The accusations have even listed these illegal downloads as the main source of traffic for these file-sharing websites like RapidShare.

The lobbying firm RapidShare hired is proving to be useful. It has already presented a comparison of RapidShare and Google. RapidShare is ready to impose filtering of content. However, even this filtering will not guarantee that the RIAA declares RapidShare innocent and leaves it alone. The RIAA gets financial backings, which amount to more than $1.8 million as that is just the amount the reportedly spent last quarter. Doing the math, we can well estimate the pressure it puts upon its law firms.

An interesting thing to watch in this case will be how seriously RIAA takes the Google-RapidShare analogy. It will possibly play a key role in deciding RIAAs next move.

(Source)

RapidShare, one of the largest online file sharing service has recently made several changes, one of the most annoying one though was that they have now disable direct file downloads for RapidShare Premium accounts.

This means that, even if you are a Rapidshare premium account user, you will have to click at-least 3 buttons/links  before your actual download begins. If you are one of the users who is angry about this, here is a way in which you can enable direct downloads for Rapidshare premium accounts.

Step 1: Login to Rapidshare Premium

Step 2: Click the "+" symbol next to "Settings" on the landing page after your login.

Step 3: Click on the checkbox next to "Direct downloads, requested files are saved without redirection via RapidShare"

Step 4: Save the settings. You should now be able to directly download files without having to go through multiple clicks. Enjoy.

Free filesharing services like Rapidshare and MegaUpload are pretty popular these days, since more and more torrent services like Mininova have gone legit or been shut down. I’ve found that many of the shared files I find online are in the RAR format. People new to the file sharing sites might not know what a RAR file is or how to open it.   In case you didn’t know, RAR files are similar to ZIP files and are basically a collection of files and folders that are squeezed into a single file. Putting files into a RAR or ZIP format is like packing up a suit case before going on a vacation. It keeps a collection of files in a single place for easy transport.

If you’ve downloaded a RAR file and you don’t know how to open or unpack it, there are many programs that we’ve suggested for doing that. One good program for unpacking RAR files is called RarZilla Free Unrar. After you download and install it, here’s what it looks like when it first runs.

To unpack (or unRar) a RAR file, you can hit the Unrarbutton at the bottom and select the RAR file. However, this program also makes it easier to unrar files by simply double clicking on them.   Here’s what you’ll see after selecting a RAR file for unpacking.

I typically leave the settings as they are. When you hit the OK button, you’ll see the file being unpacked, as shown below.

Once it’s done, just look for a folder with the same name as the RAR file that you selected.

RarZilla also allows you to unpack password protected and multi-part RAR files. Naturally, you’ll have to know the password for a password protected RAR, and multi-part RARs must have all of the parts available and be named correctly in order to get them unpacked.

• Download RarZilla Free Unrar

Techie Buzz Verdict:

RarZilla is a great free option for unpacking RAR files. It’s easy to use, yet has plenty of options if you need them. There’s even a portable version available if you need to take it on the road. I will classify RarZilla Free Unrar as highly recommended.

Techie Buzz Rating: 4/5 (Excellent)

Ever seen the movie The Rundown with Dwayne Johnson playing a retrieval expert? I think that was a great movie. A retrieval expert. What a nice job. Even better if you have someone to do it for you. On the Internet, you ain’t got no Dwayne Johnson. Here, you got Put.io. Put.io is your personal retrieval expert. Say Hello!

Let’s say you download a lot of stuff through different mediums. There’s bittorrent, rapidshare, podcasts, rss feed enclosures, file sharing with friends etcetera. Now imagine if all the content you require from all these different places land up in one single spot on the internet from where you can choose and download whatever you want. Don’t want to download? How about streaming the movie you just torrented? Better? Right.

That is exactly what put.io does. It fetches content from torrents, rapidshare, http, ftp, standard download websites and even scrapes out content from rss feeds and podcasts. You tell put.io what to download; it’s servers will download the file onto themselves and then you can either stream or download the media to your computer through normal http links. You can access and download your data to your computer/iPhone/Web based device anytime you want. You can also conventionally upload files from your computer. It’s like a middleman for fetching content, only this man has got many hands.

If you are fetching torrents with put.io, it’s good to know that after downloading, put.io will also seed it uptil ratio of 1:1, and for those interested to know, put.io is currently experimenting with their server side torrent client and mostly use different builds of Transmission and rTorrent. If you are fetching music, you can stream it right inside the browser. If it is video, you will need the DivX browser plugin (link provided on the video page) to stream the video in the browser. In case you prefer desktop streaming, you should be doing good, as a link for direct streaming via desktop players like VLC is also provided. Entire folders can be downloaded as zip files.

Put.io has also kicked in on the social aspect of the service. You can mark fellow users of the site as friends and then share files with them individually or with all of them. All it takes is a press of a button. Its servers are connected to the internet through Gigabit ports because of which they can fetch files faster than normal home connections their website says.

In case you are a media fanatic, you will need to get your fix as put.io has it’s own set of (lenient) limits. You will get a total of 50GB storage and 150GB of bandwidth. Any single file should not be over 20GB and if the servers are high on load, you will be limited to 3 simultaneous downloads (when fetching). Put.io will not extract any archive containing more than 500 files and as for private torrent trackers, not all of them are supported.

Put.io is currently in closed beta and you will need an invite to get in. Also, there are plans to take the service on a subscription based model where the user will have to pay to use the service. Certainly, after the beta period, put.io will become a paid-for service. So you better sign up now and reap the benefits for as long as they are available.

If you’re thinking This ship is going to sink in its own dockyardthat is something only time will tell. Sure it can be used for downloading copyrighted material and even used as a seedbox, but nonetheless, it is still a middleman*, or a retrieval expert. And as far as I know, retrieval experts are legal in USA ;) On a brighter note, Put.io assures to remove any infringing material from its servers as and when it gets a DMCA complaint.

So that’s all that Put.io is all about. Want in? Keep an eye on invites given away on Put.io’s Twitter.

*Copyright laws flummox me. I should be the last person to be asked about them. Thanks!

File hosting services like Rapidshare and Megaupload have become quite the rage. In fact Rapidshare.com is among the top 25 sites according to Alexa.

These file hosting services allow users to get past email-attachment size limits and are well suited for sharing files both publicly and privately. In fact, some people also use them as a free backup service for storing vital information.

The downside is that many of these file hosting services have major download restrictions for free users. Some websites offer a limited number of download slots for each country, some tend to delete files after a short period of inactivity and some may be banned at colleges and workplaces. Hence, if you want to ensure that everyone is able to download the file, you would ideally want to upload them to multiple services. However, doing so manually is often not feasible due to time constraints.

Load2All is a free service which allows you to simultaneously upload files to as many as 8 file hosting services. At the moment Load2All supports 17 file hosting services including Rapidshare, Megaupload, HotFile, DepositFiles, Megashares and Sendspace. The best thing about Load2All is that it automatically splits the uploaded file into RAR archives if maximum file size limit for any host is exceeded. You can upload files from your computer as well as from another remote host. Rapidshare accounts (collector or premium) are also supported. This ensures that you won’t miss out on the opportunity to earn points from your uploads.

Techie Buzz Verdict

Load2All is a handy solution for regular file uploaders. Its standout feature is the ability to automatically split large files. If you have a file you wish to share, give Load2All a try. It definitely makes more sense to use Load2All, than uploading the file to a single file host.

Techie Buzz Rating: 3/5 (Good)

[ Visit Load2All ]

Rapidshare is one the most famous file-sharing network, which hosts several terabytes of files. However, downloading files from Rapidshare can be a bit annoying if you use the web interface.

In the past, we had told you, how to bypass wait screens in Rapidshare, and also about several Rapidshare search engines, to search and download files from Rapidshare. RapidWareX is a Rapidshare download manager, which allows users to conveniently download files from Rapidshare.

Rapidshare download manager supports, simultaneous downloads and retrying of failed downloads. You can setup your premium Rapidshare account in the software, so that you don’t have to enter your username and password over and over again.

RapidWareX also provides users with a Web UI to remotely manage Rapidshare downloads from anywhere in the world. In addition to that, it also allows you to stream audio and video files, directly from Rapidshare servers.

Download RapidWareX

The number of free hosting sites have grown significantly over the last few years. Zshare, MegaUpload, RapidShare and HotFiles are some of the popular ones that people use to host music, videos or other large files for free. If you are looking for a song, a video or simply a large file, you are bound to find it on one of these sites. However, going from one site to another searching on each site separately makes it painful.

DownloadMonster is a search engine that lets you search popular free hosting sites for media. They have indexed over 660,000 files and let you search a number of hosting sites including MegaUpload, RapidShare, DepositFiles and HotFile. With each search result, you can see the name of the host, the date file was uploaded, file type and file size. Clicking on any result will allow you to download the file to your local drive.

A colorful tag cloud and hot searches section tells you what files have been popular recently.

There are tons of file sharing websites available today and users may prefer to upload files on multiple file hosting sites, so that their users can easily download the files without getting into the risk of their file being deleted and not being available for downloads.

However the process of uploading files to multiple hosts can be quite tedious and may also use up heavy bandwidth. There are solutions to this problem in the form of mirror uploads to multiple file sharing hosts.

We came across another option for mirror file uploads called Gazup, which allows users to upload files to multiple file hosts.

The upload process with Gazup is similar to any other file sharing hosts, however Gazup in itself does not host your files, but in turn uploads them to multiple file hosts, including Rapidshare, Megaupload, FileFactory, MediaFire and UploadBox among others.

So the next time you want to upload a file, head to Gazup instead of the individual file hosting providers, to upload your files to multiple file hosts.

Gazup