Rapidshare has threatened legal action against the authors of a report claiming that the file hosting service is the number one source of “digital piracy” on the internet.
MarkMonitor, a self-styled “global leader in enterprise brand protection”, says that Rapidshare is one of three online services most responsible for “rampant” piracy.
“The top-three websites classified as ‘digital piracy ’— rapidshare.com, megavideo.com, and megaupload.com — collectively generate more than 21 billion visits per year … with a high in excess of 32 million daily visits on average for the most-trafficked domain — rapidshare.com,” MarkMonitor says in Traffic Report: Online Piracy and Counterfeiting.
Rapidshare said the accusations are nonsense.
“This defamation of RapidShare as a digital piracy site is absurd,” it said in a statement. “RapidShare is a legitimate company that offers its customers fast, simple and secure storage and management of large amounts of data via our servers.”
The Swiss company said that the study ignored the millions who use the service for legitimate purposes.
“Private customers use RapidShare to share their personal pictures, videos and documents or to make backup copies of their hard drives. Business clients rely on our services to exchange large files with colleagues at different sites, with clients or with service providers or to make available free programmes or programme updates to its customers.”
The company acknowledged that some users do use the service to share pirated content, but insisted they are an “absolute minority”. It has also published guidelines for content owners who want files removed and says it will act when a convincing case is made.
A MarkMonitor spokeswoman said that the company stands by its findings.
