In the wake of the shut down of the Megaupload file sharing web site several weeks ago, some other sites have shut down their operations, including BTJunkie. Now there's word that one of the biggest file sharing sites, RapidShare, is throttling down on download speeds for people who use the free portion of its service.
According to a post on Torrentfreak, the organizers of RapidShare have confirmed they have made a decision to cut download speeds for free users. In a statement the company said:
RapidShare has been faced with a severe increase in free user traffic and unfortunately also in the amount of abuse of our service ever since, suggesting that quite a few copyright infringers have chosen RapidShare as their new hoster of choice for their illegal activities. We have thus decided to take a painful yet effective step: to reduce the download speed for free users. We are confident that this will make RapidShare very unpopular amongst pirates and thus drive the abusive traffic away.
However, those users of RapidShare that upload files for legitimate reasons will be able to offer them with faster speeds for free users. However, RapidShare will make those users jump through a few hoops. The story says that those users must provide their email address and phone number to RapidShare. They must also inform RapidShare of what kinds of files they will be uploading and sharing on the site. Finally, those users must provide a list of the web sites where the RapidShare download links will be posted.
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