RapidShare, once the most popular file-hosting service in
the Internet, has announced that it will shut on 31st March 2015.
The company doesn't cite a reason for the surprising shutdown, but losing the
majority of its users in recent years after the implementation of tough
anti-piracy measures is likely to be connected.
Founded in 2002, Swiss-based RapidShare was one of the first
and most popular one-click file-hosting services on the Internet.
Like most sites of this nature, RapidShare was frequently
used by people to share copyright-infringing material. It was a relationship
that got the company into trouble on various occasions.
RapidShare fought many legal battles with entertainment
companies seeking to hold the company liable for the actions of its users, and
to top it off the site was called out by the U.S. Government as a “notorious
market.”
Hoping to clear up its image the company made tremendous
efforts to cooperate with copyright holders and limit copyright infringements.
Among other things, the company adopted one of the most restrictive sharing
policies while (re)branding itself as a personal cloud storage service.
The anti-piracy measures seemed to work, but as a result
RapidShare’s visitor numbers plunged. The dwindling revenues eventually cost most of RapidShare’s employees their jobs.
Today marks the beginning of the final chapter in
RapidShare’s controversial history. The company just announced that it will
shut down at the end of March and is recommending that users store their files
elsewhere.
The demise of RapidShare marks the end of an era. Half a
decade ago RapidShare was listed among the 50 most visited sites on the
Internet, with hundreds of millions of page views per month, but in a just a
few weeks it will be gone.
