avoid rapishare.de waiting

[ivanov]

maybe one of them (rapid) is among us ...:-)....

[MaRKuS-DJM]

wouldn't wonder. there are much programmers here i think. who cares?

[aldente]

I posted the tool in another, more public, board.

BUT: Is the use of this tool really illegal? I can't imagine! All the tool does, is to generate HTTP-Headers, send them to the webserver via TCP/IP, receive the answer, and interprete it. So basically, it does not do more than a regular web-browser, it just interpretes the answer a bit different (it does not render a full HTML-page), in other words: it filters the answer.

So why the hell should this be illegal? Skipping commercials on a video-tape is not illegal either!

[JMI]

Theory:

Rapidshare offers "free" use of its storage/file sharing service in exchange for your having to "view" advertisements from those who "pay" to advertise on their time delayed page. When you use their "free" service and circumvent their "advertising" you are interferring with their revenue stream, and that would tend to annoy any commercial venture. The "alternative" is a paid service, which would be their "alternative" source of revenue.

Whether or not this is "illegal" would depend on what country the service is offered in and where "you" live and attempt to circumvent the system. It really doesn't much matter whether you circumvent their system unless such actions are "illegal" in YOUR country, but the action is essentially the same as accessing any "pay-for-view" database without "paying" the access fee. Essentially, this is the same as downloading warez software and depriving the author of the revenue from their work in producing the product.

Regards,

Originally Posted by Big_or_what

So why the hell should this be illegal? Skipping commercials on a video-tape is not illegal either!

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,65704,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

...However, under the proposed language, viewers would not be allowed to use software or devices to skip commericals or promotional announcements "that would otherwise be performed or displayed before, during or after the performance of the motion picture," like the previews on a DVD.

bit offtopic though

Visu

[MaRKuS-DJM]

you agree to their rulez if you download a file... that means to wait the time you have to wait

[aldente]

but their "rules" don't have anything to do with the law

when I set up rules in my posts in this forum, forcing everyone who reads the posts to fly to the moon, then I can't prosecute anyone who does not fly to the moon.

btw: I can't see any rules on the website of rapidshare, I just have to click "free", and then click on the filename.

[MaRKuS-DJM]

hehe, that's true. you said they logged IP... what is the effort of this then? do they DDoS you? i searched again for them, but didn't find them. maybe it was a mistake.

[aldente]

http://rapidshare.de/files/1065965/PE1.rar.html

<input type="hidden" name="hint" value="Service-Abuses will be prosecuted, 217.253.xxx.xxx!">

Don't know if they actually log it, maybe they just want to frighten the programmer of tools like mine ("normal" user's will never see this hidden "hint").

[JMI]

Maybe it would help if you simply actually read their main page (http://rapidshare.de/), which states:

"RapidShare is an absolutely free web-hosting service for providing webspace on our servers without the need to sign-up. The whole web-service is ad-financed. More infos can be found in our FAQ. Due to legal reasons we log uploader's IP-addresses."

One of their concerns is that, under German law, they might get into trouble for hosting the illegal spreading of copyrighted materials and they may, in fact, be required to keep track of IPs of uploaders in case there is claim of illegal distribution of copyrighted materials. The information does not explicitly state that they log "downloader's" IPs, but it would be easy to do so.

Regards,