Rapidshare Throttles Download Speed
Rapidshare has confirmed it is throttling the download speed “free users” of its service receive in an effort to reduce piracy.
Free users have complained over the past week that their speeds max out at 30 Kbps, far lower than usual, and a useless speed if downloading any file of significant size. Most assumed Rapidshare was cashing in on the demise of Megaupload, Filesonic and Fileserve by pushing free users into purchasing premium accounts.
Rapidshare has once again taken the throne as king of cyberlockers, despite a cash rewards program for uploaders that made hosters like Megaupload, Hotfile and Filesonic popular. Having a free user option is great for many who do not want to “pay to pirate,” or are scared of having their personal details linked to an account that can be used to abuse copyright.
In response to a question by TorrentFreak, Rapidshare had this to say about the slow speeds:
On January 19th Megaupload was shut down by the FBI. Shortly thereafter, several other file hosters curbed their services or entirely stopped their operations.
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.
