PayPal Bans Major File-Hosting Services Over Piracy Concerns

Ernesto
July 10, 2012
313
cyberlockers,
paypal
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In recent weeks, PayPal has cut off many of the world’s largest filehosting sites from its service including MediaFire, Putlocker and DepositFiles. Growing concern over copyright infringement has resulted in an extremely strict and in some cases privacy-violating set of requirements being laid down by the payment processing company. Cyberlocker owners are disappointed with the apparent witch-hunt which in some cases is paralyzing their business.

paypal More than half a year after Megaupload was shuttered by the U.S. Government and the file-hosting industry is still in peril.

Hollywood has painted a target on sites such as MediaFire, Putlocker and DepositFiles, but these legal threats are not their only worry. In recent months, PayPal has stopped working with these and dozens of other file-hosting services, citing piracy concerns.

To be accepted by PayPal, file-hosting services now have to comply with a list of far-reaching demands entirely targeted at copyright-infringing and otherwise illegal files.

Just how far PayPal is prepared to go is explained by Putlocker. The UK-based company had its PayPal account frozen three months ago after it refused to allow the payment provider to snoop on files uploaded by its users.

“They basically wanted access to the backend to monitor all the files being uploaded, and listing all files of users if they wanted, regardless of the privacy setting that the user might have selected,” Putlocker told TorrentFreak.

“This is a complete invasion of privacy on PayPal’s part, as it’s none of their business what files users keep in their account. We have a solid abuse handling policy already, and we don’t feel a 3rd party company has any business snooping on our users,” the company added.

PayPal’s terms

payp

The owner of another major file-hosting service, who prefers to remain unnamed, says that he tried to do everything to keep PayPal on board. The site in question says it complied with all publicly listed terms, but that didn’t help.

“We have talked to more than five PayPal agents, however, all they are saying is that we do not comply with their policies, and that we should stop processing payments using PayPal,” the owner told TorrentFreak.

“This has a paralyzing effect on the file-hosting industry where 90% of the users of some sites pay using PayPal,” he added.

Previously most file-hosting sites relied heavily on PayPal, but they will now have to switch to alternatives. The next question is whether PayPal’s example will be followed by others such as Visa and Mastercard.

If it’s up to the one man army of adult industry businessman Robert King, all payment providers will follow. King is actively approaching these companies and says he wont stop before all major file-hosters are disconnected.

While King’s efforts probably have some effect, he can’t take credit for disconnecting PayPal from Putlocker three months ago. United States-based MediaFire also told TorrentFreak that King had little to do with their PayPal issues.

MediaFire says it stopped accepting PayPal after the company was unable to reach an agreement with the payment provider.

“PayPal started a discussion with us in February regarding continued use of its service. Ultimately, we were not able to agree on how to move forward and, as such, stopped accepting new customers through PayPal in early June,” Mediafire co-founder Tom Langridge told TorrentFreak.

MediaFire sees PayPal’s recent actions as a direct consequence of the Megaupload shutdown.

“I think it’s fair to say that because of PayPal’s business model, it got burned by the sudden shutdown of Megaupload,” Langridge says. However, unlike some other file-hosters, MediaFire was fortunate enough to be able to prepare for the switch.

“We have been planning for this change for some time so the impact to new and future customers is negligible. We have seen no impact to continued sales since we stopped accepting PayPal,” Langridge told us.

While not all file-hosters are equally impacted, it is clear that the troubled industry has a long way to go before things calm down.

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Gae

Just had a look at those terms from paypal, what a joke… they really think what they are asking is reasonable? They want files blocked on nothing but the request of paypal and access to the backend for something that is not even any of their business?

I hope all the filehosts tell them to fuck off.
- Master
  
  I agree, there are hundreds of alternatives to Paypal that are more than willing to help you.
  - FrostyC
    
    Exactly. I truly wonder if Paypal understands that soon they will be an e-Bay only site soon. I have seen MANY merchants dis-satisfied with Paypal, with their random holds that they put on accounts and refuse payment against. Paypal is a HUGE SCAM.
    - Guest123
      
      Paypal can really fuck off. Hope nobody uses services from such a rotten company in the future.
      I pay my VPN with bitcoin now! Paypal should be shut down…their policy is ridiculous.
    - JordanKratz
      
      +1
    - Some guy
      
      As a business member and a ‘platinum’ member of PayPal I can attest to this. It’s unequal in it’s horrible service when it comes to accepting payments. It is by FAR the WORST payment system I’ve ever used on my various websites. Dealing with them is a headache and their customer relations are a total embarrassment.
      
      They VERY OFTEN rob people, I’ve known a lot of people who’ve been burned by them. Don’t bother using it, people are scrambling away from PayPal, always seeking a reasonable alternative.
  - EricPost
    
    This is where the free market could make a killing. The cyberlockers need to get together, instead of fighting each other and each chip in and start a new PayPal-like service for them only.
    - danielravennest
      
      There already is such a system, it’s called bitcoin. Decentralized p2p payment network.
      
      It’s not really a currency, even though a lot of people call it that, it is really a transaction and accounting network. You have long account numbers, and a cryptographically secured transaction history (the block chain) so you can tell which accounts have what balance. That’s all it is, and that is all you need for a payment network. Exchanges then convert the payment balances to real money, and there are many of them.
  - zobe
    
    Go Skrill ! FUCK PAYPAL !
    - bOmB
      
      paypal, corporations, trolls, corrupted politicians, fat dumb riches USA = Paranoic Nazzi who want to control everything and everyone , wo want to enslave people and transofm into submissive robots
      So fuck them all , BOYCOTT – without your money they will loose everything , power is just in your pocket , so its simple – DONT USE , DONT BUY THEIR PRODUCTS / SERVICES
- Mat_t
  
  exactly, the biggest mistake ever is using paypal. just a quick google for “paypal alternatives” pulls up plenty which don’t have the problems of paypal.
- Guest
  
  Bitcoin FTW
  - Scary_Devil_Monastery
    
    Indeed. Normally an alternative currency such as bitcoin would have as much chance at getting off the ground as a lead duck, consumers being rather conservative in their choice of currency. But now?
    
    Every time another payment provider chooses to block services based on uncertainty and fear it generates yet one more powerful motivator for ordinary consumers to make the switch to a decentralized currency.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  the filehosts also need to tell visa, mastercard and all the banks to fuck off as well. See how many uploaders want to do it for free.
  - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
    
    None of those businesses are asking for anything like this because they know it wouldn’t stand up in a court of law and would get them into trouble.
- Yoo
  
  post this on paypalsucks dot com
- http://tehparadox.com/ tehPARADOX
  
  They should have some regulations imposed on them like ordinary banks.
http://theupwind.blogspot.com HostFat

One answer: Bitcoin.
- Arkan577
  
  please do use bitcoin, all of you, and a lot.. million of transactions. Taxes all over the world will be happy and shut it down fast…. There is only one solution: finish Cyberlosckers, bring them to court and to Jail and throw away the key….
  - McCheezits
    
    If you’re trying to troll, you suck at it. Now fuck off.
    - log
      
      even if it was a good troll… Pointless trolls are pointless.
      
      But you are 100% spot on. That was a shit troll.
    - ThoseGFYers
      
      Only someone like you responds each time he posts.
      
      Troll = Win (in this case)
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=676827475 Luke Solis
  
  To bitcoin we shall go, TO bitcoin we shall go! FUCK YOU PAYPAL, to Bitcoin we shall go!
  - Kidwellisacorpshill
    
    good luck with that fiat asset…not currency
    - http://twitter.com/ErikVoorhees Erik Voorhees
      
      Bitcoin is not fiat. Fiat, in monetary terminology, means “value by decree of government”. USD is fiat, BTC is not.
    - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
      
      A corporate shill? Hardly. I have posted on BOTH sides of the equation from time to time, that does not make me a corporate shill in the slightest.
    - danielravennest
      
      It does not claim to be a currency. It’s a transaction network and accounting system that uses p2p and cryptography to secure the history of transactions. It has arbitrary markers called “bitcoins” to track individual balances, but it’s really just an efficient way to send funds electronically such as:
      
      US dollars -> bitcoins -> euro
    - Scary_Devil_Monastery
      
      1) Every currency today is “fiat”. Even the US dollar and the Euro.
      
      2) With numerous millions of consumers negatively impacted by bad payment providers such as paypal quite a lot of legitimate businesses and consumers now have the choice of sticking with the conservative option and possibly not being able to pay or get paid…or switching to bitcoin which at least allows a market entry.
      
      3) Any currency’s power depends entirely on how many people and businesses use said currency. If Paypal, Visa and Mastercard become unreliable – which to a large degree they have become – then people will simply make the switch to a currency you can actually use any which way you want without your choice of payment “provider” being able to stop you cold at whim.
      
      Whatever else can be said about cyberlockers the fact remains that the customer base numbers in the hundreds of millions. If a hundred million consumers and businesses realize “ordinary” currency isn’t good anymore, bitcoin will become a rock-solid alternative overnight.
- Lolk
  
  Different answer; anything except Paypall or Bitcoin.
  - The USS Paypal is sinking!
    
    At least there are people trying to create better alternatives than Paypal, a business that has a long record of being abusive. They have an inflated sense of self importance and probably feel the world would fall apart if it wasn’t for them, hence why they believe they’re in a position to take advantage of people. If it were really about copyright, Paypal would just block them all outright and that would be the end of it. Except they’re not doing that. They want access to a whole lot of private information, which is a clue everyone should be paying more attention to. Something more than just copyright infringement worries is going on here and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Paypal is actually working secretly with the government and/or entertainment industry. Thankfully it’s exactly this kind of bad behavior that drives innovation. Bitcoin is just one example and I’m certain more will appear down the road. Hopefully we’ll all see Paypal file for bankruptcy some day simply because everyone has moved on to something far superior. Maybe not tomorrow or even next year, but some day in the not too distant future. Innovation is inevitable.
Mwhahaha

This won’t go down well, as usual…

But paypal are a business, they can demand what the heck they like, if their customers don’t want to use them then that’s up to the customer. They’re not obliged in any way to be nice, to be kind or to be some kind of cyber Robin Hood.

Paypal are strict and bureaucratic, they often fuck up and they aren’t the only game in town. Most people get on ok using them. I know I have for years. Occasionally there are problems as with any massive business.

But not supporting cyberlockers doesn’t make them evil.

It just makes them cautious. After all we could all see a situ where the US Govt/MPAA goes after paypal for making money from piracy. Then how many people would be bitching if paypal went down for months as they were investigated?

By refusing cyberlocker business they’re protecting themselves and all their other customers from potential damage.
- Gae
  
  The problem there is they own most of the market in online payments which gives them the option to abuse their position knowing very well there is no serious competitor that customers will switch to in large numbers. If there was then you can be sure that their terms would not be quite so invasive and restrictive.
  
  There is also the issue that having strict rules to protect yourself is one thing, but going above and beyond what is necessary at the expense of third party companies and the privacy of third party customers just because you think you can is more than ‘just being a business’.
  - anon
    
    But you seems to forgot that people still want to use File lockers services. When coming on a page to get premium account, the users will still pay whatever options they have.
    Paypal is knows because of Ebay. Other payment services can be well known because of the File lockers, and I wouldnt know that much payment gateway and shit if there were no File lockers present on the Internet.
    - Dogeatdog
      
      I thought nobody wants to pay for content anymore because it’s crap?
    - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
      
      Dogeatdog, most stuff that the TV, movie and music companies are trying to foist at us IS crap. Reality TV shows, rap music….. need I keep on going?
  - Xjdjch
    
    The problem is you are a fat basement dwelling wannabe pirate faggot. Nothing more. Fuck off.
- Guest
  
  Not supporting cyberlockers makes Paypal shortsighted cowards.
  
  If the MAFIAA tries to sue them, they have more than enough money to fight them in court and win. Set new precedents. Get laws changed. Never have to worry about being sued for the actions of its clients ever again.
  
  Instead they do this bullshit. And keep quivering in fear of the copyright industry.
  
  Fuck Them.
- Arkan577
  
  hope that visa and MC will follow soon… finished with criminal business…
  - Sadas
    
    LOL! You’re a idiot…
  - Mr. M
    
    Yeah, you’re totally right! They should all ban Google because of YouTube since it’s possible to upload copyrighted content there without permission! Oh, and every site with forums/comments, since it’s possible to submit copyrighted content there too (I don’t mean links)!!!!!!11111one
- Arkzad
  
  PP just protects his business. As usual. Everybody who is dealing with money on the net – especially under the US juntas “supervision” – is practically an money laundering terror supporter IF not proven otherwise on day-by-day basis.
  
  I know people who work with credit card mid level clearance (above >$5000 per transaction) in the US. Practically every week some people show up, from every three-letter-agency you can think of, and *demand* stuff, data, everything.
  
  The only reasonable alternative is an payment alternative that is rooted in old Europe, not the US. Preferably France or Germany.
Telemachus

The world doesn’t end at paypal.There are : webmoney(russia),payza(canada),keycollect(swiss),sagepay(uk,ireland) those work like paypal. Start using them.
- anon
  
  liqpay (ukraine) ,Skrill (UK)
  - Fabian LaMonde
    
    Skrill (UK) prefer not to deal with stolen material or CP either
    - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
      
      Then they had better stop doing business on the web period, because there is absolutely no way that they can know whether someone is dealing in ‘stolen material’ on the web or not.
    - anon
      
      the fuck you talking about ?? I bet you Skrill will profiting from that oportunity. Same oportunity that Paypal lost.
      
      http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/paypal.com Got it ???
- Yoda
  
  LibertyReserve!!!
- Mr. M
  
  You know what’s ironic? I would gladly use an online payment service that’s located in China. Because their response to the US is:
  
  Are those payments related to Chinese politics?
  Yes -> We got it from here. Now get lost.
  No -> Forget it. We’re not your slaves.
  
  As long as I don’t try to fund any protests in China, they couldn’t care less.
  - Scary_Devil_Monastery
    
    Yes, but that’s because whatever else you can claim about China they are not and never were communists other than in name.
    
    What they are, and have been for 4000 years, is a bureaucratic oligarchy which has been running a free market economy for almost all of their existence. Their economic policy predates Adam Smith by quite a few millenia.
    
    That’s why they’ve been the centre of the world for almost all of that time, barring the last century which by any reckoning has been a low point in their history.
    
    China is too savvy to meddle with market fundamentals – unlike the US which has gone into state-sponsored protectionism more resembling the machinations of the late sovjet union than anything else.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  sagepay(uk,ireland)
  
  nope, they wont process stolen content or CP
Master

The downfall of PayPal.

Sounds good to me.
- 7secen85
  
  You got it !
  
  This not the downfall of File Hosting services,,, this is start of the downfall of Paypal !
  
  One lost,,, ten found !
- jOHN rYDER
  
  No just legit companies will use them like they do now
  - Guest
    
    Even them will start to go else where when Paypal starts going downhill.
  - cloud hosting is legit
    
    these file hosting sites are legit, they are no different than the google drive, amazons cloud service and others. The only difference is that the ones that are being targeted are not BIG NAMES like google, apple and amazon.
    - Fabian LaMonde
      
      dur brain, paypal, visa, mastercard and the banks are not disagreeing. They just wont let thieves upload and sell access to content.
      The BIG difference is that google, apple and amazon are not re-selling your content access
    - Mr. M
      
      Fabian LaMonde, they are, because of ads. It doesn’t matter if you earn from advertisements or direct payments from clients, profit is profit. Therefore Google is not any different from cyberlockers.
      
      How can you still call them thieves if they respond to takedown requests? That makes no sense.
    - Patsharp16
      
      O M G i am a newbie to the internet marketing business and I have today been trying to locate a suitable compay to host my files in order to be able to link them them to sales from my customers, I have no intention of using copyright material or otherwise so were do I stand now if PayPay is doing this must we all be labeled in the same way as its not bloody fair, who are all you guys using to handle your payment transactions if not PayPal ? HELP
  - teenygozer
    
    I sell on eBay and am forced to use them. I’ve been doing that less than a year and only small, cleaning-out-the-attic kind of stuff, so I haven’t had any horror-stories happen to me yet, but I know a lot of eBay sellers, and there isn’t a single one of them who has a good thing to say about the service. Anyone of any great experience of PayPal downright hates them. Apparently to know PayPal is to hate them!
    - Fabian LaMonde
      
      I use eBay a heck of a lot , for several years and never had a problem. Ohh look a black swan.
    - Fabian LaMonde
      
      I have great experience of PayPal too and do not hate them either, oooh, another black one!
  - Scary_Devil_Monastery
    
    No, what you mean to say is that only services which are confident they can’t be charged with anything will use such payment providers.
    
    As soon as copyright law enters this equation, NO service is safe. Even if it adheres to the DMCA and all other provisions to a T. Much of it simply because you don’t need an actual civil or criminal case in order to obtain a block, as things currently stand.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Gear-Mentation/100003097514663 Gear Mentation

I need to start offering alternatives… but which service to use??
- Arkan577
  
  jail is a good option….for you and all cyberlocker criminals
  - Yoda
    
    Hi Robert.
    - IDIOCRACY
      
      :D
  - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
    
    Hello, troll…….. BAP! Now go under your bridge again or you’ll get another on the butt!
- Violated0
  
  I am sure most people would recommend BitCoin being the only truly anonymous payment service no Government can fuck with.
  
  Beyond that I would go with MoneyBookers or PPPay.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  try any service that doesnt rely on Visa or Mastercard or banks with risk departments. Perhaps bank of Syria?
  - Guest
    
    So long as personal info is not required, not a problem.
    
    Money is after all only a commodity based on the ‘promise’ of the US Government (well until China completes the transfer to ‘world reserve currency’ status, whereupon it would be a promise by the Chinese Government) that it can be exchanged as legal tender for Goods and/or Services.
    
    Nothing of value gained is nothing of value lost.
- Eskick
  
  Bitcoin fo sho
Mwhahaha

Reading thru that list, it’s hard to see anything that’s not fairly reasonable if paypal could be sharing legal liability with the hosting company. Why wouldn’t they want to be able to check that nothing’s being done which they might be prosecuted for?

I think you’d have to be worried you were hosting pirated content (or a paranoid freak) to be troubled by it.

If you’re so bothered by privacy, keep your files on your C:/ drive at home and back up on a flash drive. Email things directly. Everything online is potentially viewable regardless of how and where it’s stored.
- http://twitter.com/ArmEagle ArmEagle
  
  It is in not any way PayPal, or the filehoster, or ANYONE’s business what files someone has in their locker. Nothing at all.
  
  Now, if people provide a public link to content they do not have distributing rights to, only then it is the business of other people. For one, they voluntarily shared the content. And second, they shouldn’t.
  
  But one can easily have their music library in the locker. But you can’t know (might not) whether that person ripped those songs themselves or not. There are good reasons to want to put your ‘legal’ music files there.
  
  This is practically the same as to demanding Best Buy selling harddrives, only with the signed contract that [insertcompanyhere] can take that harddrive for inspection after half a year.
  - jOHN rYDER
    
    dont like it dont use, its a liberal concept, like if you dont like what your watching turn the channel
    - Guest
      
      When Paypal starts going down hill you can bet that there will be others popping up.
  - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
    
    What you miss is that many things that people don’t have ‘distributing rights’ to, uploading them fits into the legal definition of time-sharing.
    
    Let’s get real here; the MAFIAA should NOT have a lock on distribution in the slightest.
    They need to realize that most people who ‘download things illegally’ are not downloading them illegally because they have already paid for those things through a cable TV or satellite TV subscription.
Andrew me

Any big business that has hundreds of thousands going through its accounts need to look elsewhere, paypal is ok for small purchases of ebay and small payments onine but other than that there are other pay services that are much better with lower fees and less political involvement as to who they do business with, I thought America was one country that allowed free speech and sharing is a form of free speech, it is us saying to the moguls get a grip or we will just ignore you altogether.
7secen85

Guys, we need to set up a new Paypal totally offshore and out of reach by the US Jurisdiction.
- Incorporate in Vanuatu,
- give it an asian domain name,
- host it in Hong Kong,
- built a very good designed, clear and easier to use than Paypal,
- set low fees and charges,
- and,,,
- there you go.

I know I just talk, I havnt the skills to do such a thing, but SERIOUSLY, there is CLEARLY a business here !!! A lot of money is to be made !!!
- jOHN rYDER
  
  servers in Hong Kong with peoples private account info, that sounds almost safe !!!!
  - Guest
    
    I very much doubt that the US feds will go raiding that one after the complete and utter fuck up they did with Megaupload lol
  - Hgfhgfhgfhgfh
    
    Kim Dotcom had Hong Kong based company and look at him now
    - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
      
      You mean, winning his challenges at every turn even in AMERICAN courts? Working well for him thus far I would say.
  - Scary_Devil_Monastery
    
    Increasingly so, as compared to what can happen relying on a US-based company.
    
    Or have you been living on mars for the last ten years? If your data is on any US-based server it can and will be quite legally seized as a matter of course after which it will be accessible to up to one million people (the number of Office of Homeland Security personnel with top secret access or above).
    
    To top it off those major players based in the US are all on the top ten target list of any hacker in existence.
    
    Hong Kong (or the rest of Asia) are actually looking like comparatively safe alternatives.
- Arkan577
  
  I’m sorry ???? business…. criminality you mean… almost over… idiots!
  - IDIOCRACY
    
    woehahaha in what millenium do you live? hehe
- Anyone
  
  MegaUpload was in HongKong
  that worked well ;)
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  and NOT ONE person buying a premium download account to copy the stolen content and CP will ever trust it. Current status quo works because fellow theives trust paypal, which is the only reason it has worked so far. Basically the party is over, sorry.
  - Scary_Devil_Monastery
    
    Not really. With hundreds of millions of customers increasingly relying on cyberlockers even for legitimate businesses, the party is simply getting started.
    
    What it means is purely and simply that cyberlockers will to an increasing degree migrate outside of governmental control – which is far easier than you might think.
Maldoror

Sounds like we need a PayPal boycott.
- anon
  
  or just NOT using it.
  - Guest
    
    That’s what a boycott is, Sherlock.
- Tommy
  
  Yeah, good luck with that
HerculesXPT

Paypal sucks. The hosts needs alternatives. We should help them.
Anonymous

the various companies need to get away from Paypal asap and stay away. there are other payment services that can be used anyway. one of the frightening things about what is happening is, as per usual, no notice is taken of anything/anyone other than the entertainment industries. it’s very quickly forgotten how these industries behave as far as having sites taken down through the use of DMCA when they know full well that the copyright claim is completely false and is done simply because of jealousy. the sites that are being denied their funds should take legal action against Paypal because it is profiting by keeping those funds and gaining interest.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  Yep, use any other service, the vast majority of public wont use it, no payments, no aff sales for uploaders.
  - Scary_Devil_Monastery
    
    Last i checked, cyberlockers in general had a customer base numbering in the hundreds of millions globally.
    
    Feel free to think they will go away anytime soon – but don’t hold your breath.
    
    However…I can agree that the businesses certainly will migrate away from US soil and control which is yet another massive strike against US IT superiority. Any of the asian nations willing to accomodate these services will stand to gain rather a lot, both in jobs and in revenue.
    
    And that’s what’s going to happen.
You name

Paypal is gay.
Ton360

When did Hitler start running paypal?? who the f*ck are they to say who can pay what and to who??? they should be glad of the dam bisness they get from paying customers,even if their charges are daylight robbery……….
- http://www.sciencedaily.com Jophus
  
  This isn’t the first time they’ve done this. They stopped funds to Wikileaks and froze the funds that were already in their account a long time ago. No one cared. Example: You don’t even know about it.
Timmy

This is actually great news! :D

Now file hosts will use alternate payment providers that will encourage users to use alternate payment providers which hopefully then will gain other businesses using the same payment provider of what the users are now using …. PayPal might die out.

However, as someone who has a lot of money in my PayPal account, I’d hate to move payment provider – so much fuss needed and to verify my banks, debit cards etc etc.
Bigmeloned

The problem isn’t really paypal it’s also the big credit card companies (Visa, Mastercard and Amex). They don’t want to be associated or help provide billing for “pirate” sites. That’s why whenever a file locker sets up a new billing processor it gets shut down in a matter of days.

Filesharing sites are useful but when they offer affiliate programs where they pay its members to upload files to them so others can download that’s were things get tricky.

Its not just sharing anymore, its profiting from sharing.
- http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
  
  Most sties have already shut down their affiliate programs a long time ago. That is one time where I have to agree with the anti-filesharing people, those programs were an extremely bad idea.
Kddcqkqc

The fact that Paypal demands to see what users upload or already have in their account on filelockers, while being a payment processor (!),

shows one and only one thing:

they made a deal with the mafiaa.
Guest

Well, I think that a time for an alternative payment processor is long overdue. I do not want some fu++ing random company be a moral police. They must be crazy at Paypal because what they require from cyberlockers is just insane. They have absolutely no right to go around sniffing in users files. This would be just completely unacceptable. The equal would be for example if some ISP would ask them to present all the balances and histories of their users accounts before moving any of their traffic over the wire, because, you know, maybe some dirty money is moving through Paypal. I’m sure they would find that pretty unacceptable.
Guest

The sooner people give up on paypal the better.

These sites are retards for even using paypal in the first place, evil money sapping double dipping company they are (that includes ebay).

Bring to the rise of alternative currencies like bitcoin, fuck the processors.
Dupe

so King gets all the file hosting services shut down, basically ruining them and taking a lot of legitimate files from people as well. sounds to me like a leaf taken from the US DoJ. curious to know what gives him the right to ruin other businesses in order to save one of his, without proving that all users are doing so illegally.
- http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
  
  Good question…. I see quite a few slander and libel lawsuits against Mr. King in the very near future.
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foff

I liked paypal only because I did not want to give cc info to a filehost and because I trusted them. Do you really want to give cc info to a online bank service based in Russia or the Ukraine?

I find it amazing that the mafiaa has now turned an online banking company into internet policemen. I think a lot of filehosts, more then are listed have been dropped by Paypal.

If megaupload is a good example of the money filehosts make Paypal is going to take a pretty big hit by not processing these payments.
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Degussa1

DepositFiles? Paypal works fine!!!!!!!!! Haha and fu*k you adultking :))))))))
Thomas

I find it extremely funny that AdultKing is taking credit for shutting down paypal processing for DepositFiles, MediaFire and PutLocker when they obviously closed it themselves.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  still shut though are they not :)
Zokkies

Next move is on ISPs, making agreement with Paypal, to check each and every transaction made by paypal, through their wires and cables.
If they don’t like it, they can f*ckoff. Oh yeah, baby.
Violated0

Well that is typical PayPal for you. They want to sit on your board of directors so they can dictate how you should run your company! There we can see zero trust in companies aiming to follow the established law of the land and DMCA law is so popular with Cyberlockers as well.

Sorry PayPal but your demands are unlawful. Law in the EU forbids you accessing user’s private information and files without their direct approval. I would hope for some organizations in the EU to call on PayPal to answer for that one but I doubt we will be that lucky.

Also it is unlawful for PayPal to delete files. DMCA law clearly states that take-down requests can only be issued by the rights holder or their assigned agent. So for PayPal to delete files outside of DMCA law breaks several computer misuse laws and users can certainly sue PayPal.

Then it is also very clear for me to see that PayPal is not compliment with “fair use” exceptions like personal backups. Fair use is “lawful infringement” but if PayPal did remove files they would be in violation of the law. DCMA law is also “lawful infringement” even if now the US Administration attack this despite the law not supporting their acts when SOPA’s attempt to remove safe-harbor failed.

Anyway it is clear for me to see what is going on here. The same thing that happened when WikiLeaks published the diplomatic cables and the US Government fought back and had PayPal, VIsa and Mastercard cut them off.

So PayPal is the bitch of the US Government who have their strings pulled by the MPAA and RIAA. Funny how it is them and PayPal who shit on established law and aim to write their own.
- Arkan577
  
  Ha ha…. look who is talking…. Pa pal act illegal… poor cyberlockers….who are doing only clean things he…… Ha ha
  - Violated0
    
    I see you know nothing.
    
    PayPal have already been taken to court so many thousands and thousands of times in cases they lost that the whole system considers them a joke.
  - IDIOCRACY
    
    so both act illegal according to you? so what is your problem with that? illegal according to you does not make it illegal.
    I mean I think it is illegal to be a complete “hidastin” does that make you illegal? don´t think so.. hehe oh sorry feeding the troll…. sorry just got bored, nothing interesting to dowload hehe..
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  no, they just refused to provide a service. move along
  - http://profiles.google.com/cybervigilante Jim Mooney
    
    No, they took an action contrary to their profit motive and stockholder value, so Something Stinks.
    - Fabian LaMonde
      
      still gone
http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman

Whatever happened to sending payments through the good ol’ postal service? Lol. Computers changed allot of things, so it might take a while, but sheesh you can’t go to the postal service and go through everyones mail.
- charly
  
  They would if they thought they could get away with it…
  - http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman
    
    Yeah i bet lol.
- Abc
  
  Royal Mail in the UK are even bigger thieves than scampal
  - http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman
    
    Yeah i didn’t want to mention the us postal service because i know every country is different. Wow, dude that really stinks you can’t even trust you’re own postal service to deliver.
- http://profiles.google.com/cybervigilante Jim Mooney
  
  Oh, give the government time. For that matter, who says they aren’t doing it now? Maybe not with all mail, but I bet with “selected” mail.
  - http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman
    
    yeah true. Big brothers watching us.
http://twitter.com/Anime4PSP Anime 4 PSP

I can see the end of shittiest money processor
Steve

“Cyberlocker owners are disappointed with the apparent witch-hunt which in some cases is paralyzing their business.”

Your biased article fails to mention this is more than just about piracy. Paypal does want word to get out that they have been profiting off child porn and bestiality.

File hosting companies like Oron did nothing about sick and illegal content on their servers and only paid bonuses to those who uploaded it. File hosts can’t control what is uploaded and count on that to sell memberships.

Anyone who wants legal storage/sharing services should use Dropbox.
- Thomas
  
  And your comment isn’t? Where are the evidence that paypal or any of these filelockers have been profiting from beastiality and child porn?
  - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
    
    There isn’t any. At most, some people have uploaded bestiality and CP (both which I will be honest and say I think should be L E G A L) on their services WITHOUT their knowledge.
    
    When they are informed about that? They remove that stuff immediately in the case of the latter. With the former, they just tell these companies to stuff it from what I have seen.
    - Fabian LaMonde
      
      but still paypal have removed the option and frozen the money. Hmmm, a fire without smoke !!
- Violated0
  
  It is already a company’s job to remove all child porn and bestiality from their systems when that is the law of the land. Services can’t monitor all files of course so they also depend on people reporting problem files.
  
  And should files not be removed then that is when the Police come knocking.
  
  So again how is this supposed to be PayPal’s business? Or have their employees been employed by the Police service now?
  - Fabian LaMonde
    
    it isn;t they are a company and can do what they like, if filehosts want to have CP on their servers thats their choice too. I wouldnt have it on mine, would you have it on yours?
    - Cyrtrghw
      
      That’s fantastic isn’t it?
      
      So, I’ll go ahead and make a soy beans import company.
      And then, I’ll come over to your house and go through your things, ’cause you know, you might be doing something illegal.
      
      I do have a company, so that makes it allright by your logic, right?
- Lilmo
  
  “File hosting companies like Oron did nothing about sick and illegal content on their servers and only paid bonuses to those who uploaded it. File hosts
  can’t control what is uploaded and count on that to sell memberships.”
  Sure they can. They enjoy immunity under the DMCA’s safe harbor and the analog EU Directive, provided that they jump through some hoops. The are not required to police their users, but only to act timely on specific complaints.
- Anyone
  
  in most countries they are not allowed to proactively filter uploads because of privacy laws
  I’m sure they have deleted the illegal files once someone brought it up
  - Fabian LaMonde
    
    if they did, they wouldn’t be down
    - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
      
      Actually, yes, they would Mr. LaMonde. You miss that this is an obvious ‘witch-hunt’ and business have been shut down before for things that they had no idea about that were illegal and moved to rectify when made known that their services were being used for that.
Cam

Same shit, different day.

Just add encryption and/or obfuscation to all your files and ASSUME that they will be viewable by whatever locker you put it in. Problem solved. Even if they do snoop all they see is scrambled data that they don’t know what the fuck to do with.

Good job PayPal, bending over for the MAFIAA.
- Bucaneer
  
  If you think that’s the solution, you’re in for a surprise.
  - Cam
    
    Do explain…The AES Algorithm is as yet uncrackable. If you have a strong enough password it’s impossible to brute force. So, tell me how I am in for a surprise? I’m genuinely curious.
    - Fabian LaMonde
      
      because I will buy a $4.99 premium account on paypal and you’d roll over like a bitch and sell me the password, LOL
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  and how would file lockers SELL access to your files then?
  No one cares about what you have on a server, the issue seems to be when file lockers SELL access to your schizzle. So you have your AES multi glyph encryption and for a $4.99 paypal premium account you sell me the code, LOL
  - Cam
    
    “No one cares what you have on a server…”? Really? This whole thing is about cyberlockers supposedly hosting “copyrighted” material, and said cyberlockers using PayPal as their payment method for customers, and PayPal bending to the will of the MAFIAA and breaching the privacy of the cyberlocker users. So tell me, genius, how are they going to prove something is “copyrighted” if it’s encrypted and obfuscated? They can’t exactly prove that a file named “My Christmas Vacation Photos” has “copyrighted” material, especially if it has strong encryption.
    - Fabian LaMonde
      
      If you have files stored on a private server aka dropbox private folders , no-one cares. cyberlockers act as a broker when they sell access to public shared folders. So if it’s encrypted and obfuscated it does not take a genius to work out that you would not be able to sell access to it.
      Just realised your nick Cam stands for Challenged And Moron
    - Cam
      
      @fabianlamonde:disqus
      Dude, what the actual fuck are you on about? Oh, and Cam is short for Camaro, my favorite car. So go suck a giant dick.
Joygold

“File hosting companies like Oron did nothing about sick and illegal content on their servers and only paid bonuses to those who uploaded it. File hosts
can’t control what is uploaded and count on that to sell memberships.”
Sure they can. They enjoy immunity under the DMCA’s safe harbor and the analog EU Directive, provided that they jump through some hoops. The are not required
to police their users, but only to act timely on specific complaints.
- Bucaneer
  
  If they comply with DMCA, they can’t stop content processors will not allow. Catch 22 caught them out. bloody well about time.
http://twitter.com/ShawnJSmith1 Shawn J. Smith

Paypal, like any business, can do what they’d like. I think these actions, however, will definitely impact their business in a negative way. If they’d have done something like this years ago, some people might be screwed, but with so many alternative services out there they really are just losing their own customers.

Mind you, if they lose sites like these, their bottom line will most likely remain the same or barely worsen, so either way this news has more to do with the climate of “Corporate America” in general.
Bucaneer

1. No one has a right to take my hard work for free and then resell it for their own profit. In fact it’s illegal. You can use any excuse you like, but it’s illegal. Try using the excuse in front of a judge.

2. No company has a right to demand another company does business with them. Paypal or Visa or the host, can drop you if you break their terms or you don’t have a guaranteed period of business. If you think otherwise, go see a lawyer and start proceedings.

3. Visa, MC and all processors have rules and terms that the merchant has to follow and they have to follow. Break the rules and expect to be cut off. Which include what you sell or give access to.

4. Anyone who thinks this will stop at Paypal is a fool. Paypal was top of thhe list because so many did business through them. Switch to a new processor if you like. be sure to tell him why Paypal canned your account. Before Robert King does. Or his team, this is a massive ball rolling down a hill and picking up speed.

5. People who break the rules shouldn’t complain when they get shut down by people sticking to the rules.

6. Fuck off leeches, your being pulled.
- Violated0
  
  1. I guess you missed the concept of “lawful infringement” in such examples as “fair use” and DMCA. So indeed a DMCA safe-harbour company can lawfully sell your “hard work” and profit from it. They then remain lawful through removing your hard work should you issue a take-down request. The system was established this way so to avoid the burden of having to verify the copyright status of every file uploaded. So I just proved you wrong.
  
  2. True.
  
  3. If would be more helpful if PayPal’s demands did not break known law.
  
  4. PayPal is a bitch to the US Government who have their string pulled by the MPAA and RIAA. So this is not so much PayPal’s choice but yet more regulation tossed on them in the current “War on infringement”. If you have kept up on the news you will be well aware they are going after their advertisers and payment sources. Is that the law? No… when it is only a political attack on “lawful” companies they disapprove of.
  
  5. Can we please shut down the DoJ and FBI then? They sure never stuck to the rules in NZ when their raid was deemed unlawful and they data copying was deemed unlawful. I can also add in their glorious mistake on DaJaz1 as well along with many others.
  
  Anyway l find your statement very interesting when we “leeches” are also much interested in who sticks to the rules and who does not. Unfortunately the MPAA, RIAA and parts of the US Government are just not good at the rules part. They just see enemies and want to squash them like bugs. So all harassment and bullying and much invalid destruction.
  
  6. I guess you missed that us file sharers are also the biggest media consumers and the largest media buyers.
  
  Being pulled?
  
  The War on Infringement is at hand and we are IP activists. 15 million of us in the USA killed SOPA and PIPA and 6.3 million EU citizens killed ACTA. Yes my friend we will see you in the Courts and on the Battlefield. We will break the monopolies, establish a free market and change copyright laws forever more.
- Anon
  
  1. Didn’t seem to be a problem for Bill Gates (see BASIC), the biggest anti sharing hypocrite who ever lived.
  
  2. Agree.
  
  3. Agree.
  
  4. Agree.
  
  5. Nelson Mandela is evidence to the contrary.
  
  6. pulled by even bigger leetches.
quawonk

Who needs SOPA when they can bully payment processors into cutting off sites the corporatocracy doesn’t like?
- Bucaneer
  
  Great post. This action clearly shows there is no need for SOPA. Just a few small laws to stop the flow of money. Great post.
  - Fabian LaMonde
    
    thank you
    - Anon
      
      Stopping the flow of money will not even put a dent in file sharing, if that is the intended purpose then it will fail.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  SOPA is irrelevant when scum are just stealing
Anon

“1. No one has a right to take my hard work for free and then resell it for their own profit. In fact it’s illegal. You can use any excuse you like, but
it’s illegal. Try using the excuse in front of a judge.”

Rapidshare has won every single US court case. Please explain why a cyberlocker selling premium access and obeying DMCA notices is doing anything illegal. You can’t and you likely know it. The DMCA and the ECJ’s interpretation of EU law does not make cyberlockers illegal, nor does it impose any active monitoring obligation on them. Paypal can terminate its business, but Webmoney, LibertyReserve give a f–k. You never stop file sharing. Non-commercial copyring is here to stay. If you are really a content creator, please post your name and identifying info so we can know that you are for real.
- Camelot
  
  File lockers are legit in your sweet freetard dreams only. There’s much more to complying with DMCA than simply obeying to take down notices. Rapidshare just got lucky because those earlier lawsuits were poorly prepared and copyrighted holders were just testing waters and learning how to use DMCA properly to protect their intellectual property.
  - Asdf
    
    that’s why DMCA should be declared unconstitutional or whatever is need to take this piece of shit legislation out. you need to be a superhero and sell your soul to the devil to comply with it
    - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
      
      Actually, no, you don’t. The problem is that many companies are pussies and when they hear the ‘lawsuit’ word they automatically start pissing themselves because they think “OH NO! Lawsuit! Waste of money! I’d better give these people whatever they want!” when another company is suing them..
      
      It’s absolutely astounding that they do this yet are so gung-ho to reject individual person’s lawsuits every single time and waste cash trying to fight them, when the individual lawsuits usually have more ‘meat’ to them.
    - Bucaneer
      
      No it needs to be amended to what is was intended for. To protect hosting companies. File Lockers are distributing the content and hiding behind DMCA.
  - Anon
    
    Please identify the other obligations under the DMCA. You are a shill, and not a very informed one. The contours of inducement, safe harbors, are now more settled than a few years ago. We have the courts rejecting the claim that general rather than specific knowledge is enough to defeat the safe harbor, and we have the courts holding that red flag knowledge must be specific. This is a win not least because copyright maximalists had argued that general knowledge was sufficient to defeat the safe harbor immunity. The only avenues you have left are willful blindness and possibly inducement claims against the cyberlockers having paid affiliates for uploading copyrighted content. But file lockers as such are perfectly legal. Now many of the cyberlockers may well be guilty of inducement, but cyberlockers which aren’t encouraging uploading for money are likely safe.
    - Arzkad
      
      When rs went the 30kb/s route, they told the german press, that their “partners” who can quickly remove content *they* think has to be removed, demanded faster and faster servers. Because the people mass-reuploaded stuff faster they could delete it. If the true provisions of the safe habour rules force you to add 30% of your resources for the “upload/delete” dance, then something is wrong.
    - Fabian LaMonde
      
      you seem to miss the point entirely. a “filelocker” is a hard drive, a hard drive is not illegal. If I take that hard drive and throw it through a window then it is the action, not the article that is the transgression. Does that make it easier to understand, the action is against the “owners” or the “company” not against the software.
    - Camelot
      
      Keep dreaming freetard. In real world, exactly the opposite is true – it has been just established (Viacom vs Google) that general knowledge of infringement is enough to strip an ISP of safe harbor protection.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  the ones taken down dont respond to DMCA , so there is your answer
  - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
    
    Wrong again. All the sites in question respond to DMCA requests. I know this from going to get things that I know were ‘infringing’ off them and finding them removed with a message saying “Removed because of ToS or DMCA request!” on them.
    
    You are a shill.
    - Fabian LaMonde
      
      the question Kidsmell is the time to respond to those DMCA, lots of sites if not all would take a LONG time to respond, then just leave the content on the server, and change the inbound link. In fact a few have an API (check wikipedia for what that means) that allowed the theif who uploaded the content to just automatically reset their links. The old FAT file system and file pointer re-enacted in large style.
      
      If I’m a shill then it means I’m not a thief at least
    - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
      
      Fabian, apparently you miss that DMCA notices are allowed RIGHT IN THE FUCKING LAW ITSELF to take up to 2 weeks to process and to make sure that the things that are being asked to be taken down are:
      
      1. Owned by the person or company who is asking for the thing to be taken down.
      2. Are not covered by fair use, such as a personal backup.
      
      Stop the shillery, you are just exposing your abject insanity and stupidity.
    - Fabian LaMonde
      
      ALL THE SITES, total moron kidwell, explain again about how your personal porn is legal in only a few countries
  - GUEST
    
    The ones taken down doesn’t take extra precautional methods such as MD5-checking. There’s your answer; not DMCA.
  - Cyrtrghw
    
    And yet, we only have your word that you are no thief.
    
    I want to believe you “Fabian” (lmao) but you keep coming up as a retard with your broken record replies.
    
    Everyone is a thief except mighty-righteous YOU.
    
    Assclown.
    - Fabian LaMonde
      
      Unless you have not noticed this is not a personal thing, it is one company saying to another, sorry, do not want to work with you anymore. Then it is just the people who are either social oddballs or just plain not very good at anything that lose out as they are denied a chance to steal peoples content and benefit from payments. Mainly by people stupid enough not have usenet or tor, but also the very same stupid people that only paid because they trust paypal. I laugh loud wen i hear the arguments to replace the pay processor, haw haw haw. Good luck with that one.
- Bucaneer
  
  To comply with DMCA a host cannot monitor what’s being uploaded. So if child porn or even porn ends up on their servers and is being distributed. They break the rules of the processor, he can shut off their money flow.
  
  Right no one will stop sharing, stopping the money flow will stop sharing (stealing other peoples hard work) being profitable.
  - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
    
    The processors rules are against the law and I can see these rules being challenged in court if one of these companies gets some nads and stands up for themselves.
John

Easy to see who the thieves are in the replies here. Crying because they are no longer able to profit off of other peoples hard work!
- Twerf
  
  Yeah – easy to see who the trolls are too.
  - Fabian LaMonde
    
    and who the thieves are ;)
    - Xrhhnbqt
      
      Stop “stealing” letters that you use to make sentences then.
      
      You know that someone else created the alphabet and now you’re “stealing” by using it for free.
      
      Thief.
    - Fabian LaMonde
      
      another person with a scrabble name
    - Anon
      
      Yes it clear who the thieves are, industry lawyers, agents, executives and corporations.
- Bucaneer
  
  They think they have some right to take other peoples hard work and make money from it. Idiots, what has been clearly shown is sharing = piracy =a business that needs money to keep it going. Wait until Governments start making laws not hitting the piracy, instead hitting the funding of piracy. Then the money will dry up to run the servers. DMCA has a clause to allow hosting companies immunity from what’s uploaded. It’s being used by distributors to make money.
123

I give PayPal 2 years before they start crying about their business model. They are shooting themselves in the foot. They plainly stated their intentions.
Asdf

sorry, why do they have to report files to the center for missing and exploited children? are children being used as slave labour to copy files or something?
- http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
  
  I guess they are talking about the VERY FEW “CP” (usually drawn lolicon pictures and not true CP) that are uploaded to these servers.
  
  Those true CP pictures are supposed to be reported to the FBI and from what I have seen, they are. The problem is that the Feds, from talking with my cousin who works with them know that with TOR, easily cracked wireless networks, etc.? That the IP address that uploaded the thing in question doesn’t necessarily equate to the same person who uploaded that stuff.
  - Fabian LaMonde
    
    Your definition of what is CP, what is “true” CP and what is an acceptable limit very very sadly paints you as someone who has a disturbing different opinion of what is the law. I suggest you jog along to the FBI with one of your cousins and ask exactly what the legal standpoint is and how much CP is acceptable. moron
    - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
      
      Seeing as how the Supreme Court has said in throwing out COPPA and other laws that lolicon is legal AND I have shown my extensive lolicon collection to the FBI AND the state cops many years ago now….. I’m pretty damned certain that it is legal.
      
      You are just butthurt because not everyone agrees with you, even about ‘real CP’. Fact is that pedosexuals are just the newest ‘boogie men’ for society like homosexuals and interracials were in the past.
      This is NOT in the slightest about ‘protecting children’, this is about forcing religious sexual morality on other people (against human rights for one and, in the United States, constitutional rights as well).
- Bucaneer
  
  No to produce content for pedos.
JL

People just share stop trying to make money, you’re giving us people who just like to share with the world a bad name.
g h

“We have been planning for this change for some time so the impact to
new and future customers is negligible. We have seen no impact to
continued sales since we stopped accepting PayPal,” Langridge told us…..

Mediafire knows how its done…

Be proactive instead of reactive..
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  haha, PR spin to save face more like. read the full story, they could not comply with paypal requests so had to remove that lucrative funding stream. So instead of saying we had it taken away from us, they said we did not want it anyway. cry babies
Islander

Paypal has been pretty much swindling every non-western user anyway. Western European, American, and Commonwealth users may experience no problems when using their services, but try to do it from non-first-world non-western countries and the experience is very very different.

I come from one such nation and I’m a freelance home-based artist. PayPal was great for a while. It seemed so easy and perfect for the fact that my clients were from all over the world. For a commission that took me about two months, I received $1000 from a client through paypal. It was apparently enough to set their Homeland Security-esque watchdogs to classify my account as “suspicious”.

Note that I had complied to everything they asked for, had proven my identity, etc. etc. but none of that helped. They immediately froze my account for the simple reason that I was receiving TOO MUCH MONEY. Apparently people receiving such amounts in a third-world country makes me either a terrorist or a scammer.

They then demanded that I prove my identity. And so for the next six months I gave them all the additional personal information they asked for. After it became apparent that they were not being processed at all and my work was starting to suffer, I started emailing their useless customer service. Each and every time I contacted them, even if I give them the ticket number of the issue, they act like it’s the first time they have ever heard of me and send me a templated email. A templated email that can be summarized as “Hello. You’re not important and you might be a terrorist. So please wait.” Each and every time.

And during this time, I couldn’t receive nor transfer anything. I couldn’t even withdraw the existing money in the account that is rightfully mine and just terminate my account. No. I have to wait six months while they sit on a large part of my life’s savings accruing interest in their own banks. I couldn’t sue, I don’t even know where to begin in suing a multinational megacorporation like that. Meanwhile it completely killed my work and my business.

So my advice? Don’t make the same mistake I did. I gave PayPal the same trust that I would give a bank. It’s not a bank. They don’t obey the same regulations that banks have you see. The regulations vary by country, and they’re multinational. All that binds them to you is basically the small print of the EULA which will always side with them. Once you give your money to them, they control it.

I’m an unknown, yes. But my experience mirrors that of millions of other users. One of which was Markus Persson, the creator of MineCraft.
- Violated0
  
  I am sorry to hear about your problems. Yes dealing with PayPal is like trying to convince a bolder to move out of your way. My advice is to always document everything and keep copies. I have seen PayPal malfunction many times so it helps to keep proof.
  You then need to speak slowly and carefully to them like children. Clarify the complete situation to them in however many steps it takes. Also make clear what you want to happen and what you do not want to happen.Well suing PayPal may be quite difficult in a 3rd world country but in other countries it can be quite easy. Such as here in the UK it is a small claims court matter for smaller values and people can use the Money Claim Online service to make a case against them.
  
  People then need to make sure they assemble their case well with lots of evidence when many claims can fail if they don’t put in suitable proof.
  
  Yes PayPal do need to be regulated like a bank when then there will be an enforced fair balance between buyers and sellers. PayPal though fight hard against this and they have been successful so far.
- http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
  
  True that. As soon as I found PayPal Sucks and read the horror stories, I said bluntly that I would never do business with them nor with any company that solely used them as their only payment processor.
  - Fabian LaMonde
    
    nice morals there, why not just make your mind up and stop doing business with any company that uses them instead of being indecisive. Or is that 51 shades of grey for you mr submissive?
  - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
    
    Because, Fabian, I don’t see this as a case of ‘have to throw the baby out with the bathwater’, unlike your trolling ass.
  - Fabian LaMonde
    
    lol like you have a business
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  LOL, no your advice should have been just read the terms and conditions of the site which you did not do when you decided to do business. I’m guessing you must be a school leaver, but it is really a good idea to read T&C’s and also contracts. Also you confuse earnings with live savings, they are very different and those rules are in place for tax evasion and money laundering requirements put in place by countries that paypal operates in. Next time you should read the instructions.
http://twitter.com/ErikVoorhees Erik Voorhees

Bitcoin is so perfect to solve this problem, I’m not even sure what to write here.
- http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
  
  Bitcoin is unreliable and too easy to punk today. It might be good in the extreme future but it’s not good today.
  - Bucaneer
    
    And it will get hit in exactly the same way Paypal is being hit.
    - Scary_Devil_Monastery
      
      Bitcoin isn’t “hittable”. That’s the difference. No centralization.
      
      If you want a real-world comparison it’s a bit like every person having his/her money in a digital wallet on their own computer, with no bank or accounting institute having any insight in who actually owns it.
      
      What bitcoins lacks is a sufficiently big consumer base. As of yet. Once that is achieved – even if it’s just a matter of a few hundred million people using it to pay their monthly cyberlocker subscription and nothing else – the currency suddenly becomes an attractive alternative.
  - Scary_Devil_Monastery
    
    I would have said the same a year ago. Today?
    
    I dunno. You have hundreds of millions of consumers in the cyberlocker market alone who are now being told it doesn’t matter whether the service they rely on is legitimate or not – they might not be able to pay the subscription.
    
    That’s a fairly massive amount of motivation to start relying on alternatives.
    
    If that market starts relying on bitcoin for small payments (where a difference between paying the equivalent of 4 or 6 USD might be considered acceptable) then bitcoin would, in one go, achieve the necessary critical mass of users to become a stable de facto currency.
    
    All it takes is for enough people to lose faith in the “established” payment methods. Judging from the cyberlocker market alone it could be enough.
- GUEST
  
  Get it in your thick head that no one uses Bitcoin.
  - Scary_Devil_Monastery
    
    Actually the user base is growing exponentially.
    
    Today you can use bitcoin to pay numerous VPN providers. If the cyberlocker customers decide they can risk ten bucks a month in bitcoin in order to pay their subscriptions that currency becomes a world currency literally overnight.
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FckingEachOTherbrainsOut

Presidents,politicians and ceos keep money in offshore account without paing any tax. Yet they are allowed , and no fuss about it. Now paypall screwing up the prospective customers.
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http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

Maybe it’s time for these companies to band together and sue PayPal, because this does seem like a witchhunt of the highest degree.
- Bucaneer
  
  Great idea, go for it. Maybe all the uploaders should get together and do it. A touch of the real world might help them understand better how rules work.
a torrent site owner

so whats new paypal has been doing this for years. they did the same with our paypal account after some said we had child porn on the site which there was not. we had to give them access (make a account) for them to see all the torrents we had on site and after they found nothing they made us wait 2 months before they unlocked the paypal account, that was until they used another excuse to close it. they are a law unto themselves and change the terms to suit them and their cronies.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  wha wha call the whambulance
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Earnfilehost

see paypal alexa daily visitors ,they start falling :)
- GUEST
  
  So? Every other businesses uses them. You boycotting them will not serve any good. Good luck “taking” them down.
  - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
    
    Every other business uses them IN ADDITION to numerous other services. I.E. most could drop PayPal and it wouldn’t even be a blip on the radar.
    - Fabian LaMonde
      
      still need VISA & MC, those sleeping giants are just waking up
    - http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell
      
      Fabian, those ‘sleeping giants’ are being punked by a liar named Alex King, who is actively lying about these filelockers.
      
      Once we get some real and balanced news on this subject and someone appeals this decision, I see Visa and Mastercard retreating real fast.
    - Genie
      
      LOL, arm twisting paypal / MC / etc will not even make a dent. Trying to put the Genie back in the bottle is futile.
- Camelot
  
  Filehosts that are no longer able to accept Paypal for payments are dropping much faster in terms of traffic, because they’re not needed to anything other than copyright infringents and do not have any legit uses. Paypal does, and they aren’t going anywhere, getting less of junk traffic is not a big deal for them. While their former “clients” simple have nowhere else to go.
Bjohensson

DON’T USE PAYPAL!!!! You should not use any American pay processors. Paypal is an instrument of American/MPAA/Mafia policies. Don’t contribute to the profits of american criminal organizations..
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  and if you are not american like us, probably dont have any money either ,just saying
  - xbeton0L
    
    Just shut the fuck up Fabio. Ignorant American.
    
    And yes I’m American. But I don’t care about nationality when you’re about as dumb as a brick.
tonyj

Paypal is the dumb ass among dumb asses. This will allow other payment companies to fill the vacant gaps which will promote these companies as alternatives to paypal. And paypal which is primarily focused on eBay is going to be know as a payment company the works only for eBay.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  errr, still no one else stepped in who wants to process for scum uploading stolen content ;)
  
  been a week
GUEST

You morons. You just don’t get it, thus, you shouldn’t have PP as payment processor.
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Mouseanony

This is why you set up fake sites to use a proxy for donations. It works wonders and paypal don’t see a thing. Been doing it for years…..
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  paypal are now backdating the freeze as well, so even if an uploader was paid in some cases it has been frozen as well. oh dear
  
  what paypal giveth, paypal taketh
http://profiles.google.com/cybervigilante Jim Mooney

Paypal also overcharges so it’s an eventual blessing for people to get out from under. There are more and more alternatives.

But I don’t think it’s Paypal. They were put up to it by the government, which is trying very hard to squash all internet freedoms. They like the fact that tne net brings in money, but they Hate that it gives us a voice.

Most corporations are in it to make money, not perform social good. Bankers don’t care what laws are broken or what damage is done if there’s a profit, for instance. So you have to ask Why Paypal is hot to actually Lose money, when there is no legal attack possible against them as just a payment processor. At the very worst they might get a cease-and-desist court order for a particular site, but only after it is issued by a judge.

There is a Hidden clinker here. Something stinks. It’s not just Paypal. A company doesn’t just go against its profit motive without a reason.

A lot of people use Paypal because they think it’s safe, but that’s just an appearance. But it takes a Long time to get a response from their Helpdesk if you have a money problem, and longer to solve it, if they do. You should never keep a large sum in Paypal. It should be shifted to your bank. Unfortunately, that involves a catch-22. If your bank is connected, a spurious withdrawal from Paypal will immediately draw on your bank account.
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http://profiles.google.com/cybervigilante Jim Mooney

We can only hope that bum King gets caught using underaged girls, which I’m sure he’s done.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  unlikely isnt it, but you do have a Vivid imagination there
hitherandyonder

President Obama Seizes All Forms of Communication with Executive Order

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31838
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Xi_ruler

What this PayPal action will do is just drive another nail into Cloud Computing’s coffin. This is a very lucrative potential business that will probably go by the wayside, or not develop the way it should, because of outside interference.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  its not cloud its whack a load of hard drives on a box and have a download link, i doubt amazon are worried about the competition
m33crob

PayPal does not have the legal authority to do this, however, they can refuse service to anyone.

Per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act; the enforcer must have the expressed consent of the copyright holder to act on their behalf to request the removal or take down of files. Unless very specifically hired by copyright holders, the file locker admin should sue the pants off of PayPal if they have directly stated and/or worked as a legal mediator.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  Paypal T&C’s say they can do business with whoever they like, case closed
  - m33crob
    
    Yes, I already covered that in my comment that you very apparently did not read. That aside, on the grounds of copyright enforcement, they do not have the right to do this unless specifically contracted by the copyright holders.
    
    If PayPal dropped them because they just dont want to do business with them, case closed. But if PayPal specifically told them that they were dropped because of copyright infringement issues, then PayPal has overstepped its authority and is opening itself for legal action.
    
    Read the DMCA law and educate yourself.
    - Fabian LaMonde
      
      Love to see a russian filelocker take them to court and explain what it was they were selling, LOLLAGE
    - Fabian LaMonde
      
      still down, any more brilliant comments?
- http://profile.typepad.com/6p0120a5509de8970c Mikko
  
  they can’t refuse service to blacks or asians
Harquebus

Time for cyberlockers to create their own online payment system.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  yep, off to the bank and say we would like to charge for stolen content uploaded by scum. like to see that meeting
  - Anon
    
    People wouldn’t steal it if the cost was not so high, due to the greedy profit taking from the industry executives, lawyers, and agents.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  first they should create their own business not based on theft, ;)
  
  LOL
Anon

as
a close friend to a paypal employee it has a lot to do with: http://torrentfreak.com/one-man-army-on-a-mission-to-destroy-the-cyberlocker-market-120705/.

that guy is reporting
all the cyberlockers to MasterCard as saying they are posting child porn.
MasterCard then is threatening PayPal with up to200k fine for EACH cyberlocker
complaint because it is against there brand integrity. If PayPal doesn’t shut
the cyberlockers down then they have to pay the full price. MasterCard is
allowed to put up a complaint to PayPal without any proof because on their
contract they have something that says if it has potential to hurt the
MasterCard brand then they can fine. PayPal then has to change its terms
because they have nothing backing them up to show that the file hosts are
legitimate. PayPal has no other option but to comply because of complaints from
MPAA/RIAA and user above that ‘report’ the extreme without any proof.
You4536

The elite is afraid of the internet. They want to control it. They passed laws like SOPA and they failed. They cannot attack directly. So they use Paypal as their tool. Paypal just wants profits. It will always bow down to the elite. Remember how Paypal blocked the funds collected by the Ron Paul fans 4 years ago? It was done at the request of the elite.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  no, that is wrong, lol. only the scum stole and uploaded for profit
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JordanKratz

I have never liked Paypal.Maybe Torrentfreak can run a News Story on SAFE Alternatives to Paypal.
I will not use them if I can use a SAFE Alternative.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  there isnt one, this was a loophole
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amandajhonson35

Time for cyberlockers to create their own online payment system.
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Guest

You cannot compete with FREE! Asking for money for stolen content is going against the spirit of true piracy. Shouldn’t there be honor amongst thieves?

Paypal: The end is nigh. The very market that adopted your business model so thoroughly is the very savvy market that will swiftly dump you unceremoniously.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  scum only do it for free if they can make money, they cant, so no free
Guest

SAFE Alternative: Adopt GeeenDot ,Best in the businesseveryone can use it.https://www.moneypak.com/
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Guest

Fuck PayPal
http://www.facebook.com/people/Dark-Nomad/674874441 Dark Nomad

People who value their right to freedom should boycott PayPal. I guess sites need to return to a postal order system (which is regrettably slower), because lets be honest nobody is going to trust a w4r3z website with their bank details.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  and without paypal they cant afford to pay the hosting so the whole house of cards comes down
Donthaveone

But the alternatives are not as safe as paypal.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  the scariest thought is if a bad person gets your card details and then decides to card bang it, at least with paypal no-one can know your details.
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m33crob

How about
https://www.2checkout.com/
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  all the money though comes from paypal which is what normal people trust, without that, its a dead pool
Bonquiqui

Why don’t these cyberlockers sue this King guy for tortious interference with their agreements with Paypal? You can’t meddle in other people’s business contracts just to benefit your own company. There’s proper ways to handle infringement claims and the way he is doing it isn’t proper.
- Fabian LaMonde
  
  if they could, they would. they cant, so they are finished
http://www.venturacountyfamily.com/ Bianca Kruse

We don’t feel a 3rd party company has any business snooping on our users,” the company .
Fabian LaMonde

so 3 weeks in, dozens of hosts lost their payments, even more on the books for removal, filegag trying to sell all the personal contact details and site online. seems like a trend has started
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tiger97a

yea torrent day just started using paypal again but now its a echeck and my bank is showing some wierd stuff now on my statement -like my adresss and where the money went to and so forth, my last days of using pay pal.
mystrdat

Banks being political, what a surprise really.
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xbeton0L

So not only are they trying to censor what we’re allowed to access online, but now they want to control what we spend our money on.

What the Fuck.
xbeton0L

We’ll talk when you start making sense. For now go sit in the corner.
xbeton0L

Fabian’s vocabulary is severely hampered. Reasoning with it’s logic will likely accomplish nothing. Pay no attention to the troll.
xbeton0L

Thanks for clearing that up, but Fabio doesn’t learn. He trolls.

Probably hired by the same people running Paypal or something.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_TMJ66JH4SIZIQ46DJIQCC6TCYI Alfred

Just set it up so you can send the file hosting service a check to pay them instead of using PayPal.
Andrew

Paypal what a joke.
Ive never clicked on ‘IFFY’ links or those clearly fake emails you get asking to log into account..then one evening saw 600 quid being taken out of my paypal account the firm are just terrible.Thats the problem when you take the moral highground it comes back to bite you quite soon.
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BillyGoates

Just wait until you get ripped off & you will wish you had been with PayPal
Pissed

Wow, some idiot smut peddler is out to get all the file hosting sites shut down…get a damn life asshole.

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