In legal action the cyberlocker site has been active and successful, winning cases in both the US and Germany where courts ruled that RapidShare runs a perfectly legal business. Despite these efforts both the RIAA and MPAA have marked RapidShare as one of the largest piracy havens, and this stance was reaffirmed yesterday by a paper published by brand protection company MarkMonitor.

In this study, which was picked up by dozens of mainstream news outlets, it is concluded that the Swiss cyberlocker is the largest ‘digital piracy site’ with a massive 13 billion pageviews. Although RapidShare is indeed a big player in the cyberlocker market, being labeled as a piracy site has hugely offended the site’s owners, who might go as far as taking legal action in response to statements they view as defamatory.

“This defamation of RapidShare as a digital piracy site is absurd and we reserve the right to take legal action against MarkMonitor. RapidShare is a legitimate company that offers its customers fast, simple and secure storage and management of large amounts of data via our servers,” the company announced today.

One of the main problems according to RapidShare, is the use of pageviews as an indication of the scope of the ‘piracy’ that occurs on a site. The company claims that the majority of its consumers use the site for legitimate reasons, which means that they should be discounted. Also, if pageviews were an indication then YouTube should really be branded the biggest digital piracy site on the Internet, with hundreds of millions of copyrighted videos published without the owners’ permission.

However, YouTube was intentionally left out of the study, incorrectly according to RapidShare.

“In an interview with mediapost.com MarkMonitor’s vice president of communications Te Smith said that she did not consider websites like YouTube piracy sites as they ‘have procedures in place where brandowners can take down the material.’ RapidShare offers the exact same take down features to copyright owners as YouTube does. Now, where is the difference?”

TorrentFreak asked MarkMonitor’s Te Smith to clarify why they chose to exclude YouTube but include RapidShare, despite both companies being committed to working with copyright holders. Although she could not answer our question directly, Smith did say that her company stands behind their research which is claimed to be independent.

For RapidShare the MarkMonitor report is another affirmation that they have a long way to go before they can shake off the piracy stigma, which they are committed to do. The company continues to seek dialogue with copyright holders and has most recently employed lobbyists in Washington to look after its interests.

“The study confirmed our resolution to actively raise awareness about what RapidShare is and what RapidShare does. Therefore, we have mandated a Washington-based lobbying firm some weeks ago. We are optimistic that this decision will eventually pay off,” RapidShare concludes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In less than two years the music industry group had sent out copyright infringement notices to 1.8 million Internet subscribers and a further 269,609 to colleges and universities. This kind of tracking and monitoring is a substantial task, so the RIAA along with its partners at IFPI and BPI, use companies who specialize in the work.

While BayTSP is a company many readers will be most familiar with, Denmark’s DtecNet has been increasing its profile substantially in recent years. During the AFACT v iiNet trial in Australia it became clear that much of the evidence had been collected by DtecNet and the company has worked with IRMA, the Irish Recorded Music Association, in connection with its 3 strikes agreement with ISP Eircom.

DtecNet, which is active in over two dozen countries, originally stemmed from anti-piracy lobby group Antipiratgruppen (APG), who along with IFPI represent the music and movie industry in Denmark. DtecNet was owned by the Johan Schlüter Law Firm, which itself has close ties to APG and IFPI.

However, according to a report from Denmark, the company has now been sold to US-based company, MarkMonitor.

With its headquarters in San Francisco and offices in London, Boise, Washington, D.C., and New York, MarkMonitor describes itself as “the global leader in enterprise brand protection” and claim that “more than half the Fortune 100 depend on MarkMonitor to help safeguard their brands online.”

MarkMonitor has listed DtecNet as one of its partners for some time now and together they have offered a one-stop-shop solution to tackle piracy online in both its physical and digital form. While DtecNet monitored P2P networks, blogs, Usenet and streaming services, MarkMonitor dealt with listings for counterfeit products on sites such as eBay and various social networking platforms.

Together they collected evidence of alleged infringements and sent DMCA takedown notices, requested items or posts to be delisted and issued cease and desist notices. MarkMonitor also worked to steer Internet users away from sites offering counterfeit material and towards those offering official products.

The sale will undoubtedly net Thomas Sehested, co-founder and CEO of DtecNet, a sizeable amount, although at this stage the amount MarkMonitor paid for his company is not available. Indeed, there is currently no mention of the deal anywhere on either company’s website.

TorrentFreak contacted both Thomas Sehested and Te Smith, Vice President, Communications at MarkMonitor for comment. Neither were prepared to confirm or deny the news.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.