RapidShare (Photo : www.rapidshare.com)
RapidShare, the once popular file sharing website will officially close its door to its users as the company announces that it will shut down officially on Mar. 31.
"Kindly note that RapidShare will stop the active service on March 31st, 2015. Extensions of the STANDARD PLUS and PREMIUM will be possible until February 28th, 2015. We strongly recommend that all customer to secure their data," reads the message RapidShare posted on its website.
The file sharing website was founded on 2002 and was one of the first and widely used one-click file-hosting website on the internet. However, like most website that offers the same services RapidShare was attacked by several companies due to copyright-infringement practices.
RapidShare has fought many legal battles most notably against entertainment companies. The United States government even went as far as calling the website "notorious market," according to Torrent Freak.
In its attempt to thwart anti-piracy regulators, RapidShare worked together with copyright holders and added moderators to keep an eye on uploaded files that violates copyright-infringement. The website also rebranded its service as personal cloud storage rather than file sharing service.
However, its effort to appease copyright advocates resulted in a dramatic deterioration in terms of visitors. RapidShare's monthly traffic continued to dwindle until advertisers pulled out and caused the company's revenue to suffer.
The impending closure of RapidShare will mark a definitive turning point in the regulation of the internet. Five years ago RapidShare commands one of the biggest traffic on the internet and has even managed to be listed as one of the 50 most-visited sites on the Internet at one point.
Unfortunately, these milestones will merely turn into just another statistic as the website is heading to its ultimate demise within the next few weeks.
