One of the first and once the most popular service for sharing files, RapidShare, from next month cease its operation, according to the notice ion their site.
The site used to be the world’s top sites for file sharing, and on Wednesday announced its impending shutdown. Renamed RapidShare page will close in March when all user accounts will be deleted.
RapidShare was founded in 2002 in Switzerland, and was one of the first services to share files with one click. It is widely exploited for copyright infringement through setting pirated music, movies, computer software and photographs. It has earned the company numerous complaints and problems with the courts.
As part of anti-piracy measures RapidShare in November 2012 introduced a limit of files that users may not share, and a few months later, the number of employees fell from 60 to 45. RapidShare led many legal battles with companies in the entertainment industry holding him accountable for the actions of its users, and above all site has been declared by the US government “notorious markets”. They then made huge efforts to cooperate with copyright owners, and have adopted one of the most restrictive policies for file sharing. Anti-piracy measures have hoped, but the number of visitors has dropped drastically RapidShare.
While the company has not officially stated reasons for shutdowns, it was acknowledged that RapidShare has long faced with the fall of the number of users due to the implementation of strong anti-piracy measures. Although they did not specify the exact reason for the termination of the work, it is assumed that the withdrawal of the consequences of introducing RapidShare strong anti-piracy measures from 2012, after which the service recorded a continuing decline in the number of users.
RapidShare has announced that it goes out on March 31, suggesting their users to transfer their files on other sites.