Can cloud-based file-storage services be relied on for business use?
The FBI’s takedown of cyberlocker site Megaupload last week sparked an international outcry from disenfranchised users, who had relied on the site for legitimate purposes. Many users have been left wondering: will their file-sharing website be next?
Some leading file-sharing sites have been suggesting otherwise. Notably, Tom Langridge, corporate communications director at Houston-based MediaFire, said on the company’s blog that the company’s premium services “are based on a user’s ability to upload data and pay to distribute it,” and said uploads for non-premium users were limited to 200MB per file. “We caution new users to read our terms of service carefully and understand that MediaFire takes violations of our terms of service very seriously,” he said.
Similarly, Derek Labian, MediaFire’s CEO, told Venturebeat, “We don’t have a business built on copyright infringement,” and if Google searches do turn up copyrighted files on MediaFire, that’s Google’s issue for indexing those files. In addition, he said, MediaFire maintains a “good relationship” with various government agencies, and has a program in place to comply with takedown requests by copyright holders, as is required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).