These services allow users to upload files that can be accessed over the internet after providing a username and password or other authentication.
Files placed in this folder can be accessed through a website or mobile app and easily shared with others for viewing or collaboration.
[3] Consumer products such as OneDrive and Google Drive have made file hosting and sharing more accessible and popular for personal and business use.
[6] Some online file storage services offer space on a per-gigabyte basis, and sometimes include a bandwidth cost component as well.
Many providers offer tiered storage levels, charging differently based on frequency of access and retrieval latency.
Several programs aid in downloading files from these one-click hosts; examples are JDownloader, FreeRapid, Mipony, Tucan Manager and CryptLoad.
v. Rapidshare AG in Germany,[13] the Düsseldorf higher regional court examined claims related to alleged infringing activity and reached the conclusion on appeal that "most people utilize RapidShare for legal use cases"[14] and that to assume otherwise was equivalent to inviting "a general suspicion against shared hosting services and their users which is not justified".
[13] By contrast in January 2012 the United States Department of Justice seized and shut down the file hosting site Megaupload.com and commenced criminal cases against its owners and others.
Their indictment concluded that Megaupload differed from other online file storage businesses, suggesting a number of design features of its operating model as being evidence showing a criminal intent and venture.
[16] Examples cited included reliance upon advertising revenue and other activities showing the business was funded by (and heavily promoted) downloads and not storage, defendants' communications helping users who sought infringing material, and defendants' communications discussing their own evasion and infringement issues.
In 2016 the file hosting site Putlocker has been noted by the Motion Picture Association of America for being a major piracy threat,[18] and in 2012 Alfred Perry of Paramount Pictures listed Putlocker as one of the "top 5 rogue cyberlocker services", alongside Wupload, FileServe, Depositfiles, and MediaFire.
[26] This form of encryption is rapidly gaining popularity, with companies such as MEGA[27] (previously Megaupload) and SpiderOak being entirely zero knowledge file storage and sharing.
[28] Since secret key encryption results in unique files, it makes data deduplication impossible and therefore may use more storage space.
There is, however, no easily accessible public record of this having been tried in court as of May 2013 and an argument could be made that, similar to the opinion expressed by Attorney Rick G. Sanders of Aaron | Sanders PLLC in regards to the iTunes Match "Honeypot" discussion,[31] that a warrant to search the cloud storage provider's servers would be hard to obtain without other, independent, evidence establishing probable cause for copyright infringement.
Such legal restraint would obviously not apply to the secret police of an oppressive government who could potentially gain access to the encrypted files through various forms of hacking or other cybercrime.