Piracy on the Internet: Publisher-side Analysis on File Hosting Services

摘要

In the file sharing ecosystem, One-Click File Hosting Services (FHS) such as Rapidgator and Uploaded, the previously Rapidshare and Megaupload, provide a platform for users to share copyrighted content. We present a publisher-side analysis of FHS file sharing dynamics through data collected from active measurement by crawling Warez-BB. The website is essentially a forum where publishers can share links to content they have uploaded on file hosting services. Consumers can use the website to gain access to content shared on the website, often free of charge. We primarily analyse various characteristics of file sharing with respect to view count as the evaluation metric.