Not all right...

Heads up folks.  I have some new details to pass along to you, and much of it is pretty woeful.  To allay the fears of anyone concerned that Wilfully Obscure will be going offline, it wont.  In fact, new posts are to follow, albeit less frequently.  While the site is intact, every Rapidshare link was dismantled in one fell swoop this Sunday.  I was not notified of this unprovoked "transition," and it wasn't until I logged onto the R/S homepage that I learned that something was terribly amiss.  For the last five and a half years, I took advantage of the Swiss file sharing company's services, and for the bulk of that time was a paid "Pro-Rapids" member.  Upon learning that my account was "locked" and that the rug had been pulled straight out from under me, I emailed them for an explanation.  I received an utterly canned response this morning.  Portions of it follow below:

We have been informed that you violated our terms of use by distributing

copyrighted data through RapidShare. In case of premeditated violation of our terms of use, we reserve the right to close accounts and delete all content.

Accounts which have been blocked for this reason will not be restored...

the locking of accounts, due to suspicion of

distributing copyrighted data through our service is handled manually.

 

In your own best interest, we strongly recommend that you make sure to avoid

copyright infringements in the future.

 

I followed this up with both an email and a phone call to Switzerland.  The customer service representative adamantly refused to let me speak to someone in the division that made this decision.  As of now, I have no idea what files were in violation, who reported me, and worst of all I'm being denied any recourse.  It is unclear if my files (over 1000 of them) have been deleted or not.  I have not even been given private access to them, which is all the more frustrating.   

 

I fear that any further email from my end will be met with blind eyes, but there is strength in numbers.  If anyone would like to vouch for me (particularly folks in bands or those who own record labels that gave me permission to share any given piece of music) please email me and I will pass along details on how you can contact Rapidshare in my defense.  Despite any amount of protest I know that I'm likely screwed.  The obvious question is 'what next?'  Over the years I have gone out of my way to ensure I wasn't sharing anything commercially available, physically or digitally, so who's to say this won't happen again if I opt to resume and rebuild?  My policy has always been that if there's any possible instance I might be cheating an artist out of anything resembling earnings or royalties, it's not fit to be published or disseminated on this blog.

 

Rapidshare had provided such a reliable and consistent service for the entirety of Wilfully Obscure's run.  Certainly, there are other options - Netkups (which I'm taking limited advantage of), Sendspace, Divshare, Zippyshare, and likely a dozen more, but  I'm opening myself up to just as much vulnerability.  All it takes is one complaint, one DMCA notification, or the ill-advised discretion of some trigger happy moderator at one of these file sharing joints.

 

Nonetheless, as long as I stay online, much of what was lost will be coming back, just not all of it.  This will be a very long term project.  If anything else, over the next week or two I'm going to attempt to restore what I've shared in the last couple of months.  After that, I'm not promising anything.  You're welcome to make a polite request, and I'll do my best to fulfill it.  Above all else, I would appreciate your feedback on how you think it would be best for me to proceed.  A hearty thanks to anyone that's contributed to and read these pages.  Keep it lit.