FileSonic File Sharing Service Shuts Down - Personal Upload/Download Only
 

Hot on the heels of the widely publicized Megaupload shut down last week by the United States Government, FileSonic has recently put on their website the following message:

As we are all aware, those of us who do not use Torrents rely on such services like Megaupload and FileSonic for our Fan Subs. The conspiracy theories are running rampant - literally a DAY after major websites like Wikipedia and Google displayed their public protest of the contraversial SOPA and PIPA] bills in the Congress and Senate of the United States, Megaupload was shut down, and now days later, FileSonic basically makes their website worthless.

This makes the future of Fan Subs a little darker. What do you think of what's going on? Discuss it all here (yes it's political but we're looking past that rule on our forums because this discussion effects everyone).

This is looking grimmer and grimmer for the future of our Toku entertainment.

Darn, darn, darn this is NOT good. I really hope this doesn't become a trend otherwise Toku will be dead to us.

Look Toei and other Toku companies, please give international customers an avenue to watch your shows, subbed!

There will always be another solution. If all the fileshare sites go down, we still have torrents. If Bittorrent somehow is wiped out, there is still the old IRC Fileserv method of way way back in the day, when I first got into toku online.

Worst-case, there's always Usenet. :lol

Things may end up becoming harder, but I believe the internet as an entity will always find a way.

Well said Dr. Malcolm

Apparently upload.to, another form of file-sharing, is blocking all United States domains for the same reason FileSonic chose to shut down their ability to share your uploads.

Fileserve is probably the last big one left.

Thanks for the reassurance. The thing I am worried about is that by making it harder, the fanbase will get smaller than it already is. Less demand might result in less supply, making our subs rare and sporadic in their releases.

I still hope for the best in this matter. Perhaps if everything fails, we can still get DVDs and download the scripts from fansubbers. :D

IMO, and this is ONLY my opinion, people have it easy now a days. In the past getting videos or other files was very hush hush and kind of hard to do. We had to scour certain forums, rely on usenet, and trading tapes and dvd's.

Today you have people whining that "OH NOES MY DDL IS NOT WORKING", instead of thanking who ever uploaded the file in the first place. People have so many options for getting FREE files, and they just take it for granted.

I am not saying these sites shutting down is a good thing, but maybe this will cause people to be thankful for the things they are allowed to have for free instead of bitching their downloads are not coming fast enough.

I also have this to say about the fanbase. SOME of it is good. You have people that contribute, discuss, and are happy to take part in the toku fandom. Then you have the people, that are in the majority it seems, who just want free stuff. They think fake subs are something to push. They think if a fansub doesn't come out "ON TIME" that they have a right to bitch. And so on.

I'd say I'm not too worried, but truth is I've spent the last few days hoarding as much stuff as I possibly can from direct download sites. I'm not adverse to using torrents but I try to avoid it if I can.

But yeah, there's still torrents for now. I have hope the internet will come through and find ways.

I remember having to wait weeks for the envelope with 3 VHS cassettes to arrive in my mailbox. I still have all those tapes :lol

Damn kids!

I just came in here to say that you shouldn't give up hope at all.

It'll all work out somehow, right?

(Yes, that was a Goseiger reference)

There are new file hosting sites popping up as well, FileJungle is a notable one, but the truth is, every time a big one goes down, the next one becomes the target, this is insane, whynot allow companies like Toei to make their license available world wide? I would gladly pay for a season pass on iTunes.

lolpowerrangers

They probably don't think it's worth trying to market it to fans who want the things out of Japan and not just stuff like PR

I can see them doing it for Kamen Rider, Ultraman, and some of the one-off stuff, especially as the fanbases grow, but Sentai? As MomoPink pointed out, there's Power Rangers over here. And I think Saban stated that they don't want to release the Japanese shows State-side in order to avoid confusion. Which is BS if they're doing it through iTunes or whatever, but it underlines just how little these companies understand the changing climate.

I actually have found torrents much easier to use, so I tend to go for them as opposed to DDLs, I'm not worried personally, especially since the groups I follow that use DDLs only (KIT Subs and Century Kings) use MediaFire, and they're up and running. For now.

I think the key here is to keep and eye on the MegaUpload case. The outcome and what the courts end up saying about it will ultimately be what determines the future of DDLs, since it looks like FileSonic's actions were of their own accord.

Man, this sucks. I was having trouble finding good places to get the subs in the first place. So, now it looks like things will get a bit more difficult.:(

JEFusion has compiled a list of hosting sites that are ceasing service:

http://downloads.jefusion.com/2012/0...ng-closed.html

I've used Youtube and Facebook to watch more current series, but this hurts watching older ones. Only Megaupload would work for that. I'm not too worried yet. It just sucks that I have to look for more sites streaming them.

Also, Kickback/Shin/Whatever Mod is reading this ATM, you can delete this post if you consider it out of line, but as long we're bringing it up: could you consider allowing a thread like this for TFW as well? I mean, I know it's less likely to, but there is a chance that SOPA and PIPA could end up affecting all the sites in the network, and I think it would be good to allow some open discussion. You'd have to police that thread a little more heavily and put massive disclaimers at the top, but I think it would be worth it. Just a suggestion.

So there might be a good chance that we won't see any Go-Buster :(

I can honestly see fansubs going back to the kind of thing where you can only get them by meeting up with people in person at conventions and stuff. The only real difference being that the transfers would involve external hard drives instead of VHS tapes and DVDs.

I have been thinking the same thing. The rest of Gokaiger, Kamen Rider Fourze, & Go-Buster. Sucks because I was just getting into this Toku stuff then BAM! Lights out!

It is definitely premature at the moment to talk of the death of fansub distribution. You can't kill the entire torrent system that easily, there are always more obscure DDL options to take the place of the existing ones, and the point of killing affiliate programs is to avoid one of the primary issues that got MU in hot water. There are certainly reasons to remain concerned, but the sky is not falling.

Also, it's certainly not the most secure way to share things, but among friends, you think it's not possible that FileSonic logins will end up shared?

Thank you, Baltan.

This is something to keep and eye on and should things appear to be shady on the federal end of things, then we can start writing angry letters again.

Yes, I realize I too was talking about fansubs going bye-bye, but more as "worst-case scenario."

It really sucks for sites like megaupload to shut down. I personally use torrents though. Anyone know the likelihood of website offering torrent getting shut down in the future?

From the looks of things it's probably impossible to say, unfortunately.

As for me, I'm going to do something different from my norm and remain optimistic until there are no options left. Because, like Vangelus and so many others have said...

The internet will find a way.

That needs to be said in Jeff Goldblum's voice :lol

I think this is close enough!

http://i604.photobucket.com/albums/t...fffindaway.jpg

...Do macros count as copyright infringement? RUH-ROH.

No, they fall under parody.

But Viacom specifically has a tendency to forget about section 107.

People please! There is still hope. (Yes, Sentai too)

I'm still worried the guy may get arrested at some point :/

Noooooooo! This is very bad for us which i am well aware is a bit of an understatement.

Any more so than the folks at TV Nihon? Or even more so, Century Kings (since that is also one guy).




*I think "more so" is becoming a drinking game for my posts in this thread.

It is so cool that people are willing to do stuff like this, but the inability to upload in any way with this particular site turned me off. As a result (and I guess the reason why the site originally existed) it just looks like a TVN hub and little more.

Thing is this, that site will be dead in under 2 months from now. It can't sustain itself for one, and for another.... It will get hammered.

I think things will go dark for awhile but the fandom is smart; even if bittorrent goes down whatever replaces it will be better, faster, and more efficient.

Remember when companies got pissed at Napster and P2P? Look at how much better Bittorrent was. Technology can't be beaten but ways to circumvent it can.

Let's face it, for us, fansubs are our primary outlet. Even if, and this is a huge IF, a company decides to actually localize Japanese sentai series in the future for DVD/blu ray, it'll be years from now, and even before then they will wonder if it's even worth the financial investment. Would Jakq stand a chance in hell being sold at Best Buy? There's 30 plus years of toku history to draw from and the majority of it would be looked at as a waste of time to localize.

This doesn't even take into account that the subtitle translation might be wrong. There have been cases were the fansubs were more accurate than the official releases.

Would I buy many older sentai series subtitled? Hell yeah I would! Yet I am not the majority and really, in the US, Power Rangers is seen as more popular, and even then, isn't all that big on DVD. If Power Rangers, seen as one of the most successful brands here, isn't even big on DVD, why would any company take a chance with localized Toku?

Not trying to be a dick, I would love to see official subbed releases I just doubt they'll ever happen. As it is, anime in America is way more popular than toku, and even then, the market here is drying up(not so much for figures though).

To be honest, I've been using torrents for years to get the Toku. So this doesn't affect me currently.

That being said, I do use DDL for some things. This does mean it will be harder for a while to get stuff out to people. But I guess we'll just have to weather the storm, and hopefully everything comes back for the better.

Actually Tokusatsu been around since the 60's, a little bit before maybe. Kamen Rider in 1971 and Super Sentai in 1975. ANYWAY (lol!) My whole reason for going back to school is to find a way to bring Toku Heroes to the states as cheaply as possible. I know fansubs is a grey area but it also has been a help to those companies who make those shoes, creating an international audience. There are some really good groups out there, someone just need to create that "movement" to get the officials to realize that they do have fans in other countries.

On a side note, seems like my topic thread has been resurrected lol!

Fileserve and Filejungle have disabled shared downloads, too. Looks like there's a bit of panic running through the DDL site community. Still, it's not like there aren't dozens of other sites out there that do the same thing. I suspect that the heat will eventually cool down and things will mostly go back to the status quo.

That's what I'm thinking. People are running around with pitchforks right now in one direction. Then when the next "OMG we have to stop this!!" thing comes around, they'll start running in that direction.

Good man! I'll support your efforts and buy your imports! Just please, remember the rest of the world too, not just the States!