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Comment by _mgu7 | Hacker News Reader

Currently I don't really use cloud storage, it's cheaper for me to colocate a 2U stuffed with disks and buy transit.

Primarily though I store media. I have (for a home user) large amounts of high resolution (lossless audio, RAW images, high bitrate (even ProRes) video) media that I like to keep for archival and transcoding but don't need for playback. I want to store the original media somewhere safe and cheap but have the ability to transcode it to a format suitable for playback/streaming on demand.

Actually it just occurred to me that it might be worth you talking to the folks at Plex (https://plex.tv) about this too, as they're working on their Cloud product and need more places for their users to store media.

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If I was a storage company, I would consider Plex a hot potato and would stay far, far away. There is a reason Plex isn't building out their own storage and the reason isn't cost. It's because they know that 99% of all the media their customers handle is pirated content. At some point, Plex will become large enough to get on the radar of the MPAA and at that point, I assume they will go after the cloud storage providers.

I feel like it'd be the opposite. DMCA protects the storage provider as long as they're unaware that they're storing infringing content and Plex limits sharing enough that any infringement is unlikely to reach the MPAA/RIAA.

I think inking a deal with Plex would be pretty obvious. I'm not sure where the line is for knowing that you are storing infringing content, but MEGA claims they didn't know what users were uploading.

Plex itself is a US company and were it "obvious" that its existing Cloud product was infringing on copyrights, it would have already been the target of a lawsuit.

Yeah, I'm not sure about that. Plex has nothing to do with how users are getting the content, it just offers playback and cataloging after they've already retrieved it.

I'd agree if they allowed something like library sharing between users, but I don't see them as a likely target just for allowing playback of consumer media.

I use a (local) Plex installation for home videos, downloaded clips, and various other non-infringing things. It's the most convenient way to share the library out to a Chromecast/phone/Roku.

Ya, I don't think Plex would be necessarily at fault, although they could be susceptible to DMCA takedown notices. But a storage provider could get into deep trouble if they know tons of pirated content was being uploaded. Kim Dotcom claims MEGA had no idea if the content being uploaded was infringing.

Megaupload (which I assume you mean because afaik MEGA has not been in legal trouble) was a distribution platform; the purpose was to upload something and give the link to others. If it was a personal file locker that couldn't link out or be shared, as Plex intends to be, it probably would not have had issues.

Got it. Transcoding & making image thumbnails are two common use cases we hear. Thanks.

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