Content thieves and the people who support them

[gunner]

Originally Posted by Brad Mitchell

I have actually met with Lease Web before. Believe it or not that is the actual "provider behind the provider" for pretty much all of the adult hosts that have a European setup as they have several datacenters and a fiber ring. I have been evaluating purchasing euro infrastructure for hosting from them but upon discovery of everything they host directly or through resellers we have put that project on hold.

I won't dig on the competition but pretty much everyone that braggs about having european adult hosting is simply reselling LeaseWeb's hardware, network, ip space, and remote hands and simply layering their techs on top of it.

You are correct on their stance. They're absolutely motivated as they host many of the largest tube (and other) sites on the web. I'm at a loss as to how to advise everyone except to say that if we all "voted" with our dollars and were against this type of activity everyone would make sure they weren't spending hosting dollars that went into their pocket.

Brad

So who is hosting with leasweb that you know of? Let's out them right now.
What big programs are supporting piracy through their continued support of a hosting company in bed with theives?

[Brad Mitchell]

Originally Posted by gunner

So who is hosting with leasweb that you know of? Let's out them right now.
What big programs are supporting piracy through their continued support of a hosting company in bed with theives?

I've never compiled a list of companies or hosts that are over there and honestly it's "bad on me" as far as all my competition is concerned that I'm even engaging in these conversations.

Just remember that there is a reasonable argument to be made that any host that hosts with LeaseWeb with the purchase of servers, bandwidth, remote hands isn't necessarily guilty. Sure, they spend money with a company that profits from hosting other clients with this type of activity but at the end of the day I would say a few things:

1) This is probably a very common european attitude that LeaseWeb has, I don't know and can't say it would be different anywhere else.
2) Is this really any different than a host spending money with a bandwidth company like Level3 or Cogent who profits from doing business with hosts that host this kind of stuff?
3) Even if a host did business with LeaseWeb they themselves might be choosing to not host these kinds of sites themselves which is still a good stance.

In the hosting space our suppliers are datacenters, telecommunications carriers. We all have to agree that from a host perspective this is quite complicated and that using such criteria to pick our suppliers is probably considered unreasonable by most.

Brad