what is hoststar.ch doing to my mp3s?2 min read

or: how can a host outlaw a certain datatype?

over the last weeks a few people have told me, that it is really hard to download my pieceocasts and dj mixes, in other words the mp3 files i link to from mixes.php and from this blog. i looked into it and it is true, they crawl at the lamest of rates of about 0.1 – 0.2 k/s.

and i just found out the reason why.

my host is serving requests for mp3s at an extremely low priority. they are not blocking them outright, which would at least be honest, but they cripple to such an extent that it becomes almost inexistant, which is much lamer.

what is this all about? as far as i know an .mp3 is not an illegal file per se.

clearly they try to prevent people from offering illegal mp3 downloads. the person i just spoke to on the phone admitted that much. and he added, since they don’t have the time to look through all of them to see if the files are illegal or not, they have decided to block all .mp3s.

yet. to my knowledge there has not been one case in switzerland where a host was brought to court for the illegal content a client hosted on their servers. if anything it is the clients who get busted.
answers the guy again on the phone, there have been a few cases in germany and the US, and since the internet is international they try to prevent such problems. how very swiss is that? fearrrrrr!!!!!

to clarify, this is not the host where this blog lives, this is my low-cost host where i host http://pieceoplastic.ch for my mp3 files and such.

i want to apologize to all the people i recommended hoststar.ch to. clearly TEH lamest host evar.

but. more importantly. where can i host my files now? can anyone recommend a good and much less paranoid host in switzerland?

edit: an additional detail. while my podcasts may or may not be skirting the greyarea of legality i am in the same hosting package hosting a blog for my niece and nephew. the godfather of my 2 year old nephew is a musician who for every birthday writes a song for him. i host those as mp3s on the same server. but even those songs, clearly fully 100% legal homemade songs are downloading at 0.1 – 0.2 k/s now. sad.

3 Replies to “what is hoststar.ch doing to my mp3s?2 min read

  1. Its true, Hoststar is a lame *uck, get yourself another nice host for your mp3s.
    Read the Hoststar AGB where they point to the fact the they dislike to host “MPEG, AVI, MP3 u.a.” Plus they dislike “Chatsysteme, Portal eCommerce-Shops, Online Spiele, Bilddatenbanken, Adult Webseiten”,”Internetseiten mit radikal politisch oder religiösen Inhalten.”

    what the *uck is internet good then for…

  2. its true that it was always in there terms and conditions. but only recently have they started to impose it. i can accept it if a host writes this in their terms and conditions as a measure to protect themselves from legal consequences. i can’t accept it if they start to impose it by crippeling the download of perfectly legal files.

  3. aloha selectah j.,
    frag doch mal nick vom dreamlab.net (located in our own town – support your locals)
    hostet glaub nur noch für kumpelz (kannst ja sagen ich hätt Dich empfohlen, oder sowat 😉 ), mein loudblog streamt und downloadet super von da (http://www.magnolia.ch/Loudblog_1
    hope that helps!
    rock on, el tiki, headmaster of liver-rafting at magnolia.ch

Leave a Reply to zup[ping]er Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.