Account deactivated with no prior warning for 'performance problems'

[areidmtm]

Also, bluehost can be held liable if there is copyrighted material on their servers. It doesn't matter if the user purchased it legally, its still copyrighted. And technically, is illegal to even rip a CD or copy it for personal backup.

The only exception to this rule is if you get the copyright holder to submit an agreement saying that you can use the copyrighted material in such a way.

Other then that, no copyrighted material, period.

[Barbouille]

I can see why now that Bluehost is advertising the "WORLD" in term of storage space to attract customers. It is easy to promise anything if you do not intend to deliver the merchandise afterwards.

They are in fact saying something like "I AM OFFERING YOU AN ALMOST UNLIMITED AMOUNT OF STORAGE" but the fine prints say "you cannot use it" No hard drive backup, no copyrighted materials, no this no that blah blah blah.

In the end, besides a website and a few related files, there is not much space that one can really use in order to comply with Bluehost' requirements. THE NUMBER ONE THING THAT ATTRACTED ME TO BLUEHOST IS THE STORAGE SPACE THAT WAS OFFERED.

Needless to say, I am very disappointed.

[Early Out]

Storing copies of your CDs on BH's servers is a violation of the DMCA. A lot of the stuff on your hard drive is also copyrighted - take a gander at Microsoft's standard license provisions, and you'll see that you are not permitted to copy things like the operating system or Office much of anywhere. Were you expecting BH to assist its users in violating the law?

I have many GB of my own image files on BH's servers. This is not a problem. They're mine, and I use them for my website.

[Barbouille]

So, what you are telling me Early Out is that making an image of my own personal computer with say Acronis True Image for backup purposes is a violation of the law ? Or, any kind of backup for that matter would be illegal ?

Well, if that is the case, I would say that most of people WORLDWIDE owning a computer are in violation of the law as most are probably doing some kind of backup.

What about services like Mozy who offer storage space online ? If that is the case, they could be sued for participating in an unlawful activity (people storing computer backups on their servers would be the illegal activity referred to).

[KMyers]

I have to chime in....

First Note, That I am not associated with Blue-Host in any way...

I think we all need to know that this is a Shared Hosting Provider. With shared hosting there should be an AUP (Acceptiable Use Policy). This exists with most hosting providers. Basically it should state that each user gets their fair share of the service. It is not fair to anyone else on the same server for one user to be using 95% of the resources.
I have a blue-host account but it is not my primary account. I have a deticated server for most of my stuff. If you are looking for a place to dump files, Deticated is the more responsible way to go, Not to mention secure.

[Early Out]

Originally Posted by Barbouille

So, what you are telling me Early Out is that making an image of my own personal computer with say Acronis True Image for backup purposes is a violation of the law ?

Technically, yes, if you put that backup file on another computer. You can back up your own data, but you're not allowed to make copies of things like MS Office.

Well, if that is the case, I would say that most of people WORLDWIDE owning a computer are in violation of the law as most are probably doing some kind of backup.

I don't have any backup of the OS or of Office - I have the CDs that came with the PC, and if I had to rebuild the hard drive, I would reinstall the software from those CDs. I make backups only of My Documents.

What about services like Mozy who offer storage space online ? If that is the case, they could be sued for participating in an unlawful activity (people storing computer backups on their servers would be the illegal activity referred to).

Mozy is set up to let you backup your documents. To quote from their own support site:

Originally Posted by Mozy

Mozy was made to back up your most important files (email, contacts, photos, financials, etc.), but not your system and application files....

If they let people make copies of OUTLOOK.EXE, for example, they're asking for trouble. Having said that, however, I should point out that MS products are also protected by some pretty robust activation requirements, so MS is probably not too worried about having copies of Office on the loose - even if you have access to such a copy, you can't install it and use it.

[a2179]

Frankly, Barbouille you aren't helping. The moderators here a taking their best stab at explaining the policy but really they have no chance: millions have been spent for lawyers and still there are no authoritative answers for many of the questions raised here. Moderators say bluehost doesn't allow copyrighted material without realizing that in fact mostly everything on the web is copyrighted: my pictures are, heck my index.html is copyrighted so is gallery and wordpress and apache and so on. Also there are huge misunderstandings regarding DMCA (this is about CIRCUMVENTING copy protection not about sharing what you already copied), format shifting and backup (both are generally permitted in US and not in the UK), shring-wrap license agreements a'la Microsoft which are in general from far from binding, unenforceable and in some countries in part illegal and so on, the fact that the customer is usually liable for the infringement and not the service provider assuming the latter is complying with the takedown notice and so on.

That being said I can FULLY understand why bluehost doesn't want Matrix, Metallica, Windows and Office stored in whatever form on their servers. But even if I agree with this I still haven't found an answer to any of the questions already raised here:

"is there a way to officially (preferably on writing) escalate this and require clarifications/explanation?"

"Can you tell us even ONE use of the space and bandwidth provided that will not be prohibited?"

"Also for the affected people it would be interesting to know what they can do. The TOS says: "If you do not agree to any such changes, your sole and exclusive remedy is to cancel your account as described below.". Now I have only a "I Agree" button below and "© 2003-2006 BlueHost.Com. All Rights Reserved"."

"I don't want anything but just asking: will there be any compensations or at least a "sorry and we're back" email or notice on the main page?"

Just for everybody's info: I already mentioned people fleeing dreamhost: what happened there was first a "TOS clarification" followed by some similar arguments like here (few people affected, full backup of hdds are no-no, backup of movies no-no and so on) and after a while for people with large folders ... you have to pay 20 cents per GB storage PER MONTH. I don't expect miracles and I would be fantasticaly happy if bluehost will prove to behave better (setting up everything again is a pain) but really I asked "the right questions" before joining bluehost and I only got "yes, sure" answers. If they would've said "well, if you go above XX GB you start costing us money" I would've been happier and everybody would've been better off.

[areidmtm]

Originally Posted by Barbouille

So, what you are telling me Early Out is that making an image of my own personal computer with say Acronis True Image for backup purposes is a violation of the law ? Or, any kind of backup for that matter would be illegal ?

Depending on what the copyright agreement says, but most say that even the action of copying, reproducing or backing up is against the agreement and is illegal. Just because everyone else is making illegal copies for "backup" reasons, doesn't change the law or make it right.

Again, anything that is copyrighted that you don't specifically own or have permission to use (meaning coping/backing up) is strictly prohibited and is against the TOS and will not be tolerated by bluehost.

Sorry guys, but this thread is starting to stray from the topic.

We as other users of bluehost, don't have the answers most are looking for and the only way you'll get them, is if you get in contact with bluehost.

I'm closing this thread. Anymore discussion on this should be taken to bluehost directly. If there are any updates from bluehost, we will post them here.