Sam said:
I've never heard of it. I would be careful of the claims of offshore hosts. I took a look around their site. Really the big difference is that you can host/ link to pirated content. The owners are based in Bangalore, India. If India were to implement some stronger copyright laws (
http://bannerwitcoff.com/_docs/library/ ... enberg.pdf), then AlibabaHost couldn't continue to offer copyright protected hosting.
I don't think that's how it works. A hosting company can be located in a place that has copyright laws, but if they operate servers that are located offshore, then the law cannot close them down simply because the jurisdiction of the countries in which the servers are located doesn't allow it.
Let's make the following comparison. Smoking weed is illegal in many states of the USA, but it is legal in some countries, such as Uruguay. If an USA citizen buys a house in Uruguay and rents it to Uruguayan people who turn it into a weed-smoking hotel, the USA laws cannot do anything about it, because although he is the owner, the house is not located on US ground.
That's why many hosting companies located in countries that have copyright laws (such as Canada, Germany, France etc.) offer offshore hosting that allows linking to copyrighted materials and ignore the DMCA notices. It's simply because the USA cannot do anything about it without starting a global war.
As for AlibabaHost, they have existed for 7 years, and their servers are located in four of Europe's most lenient countries: Sweden, The Netherlands, Romania and Swetzerland. They host thousands of 'warez' forums and blogs. They are considered one of the most popular offshore host because they don't close down websites for copyright violation reports, and they offer DDoS protection for free (while other hosting companies charge you extra for this service).
