Need to know the effect of adding copyrighted Rapidshare links on my forum

I have started a new forum, and I wanted to know would it be okay to allow members to add links to rapid share which could have copyrighted material in it. I have seen a lot of websites which allow members to add copyrighted material through rapid share links. Even though this would be a good method of getting a lot of unique visitors to my site I would like to know the effect it would have on advertisers (not Google AdSense) but private advertisers interested in advertising on my site. Could you also add any support links with more information on this topic. I have been searching the net but can't find any thing regarding this.

 

The problem is that you are looking in the wrong place. There are dozens of sites linking to rapidshare or taking the risk of providing copyrighted downloads on their own. The problem is more likely your hosting provider, review its TOS and acceptable usage conditions. In last instance, raise a support ticket to ask them.

Most shared hosting services don't allow linking to websites offering dowloand to copyrighted materials, warez or crackz, so you need a hosting that allow such activity or switch to a VPS, semi or dedicated server. Even though you need to read first the terms of the provider to stay safe, just in case.