With the government shutdown of Megaupload and voluntary disabling of file sharing at sites like FileSonic and FileServe, the remaining file lockers are naturally getting hit with tons of traffic. One such site—RapidShare—has decided to handle the influx by slowing download speeds for non-paying users, in an effort to drive pirates away.

After users started noticing reduced download speeds, RapidShare today explained its new policy in a statement to TorrentFreak. “RapidShare has been faced with a severe increase in free user traffic and unfortunately also in the amount of abuse of our service ever since, suggesting that quite a few copyright infringers have chosen RapidShare as their new hoster of choice for their illegal activities,” RapidShare said, according to the TorrentFreak article. "We have thus decided to take a painful yet effective step: to reduce the download speed for free users. We are confident that this will make RapidShare very unpopular amongst pirates and thus drive the abusive traffic away." Different tiers of download speeds for free and fee-based services are typical, but RapidShare is apparently going beyond that with slower-than-usual speeds for free users.

This could have a negative effect on users who pay for premium service, however, when free users attempt to download the legitimate files shared by users of "RapidPro." To prevent this negative consequence, a new system lets people verify the content they upload by providing additional information such as "what type of files they’re sharing, the name of the sites and blogs where the download links are getting posted, and the uploader’s e-mail address and telephone number," TorrentFreak explains. If files are proved to be legitimate, then even free users can download them at the fastest speed.

Last month, RapidShare told Ars that it is "not concerned" by the government crackdown on Megaupload because file hosting itself is a legitimate business, as long as one follows all applicable laws. But RapidShare's most recent move shows that the post-Megaupload world is a much different one for users of file sharing services and the companies that provide them.

UPDATE: TorrentFreak is now reporting that RapidShare is entirely unavailable for non-paying users, with download links leading to a "404 not found" error. We were able to reproduce the error message.