Copyright owners would love to kill every perceived illegal sharing platform if they could
They've tried really hard with filehosts and still they exist in 2017
VEF like all image & file hosts only survive because of the DMCA protection
As long as you remove content when asked no one can touch you
The current law suit says maybe otherwise but only if theres a 3rd party firm involved
that has initimate details of everything your doing (Just guessing as i'm no legal eagle)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digita..._Copyright_Act
From what i've seen and read over the past decade its not as easy as it seems
where courts are concerned.Copyright holders have had plenty of black eye judgements.
Its even less clear when you see copyright holders versus big business in the courts
Youtube versus Viacom for example (youtube won 2010-2014)
although it ends with out of court settlement - what ever that means
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viacom...._YouTube,_Inc.
What the future holds is anyones guess
Checking up on where a site is based via who is probably smart
Checking to see if their associated with any 3rd party companies via scripts even smarter
https://www.whois.com/whois/vintage-erotica-forum.com
If either of these ever saw the light of day we might be closer to the end
Talk of making users use their real names online would definitely have an effect
SOPA - shelved in 2012
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
Trans-Pacific Partnership
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership