Consider 1) User buys a file from the rights owner and explorers it into his Dropbox 2) User obtains a blockwise hash of the file and runs dropship on it 3)

Consider 1) User buys a file from the rights owner and explorers it into his Dropbox 2) User obtains a blockwise hash of the file and runs dropship on it 3) User obtains a public URL from somebody who has the file and downloads the file from the Dropbox web server The point is that the Dropbox server cannot distinguish 1 from 2, but both from 3. Therefore, 2 should be more robust against takedown notices than 3.