Court rules against Rapidshare in Germany

Court rules against Rapidshare in Germany
A Berlin court has today ruled against the file-hosting giant Rapidshare, siding with the German copyright society GEMA.

As part of the ruling, Rapidshare must now "proactively filter" over 5000 tracks from GEMA's catalog and make sure they are not distributed on their servers.

"This means that the copyright holder is no longer required to perform the ongoing and complex checks,"
GEMA added after the ruling.



"We are confident that in this way we will be able to reduce the illegal use of the GEMA repertoire on the Internet to a negligible level."

Rapidshare seemed unfazed by the decision.

"We do not consider the court's decision to be a breakthrough,"
RapidShare COO Bobby Chang said.

"As other proceedings in similar disputes with GEMA have shown, there is considerable disparity amongst the individual courts in some cases. Our experience is that the courts of appeal tend to restrict the scope of the decisions made by the lower courts."


Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 25 Jun 2009 3:16
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  • 9 comments
  • Serialluv

    Next the German's will be telling Rapidshare to check all the files hosted!!! People use this as a legitimate way of distribution as well as those that hold illegal files there?!!?? How are RS supposed to check winrar encrypted files?? This is ridiculous and could see RS losing customers!! I host legitimate business info up there - encrypted of course, I need to know they aren't sniffing through my stuff!! That would be like safety deposit boxes being randomly checked fordrugs money by the banks!!!!

    25.6.2009 07:39 #1

  • pphoenix

    next ppl sue VolksWagen for use in hit & run's, drink driving & smash n grabs!

    or maybe sue VolksWagen for all the monies that it built it's company on from slave labour with the Jews.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/129150.stm

    to this day not a penny has been paid and the german courts will do nothing to aid the claimants.

    25.6.2009 11:37 #2

  • Amak

    Is Rapidshare even in Germany?

    25.6.2009 16:04 #3

  • Serialluv

    Originally posted by Amak: Is Rapidshare even in Germany?yes

    25.6.2009 16:13 #4

  • shummyr

    Quote:Originally posted by Amak: Is Rapidshare even in Germany?Originally posted Serialluv
    yes
    I Thought Rapidshare Was Hosted in Sweden

    25.6.2009 17:55 #5

  • eiamhere

    Rapidshare.com and rapidshare.de - are they are they both hosted on German servers, does that even matter? What I mean is, are both affected by this?

    26.6.2009 04:02 #6

  • jos22

    Originally posted by Amak: Is Rapidshare even in Germany?YES and NO rapid-share is not but some of the servers they own are located in Germany so they either follow German law or move the servers else where

    26.6.2009 08:39 #7

  • pmshah

    Just FYI they also have servers in India, hosted by VSNL, the largest subsea cable owner in the world.

    BTW Rapidshare.com is Switzerland based.

    26.6.2009 11:16 #8

  • blueboy09

    I like RapidShare, mainly bc it allowed a file of Pandora on my WinMo phone, that the Pandora website claims it's not supported on my phone. I called BS on that one. When there's a will, there's a way, and RapidShare helped me get what i wanted. Just one other tool to "help out" people to access software that otherwise wouldn't even be possible if it weren't for these guys. Keep up the good work!! As for the prominent people in Germany, they need to get over it, cause they can't stop what he been done. - BLUEBOY

    26.6.2009 20:30 #9

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