Music Industry Got An Injunction Against Rapidshare in 2007, Site Not Shut Down
Written by enigmax on January 20, 2008In March 2007, a court ruled that Rapidshare could be held responsible for copyright violations committed by users who uploaded copyrighted material to their servers. Now, rumors are circulating that Rapidshare has been shutdown - this does not seem to be the case.
Rapidshare is one of the world’s largest file-hosting sites, with a claimed data storage capability in excess of 4 petabytes and offering at least 110 gigabits of bandwidth.
Almost exactly 1 year ago, P2PBlog reported that the German rights organization GEMA had gained a preliminary injunction against Rapidshare which ordered the company to stop hosting and distributing titles which GEMA represent.
Rapidshare made an appeal - but lost. The court decided that Rapidshare should be forced to monitor all uploads which infringed on GEMA’s copyright - a feat which the company said was impossible.
At the time, GEMA boss Dr. Harald Heker said that the Court’s decision shows that it’s not down to the rights holders to police commercial outfits such as Rapidshare for their copyright works. He went on to say that he felt that the decision would send a major signal to all file-hosting sites where copyright works are used to generate revenue for themselves.
Then in April 2007 it was reported that Rapidshare was fighting back, suing GEMA in response - with the aim of clarifying the legal position for file-hosting sites.
Now, rumors circulating on the web indicate that Rapidshare was shut down. Quite a few sites reported the news but this situation does not appear to be true. Rapidshare’s Wiki page is now closed due to vandalism which is believed to have carried erroneous information which contributed to the confusion.
According to a report, a Rapidshare technician said: “There are rumors concerning attacks made on the Rapidshare.com servers. There are also rumors that Rapidshare has been shut down by a court order. These rumors are false. We would like to apologize to our users and inform them that no data has been lost. There have been some hardware issues as a result of high bandwidth and server overload. We are doing our very best to resolve the hardware issues, and users should expect uptime by midnight tonight (GMT)”
There is no doubt that Rapidshare stores millions of files - including lots of music. The operators of Rapidshare claim they have no idea what material they store on their servers and are in no postion (much like a regular ISP) to monitor or police the content. The users upload the content, they say, and as such, it’s out of their control.
However, the injunctions issued by the District Court in Cologne indicate that Rapidshare’s liability for such infringements still exist as they were carried out during the course of Rapidshare’s business. GEMA head, Harald Heker said at the time: “The mere circumstance of shifting acts of use to users and the purported inability of the operator to control content do not relieve the operator of a service from the copyright liability he/she/it possesses for the content made available for download from the operator’s website(s).”
In the meantime, Rapidshare.com and Rapidshare.de continue to operate.
This article has been updated
Previously: How Pirates Will Change The Entertainment Industry
Next: RIAA Website Wiped Clean by “Hackers”
46 Responses
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The “search feature” as you call it are completely separate sites that don’t actually “search” rapidshare’s servers.
The sites merely index and catalog links that have been posted by users. If the links are posted, the sitse won’t have them.
Wow, okay a few typos in my last post. If the links *are not* posted, the sites won’t have them.
Private sites can therefore make rapidshares that are never made public and no one else will know they exist.
Hi, I’m a music Producer. I contacted Rapidshare because someone has put a RS links with copyrighted materials.
Rapidshare anwsered 4 mn after, file was deleted immediatly.
I have been impressed. They do great job. Respect.
(It’s not a joke)
[quote comment="268509"]I don’t get it. Why would Anyone want to use Rapidshare if they wasn’t force to ?
[/quote]
Because people in Germany *are* in some way forced to use filehoster services. Traditional P2P is getting too dangerous here, if you share copyrighted material this way.
By the way, the news at P2P Blog is one year old, it’s from Jan.200*7*, not 200*8*. ;)
Ah, now I see, why the articel was updated - the rumors of a shut-down. Which were simply that: false rumors.
I hope rapidshare loses, there are so many other file hosts. Rapidshare is greedy and their specs really are crappy, let them go back to forum hosting and wretched gaming reviews written in broken english.
I like rapidshare. For about 6 euros per month u can dowload shitload of goodies. I wish I could do this the legal way,without paying more.
rapidshare is crappy only if you deal with the free side of it. pay for it and you get a better service than most other file hosting servers. Pay for it and speeds are ALOT higher, and you can use a download manager with serious ease. Files almost never drop out while downloading unless it’s because of your ISP (remember I’m talking the paid side of it)… and most notable is their pages aren’t crammed with flash advertisements. They do a good job and as much pirated material is on there, it is being used for legit purposes too.. more often than any of the other file hosters at that!
it’s not old news. THe site downtime happened a couple of days ago, and people started crying wolf. That makes it relevant TODAY
[quote comment="268882"]rapidshare is crappy only if you deal with the free side of it. pay for it and you get a better service than most other file hosting servers. Pay for it and speeds are ALOT higher, and you can use a download manager with serious ease. Files almost never drop out while downloading unless it’s because of your ISP (remember I’m talking the paid side of it)… and most notable is their pages aren’t crammed with flash advertisements. They do a good job and as much pirated material is on there, it is being used for legit purposes too.. more often than any of the other file hosters at that![/quote]
I use the free side and get about 400kbs down (my max speed), files never drop and i find it one of the best file hosters…and cuz i can change my IP by simply clicking the icon in the system tray i can dl how much i want :P…
thanks for the little clarification on this, I thought they were being terminated. keep up the good work, and thanks again for the heads up.
I am selling some rapidshare accounts i have. Account will be emailed after payment is received. This is not a joke. 1 month account is $2. 3 month account is $3. Add $1 for every month. 12 month account = $12 bucks. If you have any questions please feel free to email me @ [email]ThatOneGuy2007@gmail.com[/email]. Just to show that this is not fake take a look at the screenshot that helps prove the point that this is not fake. Paypal Only!!! I am verified through paypal so payment will be secure.
[IMG]http://i30.tinypic.com/2agkfx2.jpg[/IMG]
Questions? Email Me!
[EMAIL=”ThatOneGuy2007@gmail.com”]ThatOneGuy2007@gmail.com[/EMAIL]
http://rapidshare.com/files/92600234/FREErapidshareACC.rar
rapidshare fresh shared accounts pls dont change passwords, let others use these shared accounts. dont download too much daily please.
http://rapidshare.com/files/108192949/Rapidshare_fresh_accounts.zip
rapidshare fresh shared accounts pls dont change passwords, let others use these shared accounts. dont download too much daily please.
can u reffered by me
http://freecashpal.com/index.php?referral=2781
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