Rapidshare To Be Forced to Shut Down Following Court Defeat?
Written by enigmax on January 29, 2008The music industry in Germany has secured a legal victory over the hugely popular file-hosting service, Rapidshare. According to the rights holders, Rapidshare is going to have to stop its users from downloading infringing music tracks from its servers, or face the prospect of being shut down.
Last week we reported on rumors that Rapidshare had, or was about to be, shut down, rumors that now look likely to resurface. The company, one of the world’s largest ‘one-click’ file hosting services, has lost a copyright infringement case against German performing rights outfit, GEMA. Representing a claimed 60,000 members and more than 1 million rights owners worldwide, GEMA has taken an aggressive stance in pursuing legal action against Rapidshare, trying to force it to be accountable for the infringing actions of its users.
For its part, Rapidshare has always insisted that it cannot be held responsible for these actions, such as when users upload copyright works (in this case, music) to their servers for subsequent downloading by others.
On 23 January 2008, the district court in Düsseldorf (Landgericht) disagreed with this assertion after GEMA succeeded in convincing the court that Rapidshare should take responsibility for infringements carried out within its service.
GEMA are trying to imply that as a result of the decision, Rapidshare will be forced to take preventative action to stop GEMA works from even getting onto their servers, rather than a DMCA-style after-the-fact removal. GEMA says that if Rapidshare are forced to filter they will likely end up with a service that’s not worth operating, so they may decide to shut it down completely.
The GEMA press release has been published before the complete court decision, so it should be digested with at least a degree of scepticism, considering the huge amounts of spin employed by anti-piracy agencies and the music industries alike.
In a statement, Dr. Harald Heker, Chairman of the board at GEMA said: “This decision is a milestone in the fight against the illegal use of our repertoire”, which was almost a carbon-copy of a statement he made about the decision from a previous court case against Rapidshare. He went on to explain that measures have to be put in place for the protection of rights holders and claiming that file-hosts are not responsible for what their users do, is no longer an option. “With this decision of general principle,” he said, “the course of future action against comparable services has been smoothed.”
In their press release, GEMA speaks about the decision of the District Court of Düsseldorf but also mentions a decision from the District Court of Cologne.
TorrentFreak spoke to Christian Solmecke a lawyer at the Cologne Chambers of Lawyers Wilde & Beuger, to see what is likely to have happened in these cases.
He told us: “The normal way is as follows: GEMA files a lawsuit against Rapidshare because of alleged copyright infringement on three or four songs. If GEMA wins, Rapidshare is then obliged not to host these particular songs.”
Lots of anti-piracy and industry bodies state that it’s possible for file-hosting services and even ISPs to monitor, police and filter copyright works from their servers and networks. This case is no different, except this time it’s the court that has demanded this type of action.
Christian explains: “From a legal point of view, it is interesting that the District Court of Düsseldorf decided that Rapidshare has to carry out a lot of preventive actions (if the GEMA press release is correct on this point, of course). This could mean that Rapidshare has to check all of its hosted material for copyright infringements - which is nearly impossible.”
The instruction for Rapidshare to take preventative action is new, and despite another similar court case reaching a different decision. Christian explains: “Only 30 kilometers away from Düsseldorf, we’ve already had a similar law suit in Cologne. In that case the Oberlandesgericht (Higher Regional Court and Court of Appeal) decided that Rapidshare is only obliged to delete specific songs stated by GEMA. They were not obliged to take preventative action.”
“The future will tell us which interpretation of the law is correct.” Christian told us. “Perhaps in one or two years we will get a decision on this question from the Federal Court of Justice.”
As the world struggles to update its laws to cope with the digital revolution, the courts - and lawyers - are being kept very busy indeed. So back to the original question: Is Rapidshare going to be closed down - or be left with no alternative but to shut itself down?
Well - maybe……maybe not.
Christian finishes up: “I believe that Rapidshare will appeal against the decision of the Landgericht (District Court) of Düsseldorf. If they do so, we will have to wait and see what the Oberlandesgericht (Higher District Court) of Düsseldorf (as the Court of Appeal) says.”
In the meantime, while the legal wheels turn and turn, Rapidshare.com and Rapidshare.de continue to operate as usual.
Previously: How to Convert Millions of BitTorrent Users to Qtrax
Next: European Court Decides FileSharers Should Stay Anonymous
102 Responses
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Sua conta Premium Rapidshare!!!
DOWNLOADS ILIMITADOS PELO RAPIDSHARE, BAIXE O TUTORIAL FEITO NO WORD E SIGAM PASSO A PASSO!
CONTA PREMIUM RAPIDSHARE POR 1 ANO!
http://www.4shared.com/file/39181262/b2ad2d80/RAPIDSHARE_PREMIUM_POR_1_ANO.html
I totally agree with you. RS revolutionized instant file sharing. downloading in 10mbps line is like drinking a ice chilled cola through a straw. 1 sip/suck=100mb file. hee haaw!!
i like it too!!
long live RS
[quote comment="299284"][quote comment="275226"]…continued..
and to those that say they hate rapidshare, theyr either kids who cannot afford $5 a month or something, or who want to download porn and have to wait a few hours to get it..
losers. RapidShare revolutionized one-click file hosting services..
x[/quote]
absolutely true, dont hate something u cant afford, 6 euros a month is funny price…[/quote]
germany can go screw off,they are just sore cause they lost the war,rapidshare will live forever and all babies that are against us will disaapear like a fart in the wind.People who make you download a file on p2p then it is a fake one when rapidshare has the real goods.When you p2p2 ers get caught I will be downloading stgill and you will be in jail.Up with rapidshare and down with all of you who are against rapidshare.Go suck on a baby bottle you punks against rapidshare,you are just jellous because you are to ttight to spend some money to get the real stuff and you have to poors.To leech like leeches.GO kiss off any anti rapidshare mole.I am a blackbelt in judo and have my trusty two friends smith and wesson,want to dare?? Good bye forever you anti rapidshare punks,I take a dump on you
anti rs people are dumb,they rather download virus filled crap and wait over 2 hours to download a movie that is locked or scrambled rather then get the real thing at rs.
lamers is retarded and a caward cheep poors that cannot afford a rs account so he blames rapidshare,get off your daddies machine lamers and go suck on a bottle
anarchynow is another coward that all he can do is call names,he is a baby german lamer that is to cheep to pay for a rs account.Rapidshare will live forever,They will you will see,they have plenty of money to win.Money talks you anti rs lamers BS(anti rs people) walks
anti rs people are kids that cannot afford to buy anaccount and they want porn so cause they are so horney so they go for same sex guys,or girls.They cry because they cannot afford the luxury and quickness of rapidshare,they are just kids without a pot to pee in
Rapidshare is awesome, if it shuts down i’ll be annoyed (just bought a years RS).
I max my connection out all the time and downloaded over 100gb from RS in under a month.
[quote comment="275225"]Quote Rapidshare.com:
“With 210 Gigabit/s of Internet connectivity and 4.5 Petabytes of storage, RapidShare is one of the biggest and fastest web hosters world wide.”
Good luck shifting all of that lot to another country without interrupting the customers service, and without damaging the treasury of RS.com forever…
[/quote]
Well, there is such a thing as Duplicating hard drives and Fed-Ex-ing them to a new location.
Lawyers are going to keep milking this.
They can’t stop or slow file sharing, it only gets stronger and evolves.
We don’t even need the web to file share!
This battle will end we can share say 10TB of media in seconds, from one hand held to another, right in the street. Then it’s game over for them, or all out war.
I don’t like the idea of paying Rapidshare for what I can get for free. If torrents didn’t work as great as they do, then I might buy a Rapidshare Premium account. But that will never happen, because for that much money, WE can always join a club, buy our media legally, and share those among our selfs. We don’t even need the web, people are doing this right now. In America, there are Public Libraries too, same kind of thing. Think about it, if 365 people bought 1 DVD movie, and they all traded within that group, that means you can watch 1 movie every day for a year, for the price of 1 DVD. I don’t hate Rapidshare, I just don’t need it.
So, BitThief is made by peeps in Zurich. And Zurich is where Rapidshare has all it’s servers. I wounder if these 2 groups are “helping” each other. Hmmm.. Conspiracy? No, it couldn’t be, no one is that greedy evil, lol.
guys wants to earn a rapidshare account legally and in very fast way?
i got my account in less a month for using this paid site. they pay u up to 7 $ per click. and when u register u can make straight away 27 $ so hurry up and register if u want ur rapidshare account :) here is the link :
http://www.AWSurveys.com/HomeMain.cfm?RefID=ronit123
Rajesh speaks rite….
Rs revolutionizd the file hosting service….all who are anti rs are dumbs who dl 1mb files 4 cracking rapidshare and then realise they are fooled….
And 1c U get an acc/ u wud never say so….superb speed……gr8….
But putiing restrictions is a big irritation….Rs dvlpd not bcoz of their services.but due to the warez guys who Uploaded into it…..they shud nvr 4get that…….
All it takes is a months campaign for all guys to convert to adrive or some other sites…..
If RS goes on teasing free users soon they will face…..
htpp://adobongkangkong.blogspot.com
Its very nice to hear that the RapidShare pussies are being dragged by the German laws…
I LOVE GERMANS!!!
Found yesterday http://www.searchfiles.de and was wondering is such a browser plugin safe to search on rapidshare and megaupload?
ANY guys wants to earn a rapidshare account legally and in very fast way?
i got my account in less a month for using this paid site. they pay u up to 7 $ per click. and when u register u can make straight away 27 $ so hurry up and register if u want ur rapidshare account :) here is the link :
http://www.AWSurveys.com/HomeMain.cfm?RefID=ronit123
i have used rs for a few years now they have deleted my account, for d/loading illegal content. fuck me i can only download what they let me. get rid of rapidshare forever let them go bankrupt they deserve to suffer, all turds do
Rapidshare.com really treats its customers like crap, When I purchased the acct it said we got 10gb a day download, now they decide to cut it in half because they oversold the bandwidth to other victims, BUYER BEWARE of the crooked bastards.
The old bait and switch method works well I guess, Give the customer what the heck we paid for not a penny more not a penny less, false advertising, if they were in the states they would have a class action suite against them so fast.
Friends, Stay clear of this service! I know I will from now on.
Regards
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