[SYRFox]

German Court Rules Rapidshare Must Diligently Remove Copyrighted Material

The Hamburg district court ruled Tuesday that the file-hosting giant Rapidshare has insufficiently attempted to prevent piracy on their site. In a ruling that could sound the death knell for Rapidshare, the site must not only continue to remove copyrighted material from the site, but it must also “proactively check content before publishing it" if the material comes from a user who has past infringements.

Unlike the United States, Germany has no “safe harbor” laws that exempt a website from liability when individual users upload copyrighted materials, providing the site administrators remove infringing content once notified. Such provisions have kept YouTube relatively safe from the snares of lawsuits, but unfortunately the same cannot be said for Rapidshare.

In order to curb piracy as much as possible, Rapidshare uses a hash filter to prevent previously removed material from reaching the site and employs six full-time people to scour the site and remove copyrighted material. The German court, however, determined the filter could be too easily circumvented and the anti-piracy staff was not effective in patrolling for infringements. Rapidshare argued if they were required to check every file individually before it was uploaded to the site, there’d be no way for the business to stay afloat. The court replied in its decision, "A business model that doesn’t use common methods of prevention cannot claim the protection of the law." Charming.

If you happen to know German, you can read the court’s full decision here. For everybody else, send off those ZIP files of cat pictures to your gramma and pornographic films to your friends while you can, because Rapidshare might not be there forever.

(Via Ars Technica and P2P Blog .)
Posted by Mike McHugh on 10-02-2008

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/German-C...apidshare-Must

[ZEROpumpkins]

Damn. Although rapidshit is my least favourite content hosting service. Mediafire is the best for sure.

[atsonicpark]

Sendspace!

[Sheriff Rhys Chatham]

Sendspace and mediafire are great.
Mediafire is fast

[SuperCreep]

RapidShare have gotten their act together after that whole "cat" incident. I love using it now, especially since they got rid of the time limit. I'd be upset if it went.

[atsonicpark]

badongo
zshare

[Sheriff Rhys Chatham]

Whats the one that uploads your file to like five sites?

[SuperCreep]

Originally Posted by Sheriff Rhys Chatham

Whats the one that uploads your file to like five sites?

I know ShareBee let's you upload on four. Not sure of any that allow five.

[batreleaser]

i like zshare the best, rapid share takes fuckin forever on my comp

[Sheriff Rhys Chatham]

Originally Posted by SuperCreep

I know ShareBee let's you upload on four. Not sure of any that allow five.

Yeah thats the one. Couldn't remember how many.

[SYRFox]

For some reason Rapidshare is the speedest on my computer. But then again my computer is fucked up

[ZEROpumpkins]

I hate the propaganda ads they have to try and get you to become a member. They're so lame.

[PAULYBEE2656]

rs is the best upper tool around. 200 mbs limit, no waiting for 132589673542 hours to dl another file... its much better than the other in my opinion...

[ZEROpumpkins]

Pauly - Try mediafire, that one is much, much better.

[PAULYBEE2656]

i have and its not better in my opinion. the only one that doesnt fail on me, is the quickets and most flexible is rs. i know i am in the minority but thats what i use..............

200 mbs limit, 90 day survival of unused files....... no waiting period and no ctas anymore!

[Derek]

I have a rapidshare account so my downloads from it download at like 1000kbs hah. It'd be a shame if it was gone.

I hate badongo and sendspace only stores the file for about uhh a week or something.