Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » RapidShare

RapidShare Declared Legal In Germany

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:08:19 +0000

The Higher Regional Court of Hamburg initially declared that RapidShare must filter all user uploads to prevent copyright infringement files from being stored on their website. The ruling was because of pressure from music organization GEMA. However the Court has declared now that RapidShare is legal in Germany.

Even though RapidShare no longer has to check whether their users are uploading infringing material, they will have to keep their eye on external websites that link to copyrighted material being stored on RapidShare and take it down. RapidShare said that they will comply with the verdict and acknowledge that they already have a system in place.

However RapidShare said that they will be appealing the verdict because they have a “strong interest” in maintaining their service and they believe the ruling is questionable from a legal perspective.

RapidShare Now Lobbying Lawmakers On Capitol Hill

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 05:16:45 +0000

RapidShare, a file hosting website, was reported by the MPAA and the RIAA to the U.S. government for being one of the “most notorious pirate markets.” The MPAA and RIAA spends quite a bit of money on lobbying and now RapidShare is going to be doing the same. RapidShare has hired lobbying firm Dutko World Wide based in Washington D.C. to represent their concerns. [TorrentFreak]

Perfect 10′s Injunction Against RapidShare Gets Denied

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 20 May 2010 23:25:26 +0000

Adult entertainment company Perfect 10 was denied a temporary injunction against RapidShare AG. On April 11, 2010, Perfect 10 submitted the injunction request at the District Court of the Southern District of California. Perfect 10 was attempting to prevent RapidShare from hosting images belonging to the magazine company. Perfect 10 argued that for 6.99 Euros, RapidShare offers the ability to downloaded copyright material. Full press release below.

RapidShare Also Scores Trail-blazing Victory in US

Application for Temporary Injunction Against Leading File-hosting Company Rejected

CHAM, Switzerland, May 20, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — Yet another company has failed in its attempt to discredit and have the business model of the leading global one-click-filehost, RapidShare AG, declared illegal.

On 18 May 2010, a US District Court threw out an application for a temporary injunction against RapidShare AG. Submitted on 11 April 2010 at the District Court of the Southern District of California by the adult entertainment company, Perfect 10, the application was intended to force RapidShare into preventing Perfect 10 pictures from being distributed via RapidShare’s file-hosting service.

Perfect 10 argued that for a monthly fee of 6.99 Euros, RapidShare offers its users any copyright protected work, which in turn represents unfair competition for ‘honest providers’ such as Perfect 10, as the latter are unable to compete with a service of this nature.

The court rejected the application in its entirety. In its ruling, the court stated that as a file-hosting company, RapidShare cannot be accused of any infringements of copyrights. Perfect 10 also failed to name the location of the copyright protected content on a single occasion.

The attorney representing RapidShare AG, Daniel Raimer from the firm of Raimer, commented that ‘we are extremely pleased at this groundbreaking decision. In passing this decision, the Californian Court has accepted the same line of argument, which underpinned the recent landmark decision of the Higher Regional Court in Dusseldorf in the appeal against Capelight Pictures’. At this hearing, the Higher Regional Court in Dusseldorf revoked a temporary injunction against RapidShare, which had banned the file-hosting company from saving any films uploaded by its customers.

Christian Schmid, founder of RapidShare AG, added that ‘the view that RapidShare does not promote any infringements of copyright, unlike other file-hosts, appears to be gradually catching on. It is a milestone for us that this is also happening in the US. We are happy that the court in California has not bought into the odd line of argument put forward by Perfect 10 and we look forward to increasingly emphasise the major difference between RapidShare and illegal share-hosts’.

File reference: 09-CV-2596H (WMC)

For all press queries, please contact:

Heiko Geibig
Publicis Consultants
Tel.: +44-(0)69-15402379
heiko.geibig@publicis-consultants.de

RapidShare Asked To Filter Book Titles Or Face Hefty Fines

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:04:49 +0000

Six book publishers have asked RapidShare to proactively filter out certain e-books from being uploaded. If they fail to do so, RapidShare would face $339,000 in fines or jail time. The six book publishers involved include Bedford, Freeman & Worth and Macmillan, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, The McGraw-Hill Companies, and Pearson. About 148 titles were provided to RapidShare to prevent from being uploaded. The District Court in Hamburg handed down a ruling to RapidShare that ordered them to remove all of the book titles named in the lawsuit by February 17th. [TorrentFreak]

RapidShare Hands User Information To German Authorities

Amit Chowdhry — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 02:12:19 +0000

File hosting service RapidShare.com has reportedly handed over the IP address information to the recording industry. Record labels have been taking advantage of the 101st paragraph of German copyright law which forces ISPs to identify content owners on file hosting systems if they are suspected of infringing.

One user claimed that his house was raided by law enforcement officials in Germany thanks to RapidShare. The user was sharing Metallica’s Death Magnetic album one day before it was released. In January 2008, RapidShare and the GEMA argued that the website was not responsible for copyright content being hosted. The courts decided to rule against RapidShare and forced them to remove content proactively.

[via Ars Technica]

German Court Forcing RapidShare.com To Check All Uploads For Copyright Infringement

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:31:31 +0000

RapidShare should have known better that allowing illegal files to be shared on their site would not last long. Especially seeing as how they host that content and expect users to pay for premium accounts. A court in Germany has ruled that RapidShare is not doing their part in ensuring piracy controls. RapidShare will be forced to become active against blocking users from uploading copyrighted content. This rule is very similar to DMCA takedowns in the U.S. RapidShare is currently #12 on Alexa.

RapidShare is also being forced to proactively check the content before publishing it and log the IP addresses of those who upload copyrighted material. RapidShare stated that they are using an MD5 Hash filter and employs 6 people to prevent copyright infringement uploads.

Armin Heinrich’s $999 “I Am Rich” App Already On RapidShare

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:16:37 +0000

Update: I just read on Mashable that Apple already pulled the application from the store. Techdirt doesn’t believe Apple should block the app because:
“If someone wants to part with a grand for a glowing screen, who is Apple to stop them? The application developer is honest and clearly states that there “is no hidden function.” It is not malicious, pornographic, a bandwidth hog, illegal or a threat to privacy.” Blocking the I Am Rich application makes Apple look “less open.”

In my personal opinion, I could care less whether Apple keeps the App on there. I think it is just a bad investment for anyone that wants to buy it.
———

Armin Heinrich, the maker of the most expensive iPhone application, launched “I Am Rich” yesterday. Today, an anonymous commenter on Pulse 2.0 posted a link on RapidShare to where the application can be downloaded. I haven’t tested out the link on RapidShare because I have no desire to have this useless application on my iPod Touch.

I think downloading the application for free from RapidShare is just as bad as buying the application itself. This is because you obviously want to be “that guy” or “that girl” that gets off on showing expensive applications on the iPhone or iPod Touch.

RapidShare is a file hosting site that is ranked #12 on Alexa. Many artists use the site to distribute their music legally, but a lot of files end up on the site illegally. In this file-sharing case, I’m guessing Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) may take action since it directly affects their income generated from the App Store.

Update: Here is a case where someone accidentally bought the I Am Rich application

Found via Digg