Court Rules Against Rapidshare's Methods

**RebelMan** · 10-01-2008, 05:22 PM

Court: Rapidshare has to check all uploads for copyright infringement

09/30/2008
05:42 PM

A German court has ruled that Rapidshare.com isn't doing enough to combat piracy and that its filters are ineffective. The court decision of the Hamburg district court, which was published a few days ago, states that Rapidshare has to become active against copyright infringements as soon as rights holders make the companny aware of them - a rule that is somewhat similar to the DMCA in the United States.

However, Rapidshare has to do a lot more than just take down infringing content. The company also has to "proactively check content before publishing it" if there have been similar infringements in the past. Rapidshare has to log and check IP numbers of potential infringers as well, according to the court decision.

Rapidshare has been using a MD5 Hash filter to prevent the upload of previously removed material, and it told the court that it it has six employees working full time to remove infringing content. The Hamburg court however ruled that this was not sufficient because infringers would only have to change a few bytes of a file in order to circumvent the filter.

Th court also ruled that Rapidshare cannot argue that it is impossible to stay in business if it would have to check every single file. "A business model that doesn't use common methods of prevention cannot claim the protection of the law", the decision reads.

Spin Teacher · 10-02-2008, 03:23 AM

Crap, I love Rapid Share. I mean if I can't get my copyrighted porn from there anymore what will I do? :p

**mced** · 10-02-2008, 02:17 PM

That's pointless. I'm uploading files to an account I've got with another hosting (Megaupload) and they're unreadable, since they're encrypted. What are they going to do now? Forbid encrypting?

**RebelMan** · 10-12-2008, 06:38 PM

Just to clear something up about all this:

From what I've read after this ruling came down from the German Courts this only pertains to rapidshare.de NOT rapidshare.com as of right now.

.de is located & run through Germany/Russia

.com is run through Switzerland/Europe

wannabe · 10-13-2008, 09:02 AM

rapidshare sucks anyway. death to them!

http://drop.io is a lot better. No gay waiting 10 minutes for first download, no gay waiting 10 hours for 2nd download, no gay paying pirates for files that rightfully belong in the public domain but the uploaders are too stupid to look for an appropriate place to send them, no gay spamming (ads or email), no gay registration for most people, no gay telling them who you are, no gay limit of one box per person, just plain no gayness! When I first tried them out, they had a 1G dropbox limit, but recently I've been unable to find reference to it to see if it's still in effect.

drop.io FTW!

Update: found that the limit is 100 Megs. Still, not bad for free, no-hassle files.

**mced** · 10-13-2008, 11:16 AM

Wait until they receive their first big bandwidth bills...

charlespt · 10-13-2008, 01:55 PM

www.zshare.net
500mb of file limit and very simple to use

10-01-2008, 05:22 PM	#1 (permalink)
RebelMan AgEnT oF ChAoS Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: The Web Posts: 12,597 My Profile	Court Rules Against Rapidshare's Methods Court: Rapidshare has to check all uploads for copyright infringement 09/30/2008 05:42 PM A German court has ruled that Rapidshare.com isn't doing enough to combat piracy and that its filters are ineffective. The court decision of the Hamburg district court, which was published a few days ago, states that Rapidshare has to become active against copyright infringements as soon as rights holders make the companny aware of them - a rule that is somewhat similar to the DMCA in the United States. However, Rapidshare has to do a lot more than just take down infringing content. The company also has to "proactively check content before publishing it" if there have been similar infringements in the past. Rapidshare has to log and check IP numbers of potential infringers as well, according to the court decision. Rapidshare has been using a MD5 Hash filter to prevent the upload of previously removed material, and it told the court that it it has six employees working full time to remove infringing content. The Hamburg court however ruled that this was not sufficient because infringers would only have to change a few bytes of a file in order to circumvent the filter. Th court also ruled that Rapidshare cannot argue that it is impossible to stay in business if it would have to check every single file. "A business model that doesn't use common methods of prevention cannot claim the protection of the law", the decision reads.

10-13-2008, 09:02 AM	#5 (permalink)
wannabe Lacey's Man Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 266 My Profile	rapidshare sucks anyway. death to them! http://drop.io is a lot better. No gay waiting 10 minutes for first download, no gay waiting 10 hours for 2nd download, no gay paying pirates for files that rightfully belong in the public domain but the uploaders are too stupid to look for an appropriate place to send them, no gay spamming (ads or email), no gay registration for most people, no gay telling them who you are, no gay limit of one box per person, just plain no gayness! When I first tried them out, they had a 1G dropbox limit, but recently I've been unable to find reference to it to see if it's still in effect. drop.io FTW! Update: found that the limit is 100 Megs. Still, not bad for free, no-hassle files. Last edited by wannabe; 10-13-2008 at 01:42 PM..

10-02-2008, 03:23 AM	#2 (permalink)
Spin Teacher Jr. F'ing Member My Ars Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 736 My Profile	Crap, I love Rapid Share. I mean if I can't get my copyrighted porn from there anymore what will I do? :p

10-02-2008, 02:17 PM	#3 (permalink)
mced Cannot live without Love Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Spain Posts: 2,136 My Profile	That's pointless. I'm uploading files to an account I've got with another hosting (Megaupload) and they're unreadable, since they're encrypted. What are they going to do now? Forbid encrypting?

10-12-2008, 06:38 PM	#4 (permalink)
RebelMan AgEnT oF ChAoS Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: The Web Posts: 12,597 My Profile	Just to clear something up about all this: From what I've read after this ruling came down from the German Courts this only pertains to rapidshare.de NOT rapidshare.com as of right now. .de is located & run through Germany/Russia .com is run through Switzerland/Europe

10-13-2008, 11:16 AM	#6 (permalink)
mced Cannot live without Love Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Spain Posts: 2,136 My Profile	Wait until they receive their first big bandwidth bills...

10-13-2008, 01:55 PM	#7 (permalink)
charlespt Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Portugal Posts: 5,381 My Profile	www.zshare.net 500mb of file limit and very simple to use

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