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German Supreme Court sides with rights owners in RapidShare battle
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 21 August 2013
So another development in the long running legal battle between the content industries and Europe-based file-transfer company RapidShare.
As previously reported, there have been various court skirmishes between RapidShare and the rights industries, including cases led by the gaming and publishing industries, and another by German collecting society GEMA. Recent rulings have generally said that the file-transfer firm does have some obligations to stop its servers and services being used to enable the widespread distribution of unlicensed copyright materials.
For its part, RapidShare insists it does a whole load of stuff to help copyright owners limit the illegal distribution of their content over its platform, though some content firms insist more could and should be done. The tech company took the matter to Germany’s Supreme Court last year, arguing that some of the obligations put on it by lower courts went too far. This included actively monitoring and if necessary blocking external sites that link to unlicensed material on its servers, and restricting the anonymous use of its services.
The Supreme Court’s full decision on the matter is still to be published, but according to Torrentfreak the top court has basically upheld the lower court rulings. Something a spokesman for GEMA was quick to welcome, telling the site: “The confirmation of the judgment is groundbreaking because it clarifies that it’s a fundamental responsibility of online storage services towards rightsholders, whose works are shared en masse through their platforms”.
Rapidshare is yet to comment.
