

Court: RapidShare doesn't need to filter user uploads - there
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/court-rapidshare-doesnt-need-to-filter-uploads.ars

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jacquesm
That's pretty huge, given that in other European countries _linking_ to
copyrighted content has been found to violate the law, rapidshare actually
distributes the files themselves.

This is likely not the last shot though, the 'ueberlandesgericht' is not the
highest court.

Edit: I've been reading the German response by 'telemedicus' linked in the
article, here are the highlights (German native speakers please correct me if
I'm wrong, stuff in brackets I've added):

\--

1) rapidshare is neither the party that commits the crime nor a participant

2) rapidshare does not make the data publicly available (you need a
downloadlink)

3a) checking the filenames is not applicable because you can choose a
filename, on the other hand the risk exists that legitimate data would be
refused

3b) a datatype can not be blocked because there is no indication a datatype is
tied to the legality of the data

3c) a tie with IP addresses is to be declined because IP addresses are
regularly used by multiple people

3d) a manual checking of the lists of links can not be required because there
is no business relationship between hoster and the people that host lists of
links

\--

from [http://www.telemedicus.info/urteile/Internetrecht/Haftung-
vo...](http://www.telemedicus.info/urteile/Internetrecht/Haftung-von-
Webhostern/1017-OLG-Duesseldorf-Az-I-20-U-16609-Keine-Haftung-von-Rapidshare-
fuer-Urheberrechtsverletzungen-Dritter.html)

I'm especially amazed at '1', that they're not even seen as an accessory is
very interesting as a conclusion.

~~~
ugh
That’s a accurate translation :)

I would add that 2) also refers to the business model of Rapidshare: uploaded
files are by default confidential. Only users make downloadlinks public, not
Rapidshare. (Is that true, by the way? Is the only way to search Rapidshare to
search for published links somewhere on the internet?) Giving the user the
option of publishing the downloadlink cannot be prohibited. (I would guess
because such a feature can have legitimate uses.)

~~~
jacquesm
> Is that true, by the way? Is the only way to search Rapidshare to search for
> published links somewhere on the internet?

I think it is, google lists some 15,000 files in the 'files' subdirectory of
rapidshare ( <http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Arapidshare.de> ), I can't
imagine that's all of them.

------
sl_
The greatest part is that the court thinks distributing illegal content isn't
the main part of thier operation therefor they are allowed to continue the
service in general. I seriously doubt that more than even 1% of the traffic is
legit.

~~~
jacquesm
Why do you doubt that?

I run a small filedump ( <http://files.ww.com/> ) as a service for the general
public and from what I can see by looking at the filenames alone (and contrary
to the German court I do think they say something about the content) I'd say
well over 90% is legit.

I do have a search facility on there, that's something rapidshare does not
have, I think I only got away with that because it's small enough to be under
the radar.

For sure there are copyrighted files in there, and I do not allow the 'rar'
format (because it was universally used to upload full length movies) but the
majority are small files, single images, word documents or cad files, and most
people are nice enough to remove the files when they're done with them.

It was built as a convenience to get around email attachment limitations.

edit: >The greatest part is that the court thinks distributing illegal content
isn't the main part of thier operation therefor they are allowed to continue
the service in general.

Where did you read that?

------
bseo
>It's a huge win for the site, which suffered a major setback in the case
before a Düsseldorf court back in 2008.

A huge win for Rapidshare, a loss for website owners, since this implies that
the responsibility lies on those who host or publish links to Rapidshare.

~~~
jacquesm
I'm not so sure here, if hosting is legal then it seriously undermines the
'linking' theory, after all hosting used to 'trump' linking in the past in
terms of 'how bad' it was according to a variety of court decisions.

The whole reason the linking was made illegal in the first place was because
the 'hosts' were usually in places where prosecution was tough, rapidshare is
a 'sitting duck' and they've just won this case.

edit: it might even be that this makes music lockers in Germany legal!

~~~
bseo
I think Rapidshare not being responsible for infringement must be contingent
on what Rapidshare does to fight it.

Well they have damn good lawyers, since now they don't have to check
filenames, check checksums, IP addresses, manually check lists of links
(according to your post below) and whatever else.

So what does that leave Rapidshare with? Do they just have to manually check
files when a copyright owner submits a complaint with a list of links?

(On a sidenote, I could make a pretty good link finder and make it send
complaints automatically, there must be some good money in offering such a
service to copyright owners)

~~~
jacquesm
> On a sidenote, I could make a pretty good link finder and make it send
> complaints automatically, there must be some good money in offering such a
> service to copyright owners

Anybody here probably could, and I'm sure the plaintiffs are aware of that
possibility.

Already DMCA takedown requests are generated in an automatic way, but that
doesn't change much because another upload is minutes away.

It's a real problem for the copyright fat cats, which is why I don't doubt
they'll appeal this to the German national high court.

If they call it quits now I predict a serious increase in German hosting
capacity in the near future.

