

RapidShare didn't infringe on copyrights, says US court - MikeCapone
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/rapidshare-didnt-infringe-on-copyrights-says-us-court.ars

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grellas
This ruling involved denial of a preliminary injunction request by P 10 and
thus did _not_ involve a ruling that "RapidShare didn't infringe on
copyrights."

To get a preliminary injunction, a party must show, among other things, that
it is _likely_ to prevail on the merits of the case and that it will suffer
irreparable harm should its request be denied.

A court does not rule on the ultimate merits of a case one way or the other in
ruling on a request for a preliminary injunction. At the preliminary
injunction phase, everything is gauged on probabilities and a judge has a lot
of discretion in deciding the issues.

As reported in this article, based on P 10's preliminary showing, the judge
was not convinced that P 10 would likely prevail on the merits based on the
evidence submitted (meaning, the issue of whether infringement occurred
remains open for trial but the judge did not see compelling enough evidence at
this point), was not convinced that P 10 would suffer irreparable harm if the
injunction were denied (since it waited 4 years even to file the suit, the
natural question in the judge's mind is "what's another year or so to get to
trial" if no urgency has been shown to date), and was not convinced that the
public interest would be served by granting the request.

Thus, a significant victory for RapidShare but, at the same time, just one
more step along the path of getting to trial, where the merits of the case
will ultimately be decided. It may be a precursor of things to come but that
will depend on whether P 10 can shore up its evidence of infringement before
the actual trial itself. Based on its sorry history, it probably will not but,
technically, this remains to be determined.

------
antidaily
_The porn company has a long and somewhat pitiful history of unsuccessfully
suing major companies for what it considers copyright infringement._

They sued Google for image search results.

