Scores another victory against copyright holders trying to hold the site liable for illegal file-sharing.
Cyberlocker RapidShare AG has won its appeal of a copyright infringement case brought against it last year by movie distributor Capelight Pictures.
The Düsseldorf Regional Court had granted Capelight Pictures a preliminary injunction against the site, but the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf has now reversed that decision.
The dispute centered around the issue of whether or not RapidShare had undertaken all reasonable measures to counter the illegal distribution of the film Inside a Skinhead, which is distributed by Capelight Pictures in Germany.
The court had initially ruled that RapidShare needed to use a word filter however, the court has now decided that such a filter system could prevent people from the legally saving private copies. It also found that RapidShare had no obligation to stop the sharing of download links, and reversed its previous injunction.
It said the saving of works that are protected by copyright under their clear work title is admissible for private copies by German law, so that a word filter would also lead to the deletion of lawful private copies.
“The ruling is a further step in the right direction,” said Rapidshare’s attorney, Daniel Raimer. “The previously common practice of copyright holders to sue RapidShare on the off-chance there might be something to be gained from it, misunderstanding the realities it is operating within and showing contempt for its business model, will no longer bear fruit. The newest court rulings in Germany and the USA indicate this very clearly.“
This past April Rapidshare won an appeal of an earlier ruling that it immediately begin blocking the uploading of copyrighted material to the site.
The Court of Appeals Düsseldorf found that Rapidshare is not liable for the copyright infringement committed by third parties using the service, and that the site itself doesn’t make copyrighted material “publicly available.” Rather, its business is based on providing confidential access to content.
In this case the court determined that a word filter, consisted of descriptive terms taken from the English language, would include the possibility of too high a number of false hits.
“We are also pleased with the ruling because it is connected to a claim for compensation of costs,” said Christian Schmid, founder and CEO of RapidShare. “Copyright holders should therefore think very carefully in future about whether they wouldn’t prefer to save themselves some time and above all the expense of suing RapidShare for something for which the company cannot be held liable.“
Rapidshare also scored another court victory of sorts this past May here in the US when the District Court of the Southern District of California threw out an application for a temporary injunction against the site that was submitted by the adult entertainment company, Perfect 10.
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- Rapidshare Beats Perfect 10, for Now, in US Court
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This litigation is a waste of money. None of this matters in the slightest to the file sharing hydra, there are plenty of other businessman with $$$ in their eyes and no regard for copyright law that would LOVE to take Rapidshare’s place. Obviously Rapidshare has legitimate uses, I use file sharing sites to create private backups all the time. However as long as there’s money to be made…
There’s not a whole lot that’s different between the model of Rapidshare and the model used by YouTube. They both allow access to content uploaded by users. They both have a complaints system where if copyrighted material is found on their servers and deletes it accordingly. What a surprise, they are both demonized by the copyright industry. Rapidshare isn’t an American based company, so I suspect that the industry will do more to demonize that site since it’s off shore through, say, 301 reports which is little more than the industry’s wishlist of a new world order based on misconceptions and misleading facts of other countries on the world stage in an effort to push the American corporate agenda.
If the big industry loses here through the courts, Rapidshare might be the new AllofMP3 as far as propaganda is concerned. At least with Rapidshare, there is a far more legitimate claim that they are doing nothing wrong.