"The GEMA (Germany's RIAA) obtained a temporary injunction against 'one-click-hoster' Rapidshare.com. If their lawsuit is successful, the GEMA intends to use it as a beachhead against their next targets, including Youtube and MySpace. From the article: 'According to GEMA, the service ... has at times boasted of making some 15 million files available to its users. The operator had however failed to obtain from GEMA a license for making copyright protected files available ... Through its injunctions the District Court in Cologne had now made it clear to the company that the fact that it was the users and not the operator of the services that uploaded the content onto the sites did not, from a legal point of view, lessen the operator's liability for copyright infringements that occurred within the context of the services, the spokesman added.'"
Digital Civil Rights in Europe
EDRI-gram
* About EDRI-gram
* Archive
* Subscribe
* Translations
* Privacy Policy
If you wish to help EDRI promote digital rights, please consider making a private donation.
logo
EDRI-gram
Subscribe to the bi-weekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe.
Home » EDRI-gram - Number 5.9, 9 May 2007
RapidShare sues German rights holder association
9 May, 2007
»
Notice & take-down | Copyright | Intellectual Property Enforcement
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
Rapidshare AG sued the German society for musical performing and mechanical reproduction rights (GEMA) in order to clarify the legal situation regarding free file hosting in Germany.
The counter-attack from Rapidshare, a well-known free file hosting provider based in Switzerland, comes after the suit initiated in Germany by GEMA in January 2007 for distributing MP3 files on Rapidshare.com. GEMA won a preliminary injunction in the first lawsuit that was upheld by the appeal in March of the District Court of Cologne.
The District Court in Cologne had considered that Rapidshare was liable for copyright infringements even if the works were uploaded by the users and not by the provider.
As a result of the GEMA action, Rapidshare was forced to stop the distribution of works from the GEMA catalogue and to actively monitor uploads of these works.
Rapidshare argues that this activity is close to impossible and is not covered by the German copyright law either. Rapidshare CEO Bobby Chang considers that people have the right to make backup copies of their music and that it is practically impossible to distinguish between legal and unauthorized uses of MP3s.
"We are confident that it is possible to solve the conflict with GEMA while at the same time paying tribute to innovation" said Chang.
Rapidshare sues rights holders (19.04.2007)
Code:
http://www.p2p-blog.com/item-280.html
RapidShare AG press release (only in German, 18.04.2007)
Code:
http://www.blogspan.net/377-rapidshare-ag-klagt-gegen-gema-welche-pruf
...
EDRI-gram: Temporary injunction against RapidShare.de (31.01.2007)
Code:
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.2/rapidshare
Simple term John , digital civil war, technology found a way to beat the rich greedy empires, they want to continue to get richer, hackers found ways to make them eat their own shit, its that simple
MONEY vs FREE CONTROL vs SHARING