The file-hosting service Rapidshare has been told that it may continue operations under the stipulation that it monitors all external sites linking to copyright infringing files.
The decision, handed down by a Higher Regional Court in Hamburg, declared that the cyberlocker had a legal business model, a point of dispute with other file-hosting sites embroiled in legal battles, including Hotfile and Megaupload.
TorrentFreak reports that this court success comes a few weeks after copyright holders claimed that the cyberlocker would be forced to filter all uploads for infringing content. This recent decision is less restrictive to the site’s operators, requiring them to monitor sites rather than files.
“That is exactly what Rapidshare has already been doing for many years,” Zwingli said. “If the Anti-Abuse Team identifies a download link on such pages which results in a file that has clearly been published illegally being on the company’s servers, the file in question is immediately blocked.”
Rapidshare has previously implemented measures to prevent pirates settling on its servers. Last month it was revealed that the service’s data speeds had been cut hugely for free users.
“Rapidshare has been faced with a severe increase in free user traffic and unfortunately also in the amount of abuse of our service [since Megaupload closed], suggesting that quite a few copyright infringers have chosen Rapidshare as their new hoster of choice for their illegal activities,” the company said in a statement to TorrentFreak.
“We have thus decided to take a painful yet effective step: to reduce the download speed for free users. We are confident that this will make Rapidshare very unpopular amongst pirates and thus drive the abusive traffic away.”
Having already proved that it is fighting pirates, Rapidshare said that the monitoring order given by the court was “questionable from a legal perspective”. It said it would appeal the specific order at the Supreme Court.
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So it's legal so long as it follows an impossible set of rules?
Equally Rapidshare acts like the perfect DRM tool and punishes those legitimately using the service in order combat the file-sharers (pirates don't really exist on the internet) who will just find another way to distribute their files.