RapidShare could be shut down (for real this time... maybe)

by Brad Linder Jan 29th 2008

Look, we know the reports of RapidShare's demise a few weeks ago were greatly exaggerated. And we're not trying to cry wolf here, but now the German file sharing service has suffered a major blow in a German court. And that could result in RapidShare either being shut down or having to find some way to implement a copyright filter. Either way, the RapidShare we've all come to know and love/hate may never be the same. At least for German users.

The German royalties collection agency GEMA, which is basically like Germany's version of the RIAA, took RapidShare to court a while back. And last week a court ruled that RapidShare couldn't hide behind the "we don't know what our users are uploading" defense.

Of course, RapidShare can still appeal the ruling, so this isn't over yet. But it's no secret that there are plenty of pirated movies, music, and software applications hosted on RapidShare at the moment. So we don't expect GEMA to step aside anytime soon.

Tags: courts, file-sharing, gema, rapidshare

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

dahakavitz said 9:30AM on 1-30-2008

screw rapidshare, mihd FTW!

koan said 9:32AM on 1-30-2008

It's rapidshare.de, not .com.
It's important to specify this because the .com is hosted in Switzerland so it's not under the German court decisions...

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