This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Legal
Appeal court says no to RapidShare copyright filters
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 4 May 2010
So, this is interesting. An appeal court in Germany has overturned a previous ruling which said that file-transfer platform RapidShare could be held liable for copyright infringement if it didn’t introduce filters that tracked content being shared and then block infringing content. The appeal court said no such liabilities should apply, even if RapidShare did unknowingly provide the tools for the distribution of unlicensed content, and even if it did not introduced planned filters.
In fact, according to blog NewTeeVee, the appeal court went one step further and said that such filters would go against ‘fair use’ provisions in German copyright law which allow people to make personal private copies of content they have bought and to share that content with a limited number of personal acquaintances (fair uses that don’t exist under UK law). By blocking anything it reckoned might be infringing copyright, RapidShare would be stopping its users from employing their fair use rights.
German collecting society GEMA which led the legal proceedings against RapidShare has not responded. The file-transfer service is also being sued in the US.
