back to article Rapidshare stung with €24m fine

File hosting service Rapidshare has been fined €24m by a German court and ordered to filter online content more effectively. German royalties collector GEMA, which brought the case against the company, had called on the Regional Court in Hamburg to order Rapidshare to prohibit around 5,000 music tracks from being made …

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  1. Lionel Baden 1
    Grenade

    awww

    then again they were decreasing bandwidth whilst upping prices so i wasnt going to use them much longer anyway

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    Sucks

    It just feels like the internet is constantly on a stranglehold and it only gets harder to breathe.

    I wish I could go back to the golden period of 1995-2000

  3. Tom 101
    FAIL

    Impossible

    This is simply impossible for them to enforce, password protected ZIP files anyone?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good news then!

    Although I totally disagree with the actions of the RIAA and MPAA on their copyright rules, I do agree that downloading of copyright material is illegal and things should be done!

    But I ain't paying outragous prices for something thats not worth it!

    How can a cinema charge me £13.50 a month and I can go and see as many movies I want in that month, yet I still have to pay £20-£15 for a single Downloadable Movie/DVD and more for a Blu-ray disk!!

    Give us a decent, fairly priced supscription option for TV, Movies and music without DRM and without limits!

  5. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Pint

    I never download music from rapidshare...

    ...porn, on the other hand, is more like it.

  6. Tom 106
    Grenade

    That's a bit of a surprise

    Considering that back in April of this year, Rapidshare was handing over personal details of uploaders who were uploading music files.

    More info: http://torrentfreak.com/rapidshare-shares-uploader-info-with-rights-holders-090425/

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    What next?

    I share files via RapidShare - all of them fully legal (in fact no-one outside my geographically-extended family has access). So far not a problem. But how do they propose this filtering is actually done? One thing that would have me quitting RapidShare very quickly indeed would be any notion that anyone besides myself and the intended recipients knew the contents of my files.

    This sort of nonsense isn't about what is and isn't legal on such file-storing websites. It's about whose has the right to pry into private files. When I post a letter, I don't seal it because I have something to hide - I seal it because the contents are private. If those contents are none of the business of police and govt, then they're certainly none of the business of the commercial media industry. If that's an accepted principle of postal services, I can't see why there should be a problem with transferring private information online.

    Or to put it another way - have isps, or indeed the media industry - ever heard the children's tale of the Goose Who Laid the Golden Eggs?

    Destroy one of the only remaining expanding industries, why don't you? Duh!

  8. lglethal Silver badge
    FAIL

    €4800 per song

    €24,000,000 for 5000 songs equates to €4800 per song...

    Now disregarding the whole argument between freetards and Music Asses... These rulings just seems a bit ridiculous to me, i mean sure there's supposed to be some sort of penalty on top of the supposed costs that this downloading has cost the industry... but come on €5000 for 1 song? Do these judges live on the same planet as us?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    incomplete information

    Given that Rapidshare is a Swiss company with no physical presence in Germany this ruling is legally completely meaningless.

    Also the Hamburg court is notorious in Germany for being strongly biased towards copyright holders, so this is no surprise, but the ruling is pure PR as the Hamburg court has no jurisdiction over Rapidshare.

  10. DannyA

    Rapidshare stung with €24m fine

    I remember when Rapidshare was unlimited downloads, then it become way over priced for what you got.

    Also,€24m! Just shows how much money can be made hosting Warez...

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Upgrade

    "Rapidshare could not immediately be reached for comment at time of writing"

    Upgrade to Gold Press Membership NOW to get an instant response

    -or-

    Wait whilst we prepare a statement for free

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  12. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Rapidshare Germany?

    Rapidshare.de turned into rapidshare.com a few years ago. and the business moved to switzerland. AFAIK this only applies to rapidshare.de not rapidshare.com.

    If they shut down rapidshare, there are lots of other more exotic filesharers ready to take over. In countries where copyright mean copy rights.

  13. Doug Glass
    Pint

    Zero Tolerance Policy

    Simple ... block all music file sharing and you block the illegal sharing. Simple and cheap. Look for it, it's coming, it'll be here soon.

    The recording industry has the power because they have the money. They have the money because some people will still pay outrageous prices for music. We are what we buy and all the music buyers are funding this situation.

    If there is so much widespread outrage, why are the music companies still so rich? Not my money, I stopped buying music when they stopped making vinyl platters. But an awful lot of people seem to have no problem with such high prices so there you go. "We have met the enemy and he is us". Well ... not me of course.

  14. James 55

    Poor Rapidshare

    I always thought it was in a bit of an odd market. People pay for downloading things they don't want to pay for...

  15. Moss Icely Spaceport
    Big Brother

    Whack-a-mole

    Here we go again!

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Terminator

    5000 Songs

    "order Rapidshare to prohibit around 5,000 music tracks from being made available online."

    They will be scanning file names to check if theyre pirated or not.

    But 5000. Theres a hell of a lot more on there than that.

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