RapidShare Ordered to Monitor User Uploads

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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A Higher Regional Court in Germany has ruled that Rapidshare will be required to monitor all uploads to its servers for copyrighted content. The ruling will cause Rapidshare to manually inspect thousands of uploads on a daily basis. A decision to appeal the ruling has not been made at this time.

TorrentFreak also points out that the ruling appears to contradict an earlier ruling by the highest European court, where web hosts can't proactively filter copyrighted content as this would violate the privacy of users.
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Yeah i don't get it. There is already precedent. This is most likely going to be overturned.
 
Meh, as much as online storage locations have slowed their bandwidth as a method to "combat piracy" (or get the people bitching off their backs), I see them as a dying breed.

Rapidshare should give a big "FUCK YOU" to Germany, because it's not a German company so shouldn't have to follow the laws of Germany, let the country that complains about it block users from going to the site.
 
Lets be honest, a company "can" track all of it's content, if it has the right systems in place and resources.. they could track every single upload that comes in using reporting systems and databases and automate a boat load of it because most people will upload content with original names.

It sucks, but people do need to take responsibility for their services they provide to people.
 
MrGuvernment said:
Lets be honest, a company "can" track all of it's content, if it has the right systems in place and resources.. they could track every single upload that comes in using reporting systems and databases and automate a boat load of it because most people will upload content with original names.

It sucks, but people do need to take responsibility for their services they provide to people.
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Wait... so a company can't track all it's content, but it's somehow possible for a platform to know that something is copyrighted by one of hundreds of thousands of copyright owners? Another problem is that copyright isn't an opt-in system any more. You can't even really opt-out, even if you want to. And what about copyright owners who have given permission to redistribute/remix?

We're living in an age of information abundance, and copyright law is still rooted firmly in the 18th century, as is your style of thinking. RapidShare should be no more responsible for it's users than the electric company or water company is for people growing marijuana illegally. Just because it's used in a crime doesn't make the service at fault.
 
MrGuvernment said:
Lets be honest, a company "can" track all of it's content, if it has the right systems in place and resources.. they could track every single upload that comes in using reporting systems and databases and automate a boat load of it because most people will upload content with original names.

It sucks, but people do need to take responsibility for their services they provide to people.
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Can't tell if serious..... especially giving your name. But if you're serious... then your name makes a lot of sense.

Time to sue gun makers for murders then.
 
MrGuvernment said:
It sucks, but people do need to take responsibility for their services they provide to people.
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wait whut!? the company should be the nanny? hell no bro.....that's not what should be happening, people should be responsible for themselves and their own actions, not corporations or government entities
 
Master Blaster said:
good luck monitoring encrypted files.
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Marcdaddy said:
Lol ya if it's Encrypted there SOL
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Obviously if it is encrypted they can't, i should of explained better.

Pitabred said:
Wait... so a company can't track all it's content, but it's somehow possible for a platform to know that something is copyrighted by one of hundreds of thousands of copyright owners? Another problem is that copyright isn't an opt-in system any more. You can't even really opt-out, even if you want to. And what about copyright owners who have given permission to redistribute/remix?

We're living in an age of information abundance, and copyright law is still rooted firmly in the 18th century, as is your style of thinking. RapidShare should be no more responsible for it's users than the electric company or water company is for people growing marijuana illegally. Just because it's used in a crime doesn't make the service at fault.
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If permission is given, could they not do something like have a field in the upload to ask if the content being uploaded is authorized / owned by the individual?

And you are right, was the same with the Sony lawsuit over the VHS / BETA being used to copy music, because people used it illegally wasn't their fault as that wasn't the intention, the same battle that p2p / torrent'ing is facing.

But with that, when your services is being used primarily for illegal activities would you not want to take steps to prevent this knowing it could bring your entire company down?

Example, i don't think it would be hard to say parse IMDB for content for movies, TV shows and then run that against files being uploaded, sure, people can just change names but it shows you are at least being proactive to try and stop things best as you can, taking some heat off of you.

I think MegaUpload shut down was BS, all of the people who do have legit files with them are now screwed, but talks are being had to try and return that legal content, the FBI doesnt seem to care, screw those people!
 
MrGuvernment said:
But with that, when your services is being used primarily for illegal activities would you not want to take steps to prevent this knowing it could bring your entire company down?
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I'm sorry... where was it shown that RapidShare's primary use was illegal activities? They already have a process in which they compare a file against known illegitimate content and they disallow uploading of matching content. What more do you want?

Really... how are you going to seed that database without having the cooperation of the content owners? I can't tell if something's illegal just by looking at it, and it's just stupid to assume a sharing company can do so, too. The content "owners" need to be the ones showing things are being misused. Hell, they can provide a list of md5's to seed RapidShare's database if they want. But blaming Rapidshare when Rapidshare goes above and beyond as it is to block content that isn't supposed to be distributed? That's just laziness on the part of the media companies, and a failure of them to adapt to the new realities of the market, trying to use legislation to put the cat back into the bag.
 
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