Andre Yoskowitz
16 Feb 2008 18:21
Rapidshare has announced that it will indeed be appealing a recent German court ruling which has the potential to have the gigantic file hosting site shut down.
Last month the court ruled that Rapidshare must block access to any musical works that are represented by the German music rights group GEMA. The ruling even went as far as to say that the courts can "take measures that might have the risk of making Rapidshare's service substantially less attractive or even close it down completely."
A company representative has now said that "Rapidshare wants to clarify the legal situation for hosters", and will be appealing the ruling. The representative also argued that it would be next to impossible to filter its uploads because users can rename files, split them in pieces, or save them as different formats before uploading. Continuing on, the spokesperson added that not all uploads can be considered illegal or unauthorized as music fans can be using the host to have backups of their own MP3 collection without sharing the links.
GEMA, from the other side of the spectrum, has said that it is in settlement negotiations with Rapidshare but refused to comment on any of the particulars.
We will keep you updated.