Posts Tagged ‘Rapidshare’
Rapidshare Scores Another Win Towards Film Studio
RapidShare takes all reasonable measures to prevent movies from being distributed through its web-service, a German court ruled yesterday. The Higher Regional Court of Dsseldorf overturned the earlier decision of a local district court in a second case brought by movie outfit Capelight Pictures.
Like most file-hosting services, RapidShare hosts a wide range of movies, music and software files that are distributed without the consent of the rightsholders. This situation has caused the company to be dragged to court on multiple occasions, but the file-hoster has come out the winner several times already.
In May this year, the United States District Court of California ruled that RapidShare is not guilty of copyright infringement. In a hearing closer to home for the Swiss company, a German court ruled in the same month that RapidShare cannot be held not liable for acts of copyright infringement committed by its users.
In a related case in Germany against the movie studio Capelight Pictures, RapidShare has booked another success after a lower court initially ruled against the file-hoster last year. RapidShare successfully appealed against a preliminary injunction granted by the Dsseldorf Regional Court, and the Higher Regional Court of Dsseldorf has now reversed the decision.
The dispute between Capelight Pictures and the file-hoster dealt with the question of whether RapidShare had undertaken all reasonable measures to counter the illegal distribution of one of the films owned by the movie outfit in Germany. While the lower court ruled RapidShare did not, the Higher Regional Court of Dsseldorf overturned this decision.
The ruling is a further step in the right direction, sad RapidShare lawyer Daniel Raimer. The previously common practice of copyright holders [suing] RapidShare on the off-chance there might be something to be gained from it, misunderstanding the realities it is operating within and showing contempt for its business model, will no longer bear fruit. The newest court rulings in Germany and the USA indicate this very clearly.
Christian Schmid, founder and CEO of RapidShare, commented: We are also pleased with the ruling because it is connected to a claim for compensation of costs. Copyright holders should therefore think very carefully in future about whether they wouldnt prefer to save themselves some time and above all the expense of suing RapidShare for something for which the company cannot be held liable.
Together with the positive outcomes from the other court cases this year, RapidShare has less to worry about on the legal front in the future. The verdicts are undoubtedly a major victory for RapidShare, and they will also reflect positively on other file-hosters and even torrent sites. In fact, many of the arguments used by the Court also hold for the average torrent site, as long as they stay away from other means of facilitating copyright infringement.
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Rapidshare Cheapens Pricing Scheme After Consumer Revolt
Two weeks ago RapidShare announced a change in the pricing scheme for their premium members. Starting this month, account holders wouldve been required to pay an amount based on their daily usage volume along with a requirement to skip between various packages to avoid overpayment. This planned change resulted in a revolt among RapidShare users which forced the company to revisit its plans.
RapidShare has made several drastic changes to its service in the last months. They began in March when it became apparent that the company was trying to get copyright holders on board in an attempt to convert pirates into paying customers.
A month later RapidShare ditched its CEO Bobby Chang on claims he was no longer the right person to successfully lead the company. And in a continued effort to avoid the pirate site stigma, RapidShare killed its reward program and went after sites that infringed their trademark to facilitate illicit downloading.
Two weeks ago premium users of the file-hosting site were informed about another upcoming change that was set to go into effect this month. RapidShare announced that it would stop the existing payment plans to introduce 5 new packages. These new packages would have daily usage limits and users would have to switch between them according to their daily download demands.
The result was that most users would be worse off than with their current plans, or would be forced to switch back and forth between the various packages on a day-to-day basis. Unsurprisingly, many premium users complained to RapidShare, urging the company to reconsider their offer.
As a result of the recent adjustments to our product and pricing model we have received a lot of feedback from our users, RapidShare communicated to its users yesterday. There was also positive response but we want to be honest with you: most answers were negative.
With our adjustments we have alienated many users. As a matter of course, that was not our intention. Instead, it is our goal to introduce a system that gives our users more flexibility. However, we are happy about every single user response that we have received as this is the only way we can learn what our users really want, the company added.
To accommodate the complaints of the revolting users, RapidShare changed its payment scheme to a simpler and much cheaper offer. For less than 5 euros users can now buy 4 months of premium access with 10 GB storage and a 30 GB monthly data limit. Heavy users can buy additional traffic and storage space if required.
The main benefit of the revised scheme, besides the fact that nearly every user will be better off, is the change from a daily limit to a monthly one. Under the old scheme, users with the cheapest account had a 1 GB download limit that they would have to upgrade even though they might never go over the 30 GB a month.
With these changes RapidShare thinks that there wont be any future revolts from users over the new pricing scheme. We are convinced that we will meet our users needs with the new and simple model, the company said.
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Us Court Docket: Rapidshare Not Guilty Of Copyright Infringement
The popular file-hosting service RapidShare is not guilty of copyright infringement, the United States District Court of California has ruled. The ruling is an important victory for RapidShare, which has been increasingly targeted by the entertainment industries.
Last year, adult media company Perfect 10 filed a lawsuit against the leading file-hosting service, RapidShare. Among other claims, Perfect 10s lawsuit stated that RapidShare was guilty of infringing the copyrights of many of its images.
The California-based company called for a jury trial in the United States to settle the issue. RapidShare responded by requesting that the case be postponed and transferred to Europe and heard under German law. This request was denied last month and the case went ahead in the United States.
This week the District Court of California rejected Perfect 10s request for a temporary injunction. The Court stated in its ruling that as a file-hosting company, RapidShare cannot be accused of any copyright infringements. The ruling is a significant victory for RapidShare and the case sets an important precedent in the United States.
The view that RapidShare does not promote any infringements of copyright, unlike other file-hosts, appears to be gradually catching on, Christian Schmid, founder of RapidShare said.
It is a milestone for us that this is also happening in the US. We are happy that the court in California has not bought into the odd line of argument put forward by Perfect 10 and we look forward to increasingly emphasize the major difference between RapidShare and illegal share-hosts, Schmid added.
For Rapidshare this is the second high profile legal victory this month. Earlier, a German Court of Appeal overturned an earlier verdict in the case against the movie rental company Capelight Pictures. In the verdict it stated that RapidShare is not liable for acts of copyright infringement committed by its users.
It is not entirely clear what Schmid means by illegal share-hosts in his comment, but we assume that he refers to sites that encourage copyright infringement. The company previously said it would distance itself from other file-hosters that try to win the favor of those users that upload and distribute copyrighted content.
RapidShare itself does all it can to avoid such claims and is hoping to convert pirates into paying customers. Instead of simply removing pages where copyrighted material can be downloaded, RapidShare would like to redirect users to an online store where the same content can be bought legally.
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