RapidShare is Appealing obligations of Web Hosters

CHAM, Switzerland (GAWKWIRE) The District Court in Duesseldorf has rejected the negative appeal by RapidShare against GEMA. RapidShare wants to bring about a decision from the appellate court in this legal dispute concerning the verification of legal obligations of web hosters and is appealing. This original judgment has no effect on the operation of rapidshare.com.

"Our goal is legal security," explained Bobby Chang, CEO of RapidShare. "The proceedings were the most necessary step to achieve it."

RapidShare had already lost one prior original proceeding initiated by GEMA, most parts of which were repealed in the second instance. The Regional Court of Appeals in Cologne reached the opinion that RapidShare does fulfill its legal obligations, if it removes individual publicly accessible music files from its services. The court furthermore acknowledged that it is impossible for RapidShare or it is not reasonable to expect RapidShare to prevent that musical work are offered as such via its platform.

"According to our opinion, it is counterproductive to comprehensively condemn the internet and hosting, because there is a way to misuse them, which is true for any infrastructure", according to Chang. "The objective is to handle this subject reasonably and discerningly in Germany."

The core of the proceedings is to define the verification duties of hosting companies, which have been interpreted differently to date. The requirements span from the use of software filters, the registration of all users, and the increase of the number of abuse staff up to the verification of link resources. Which software filters are sufficient for the verification requirements, how many abuse staff members are reasonable and which of the link resources, of which there are hundreds, have to be checked, is not consistently defined.

"It is even more significant that all of these measures will not be sufficient to stop the misuse of hosting services with a 100 percent guarantee. As a consequence, they will not solve the overall problem. To provide an innovative infrastructure and simultaneously prevent all misuse is a requirement that the internet industry cannot fulfill. The topic has to be discussed on a different level in Germany," concluded Chang.

Journalists will receive the link to download the original text of the court's opinion (in German) at press@rapidshare.com.

About RapidShare
RapidShare AG hosts information for companies and private individuals: The user loads his data in a few steps onto his system via the so-called 1 click hosting and receives a link at which he can again download or delete the information, if desired. RapidShare AG was established in 2006 and has its central office in Cham, Switzerland.