Rapidshare Shares Uploader Info with Rights Holders

[Lord Valarion]

For all members who have a RapidShare account, You may wanna be aware of whats going on currently in the RapidsShare scene.

The following article was written on Torrent Freak, on April 25th, 2009


In Germany, the file-hosting service Rapidshare has handed over the personal details of alleged copyright infringers to several major record labels. The information is used to pursue legal action against the Rapidshare users and at least one alleged uploader saw his house raided.

Like many new releases, Metallica’s latest album “Death Magnetic” was uploaded to the popular file hosting service Rapidshare one day prior to its official release date last year. Since users don’t broadcast their IP-address or distribute files to the public directly though Rapidshare, it came as a surprise when the police raided the house of an uploader a few weeks ago.

At first it was unclear how the identity of the uploader was revealed, but today German news outlet Gulli said it had found out that this was likely to be accomplished by creative use of paragraph 101 of German copyright law. It turns out that several record labels are using this to take legal action against those who share music on Rapidshare.

Previously the paragraph was only used by rights holders to get the personal details of those who share copyrighted works on file-sharing networks. It basically enables the copyright holders to get “permission” from a civil judge to ask ISPs to disclose the personal details of a user behind a certain IP. Now, however, this also seems to be the case for file-hosting services such as Rapidshare, which is based in Germany.

This of course opens up the possibility for rights holders to go after a wide range of file-hosting services and potentially even BitTorrent sites. Indeed, everyone who now uploads a torrent file to a site hosted in Germany is at risk of having his personal details revealed. Although it will be impossible to prove that the uploader actually seeded the file it might be seen as assisting in copyright infringement.

Pretty much all torrent sites keep track of the IP-addresses of their (.torrent) uploaders, and if the rights holders can get the IP-address of people who upload to file-hosting services such as Rapidshare, they can easily extend this to BitTorrent sites hosted in Germany. A dream come true for copyright holders, but a nightmare for the privacy of Internet users.

Too bad for Metallica’s Lars Ulrich who only just started sharing files himself.

[Hidlegram]

lol brutal. bugger for the guy who saw his house get raided.

[Terminator]

Oh shit !! Be on your guard guys !!

[bluffmaster12pm]

seems RS dont need more users .

[unknown]

time to stop uploading

[eyesonyouu]

This is getting dangerous!!

[farrell]

does anyone know any good methods of emergency data destruction if the police do raid your house?

[cravin]

maybe just encrypting everything you upload and download in a file would work.
just don't forget the pw. and if they do raid just put a hotkey that automatic destroys the information on your disk. or maybe some one here can come up with a program that does it fast and permanent

[Senpai]

Looks like an easy way in the future to get a hold of 911 when all lines are busy

[farrell]

Data forensics can recover data that has been wiped many times, DBAN (darik's boot and nuke) does it for you and it actually works quite well however it is very slow

[beaner69]

a hammer and acid would probably work

[Moolkye]

The best way to do it, is run Linux, with vbox installed, and then install winxp there, and save all your file sin that. Or better yet a vbox within a vbox....

[cf]

i aint worried what can they do im skint so cant fine me

[cf]

No safe harbor for RapidShare in copyright infringement case

A German court says that file-sharing service RapidShare is responsible for the files uploaded by its members, including the copyrighted ones. It's a reminder of what the situation in the US would be like if the DMCA's Safe Harbor provision were to disappear.


File-sharing service RapidShare (http://rapidshare.com/) has been dealt a blow by a German court and faces severe penalties if it fails to take appropriate measures against the uploading of copyrighted content by its users. The Düsseldorf Regional Court ruled against RapidShare last week in a case brought on by the German version of the RIAA, GEMA (http://www.gema.de/). GEMA hailed the decision as a huge victory, and concluded that RapidShare could face shutdown if it's unable to comply.
RapidShare has long argued that it can't be held responsible for what its users upload to the site. But the court disagreed, saying that the site must take responsibility for copyright infringement, even when the material in question was uploaded by its members. "This decision marks a milestone in the fight against illegal usage of our repertoire," said GEMA CEO Dr. Harald Heker in a statement. "It sends out a clear signal that any services, which derive financial benefit from unlawful uses of our works, will have to take extensive measures to protect the rights owners and cannot simply evade liability by referring to the action of individual users. With this landmark decision, the way has been paved for instituting proceedings against other similar services."
Had this involved a US court, the outcome would have been different. In the US, web site operators can (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080125-warner-sues-playable-search-engine-tests-dmca-safe-harbor.html) (and do (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070501-google-cites-safe-harbor-fair-use-in-viacom-v-youtube-defense.html)) argue that the Safe Harbor provision in the DMCA protects them from liability as long as they remove infringing content after being presented with a takedown notice. In Germany (and many other countries), there is no equivalent to protect sites like RapidShare, meaning that RapidShare almost has little but to comply with the ruling. According to GEMA, the court said that RapidShare must "take such measures as involve the risk of its business model becoming much less attractive or even having to be discontinued entirely."
http://media.arstechnica.com/news.media/200/rapidshare.png This is exactly how companies like Viacom would like things to play out here in the US. Big Content would love to hold sites like YouTube responsible for checking, in advance, every single item uploaded to the site, and have them held liable for any infringing content that ends up online. Instead, the Safe Harbor provision requires them filing takedown notices every time they come across something that might be infringing. Big Content is also pushing hard for filtering solutions (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071022-viacoms-true-desire-one-copyright-filter-to-rule-them-all.html) that it believes could provide the solution to all their problems. Unfortunately, filters don't understand fair use, and their use could result in legitimate content being kept offline.
As for RapidShare, it's unclear what will happen next. Christian Solmecke, an attorney for the site, told TorrentFreak (http://torrentfreak.com/rapidshare-to-be-forced-to-shut-down-following-court-defeat-080129/) that the outcome of the case is unusual, because it would require RapidShare to perform the nearly impossible task of checking every single item in its hosted materials for copyrights. "I believe that Rapidshare will appeal against the decision of the Landgericht (District Court) of Düsseldorf," Solmecke said. "If they do so, we will have to wait and see what the Oberlandesgericht (Higher District Court) of Düsseldorf (as the Court of Appeal) says."

[Tars]

^That's an old one i think, it might also the one where RS replied by saying it wouldnt spy on it's uploaders.

[farrell]

The whole system is corrupt, RS is being put on pressure by the RIAA and the government doesn't care if they are breaking the data protection act because they want to stop piracy.

[Peerless]

Holy cow, I just read this....


This is actually quite bad!

[sparkoz]

risky business

[jihowar]

If it weren't for copyrighted material, Rapidshare would probably be bankrupt and wouldn't have any subscribers because there wouldn't be anything for people to download. Just my opinion.

I've started removing the file extensions from my uploads before creating my encrypted archive to try and prevent their software from detecting the file types (for example removing the .mp3 from each individual file) and removing due to copyright. :S

[hereward]

Er I think this is about rapidshare.de. Won't be purchasing a false beard just yet.

Hereward

[Cerealfreak]

RS have stated they will fight this ruling in court under appeal and won't be handing out information left right and centre. The proposed software by the GEMA is unstable, wunsafe and unworkable according to RS.com.

It will happen people just need to stop uploading files with the names Metallica_Death_Magnetic.rar and instead use numbers 12321.rar and also uploads will need to password protected to prevent them from checking files, although they currently state they do not traffic uploads and only remove files of copyright infringement if reported to be as such :)