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Germany's RIAA Sues Rapidshare - YouTube Next?

Posted by Zonk on Fri Jan 19, 2007 06:39 PM
from the they-are-coming-for-you dept.
Government The Courts The Internet News
Hermel writes "The GEMA (Germany's RIAA) obtained a temporary injunction against 'one-click-hoster' Rapidshare.com. If their lawsuit is successful, the GEMA intends to use it as a beachhead against their next targets, including Youtube and MySpace. From the article: 'According to GEMA, the service ... has at times boasted of making some 15 million files available to its users. The operator had however failed to obtain from GEMA a license for making copyright protected files available ... Through its injunctions the District Court in Cologne had now made it clear to the company that the fact that it was the users and not the operator of the services that uploaded the content onto the sites did not, from a legal point of view, lessen the operator's liability for copyright infringements that occurred within the context of the services, the spokesman added.'"
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  • Well... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Cctoide (923843)
    This makes me wonder whether services like these are a good idea. Aren't they somewhat liable to stuff like this? I've seen them remove illegal content, but sometimes it's on their servers for a long while...

    • Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pembo13 (770295) on Friday January 19 2007, @06:52PM (#17689556) Homepage
      I think this all comes to who is more important: the milltions of user who enjoy such services, or the few execs who stand to make _more_ money if people do not enjoy these services. One thing though, I highly doubt they will be satisfied with what ever amount they make when they have rid the world of all filesharing services. They will find new targets then.

        • Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by paganizer (566360) <thegrove1 AT hotmail DOT com> on Friday January 19 2007, @07:15PM (#17689776) Homepage Journal
          Argghhh.
          Hard to mod someone down when they make such great games.
          Think about this though; I bought democracy after playing a demo version. That was a smart move on your part, making a playable demo.
          However, I have done the same thing with companies that do not make demos available; I've grabbed a copy off of P2P to see if it was worth having, then bought the game if it was.
          I do the exact same thing with Video & Music; If I can not find a place to hear a decent example of the music, there is no chance in hell I'll buy it; if a band is cool enough to release a free version, i'm almost certain to buy it even if I just sort of like it; I like to support people not being idiots with my $$$.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by cliffski (65094)
            Man, I feel your pain. I *HATE* it when companies don't release demos. It's just like waving a banner saying "we have no faith in the quality of our product". Star Trek : legacy was a fine recent example of a game who decided it was better off without a demo, in case people saw how bad the game was. To be honest, I can't say I can get worked up about people trying out a game from p2p in those cases. Of course, when there is a demo available, that's another story.
            Sadly, most people aren't using rapidshare to

            • Sadly, most people aren't using rapidshare to get games because there is no demo, they are doing it because they expect to get full games for free. That's bad for everyone in the long term ;(

              I won't disagree with that, so much as quibble with it.

              I don't know how you can know which category most would fall into. I think both of us can only guess. My guess differs from yours, or perhaps not. I'd guess most downloaders just try the game briefly and delete it, and I'd guess most of them do wind up buying th

        • Wrong (Score:4, Informative)

          by Morosoph (693565) on Friday January 19 2007, @07:31PM (#17689938) Homepage Journal
          I thought that the research on this topic was well known. Apparently not.

          So, once again. The state of research on the effects of file-sharing. [slashdot.org]

        • Re:Well... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by troll -1 (956834) on Friday January 19 2007, @07:47PM (#17690080)
          Don't spin the old "everyone in entertainment is a millionaire" nonsense.

          Nor are they starving.

          Perhaps we can all agree that infringement hurts content providers. But the so-called industry needs to face reality. 1) The Internet is a great distribution system. It's light years ahead of the old 'put it on plastic disks and distribute it by plane and truck' method. 2) No matter how many of these sites you shut down, others will pop up in accordance with the principle of supply and demand. (Shutting down Napster was an example of that.)

          Perhaps GEMA needs to beat these sites at their own game by distributing the content themselves first and making their money by either pay-per-download or by selling advertising on content hosting sites.

          Let's be real, the Internet is the best content distribution system ever. At some point there's going to be a realization that lawsuits are not the answer. All moral arguments aside, that's just a fact.
          • As a side note, the GEMA is somewhat different to the RIAA in that they even want a fee from you as an artist if you put your own music (which you registered with the GEMA) on your own website. Thinks this. No joke. There we are in Germany after all our experience with fascism ;)

            (Disclaimer: I'm German).

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by Alsee (515537)
              $2 for a trial stream of the entire album

              A "stream" *is* a download. It is a download plus.. It is a download plus the ability to start playing before the download is complete. It is a download where the file format is arranged in a way compatible with starting playing an incomplete download, a file potentially with some extra information added inside to assist in playing the incomplete download.

              Technologically and physically, sending a stream is absolutely identical to sending a download. The only differen
        • The few execs who get millions also screw over the artists. The artist makes 10-15% of cd sales, minus the cost of recording the album (which is very expensive). If the album doesn't make the cost of recording, the artist doesn't get paid anything (but doesn't owe anything for the cost of recording either).

          This means returns from CDs for the artists are tiny, except for big-name artists. Most small-time artists make money from live gigs - where music sharing will help the numbers.

          *Some* piracy helps the mus
          • It wouldn't be surprising if one reason why many artists don't make much money is that most of the money is made from the recordings of relatively few artists. There are probably numerous artists whose market value is far less than they think it is, just as there are many who think that they're good authors but aren't necessarily marketable. Clearly, the ones at the very top have enough leverage to get quite a bit of money -- enough for all the bling, cocaine, hookers and bail money they might need. The

    • I've seen them remove illegal content, but sometimes it's on their servers for a long while...

      Most services will take it down pretty quick, once asked. The problem from the *AA perspective is that it's a bitch to find all these things. They're hoping to push that task onto the service providers, and it sounds like it's working in this case.

      The obvious problem is that the task is no less onerous for the service. The other obvious problem is that it winds up squelching fair use rights. Myspace is already b

    • Rapidshare should not be the exception... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bananatree3 (872975) on Friday January 19 2007, @07:00PM (#17689626)
      Rapidshare is simply a host that you don't have to pay for (except through viewing ads). It is essentially like any pay-for-host that allows you to post stuff on, junk, music, whatever. Pay-for-hosts don't have the obligation to scan all your files for music, now do they? If someone believes a copyrighted file is illegally located on their server, then the complainer has to file a written formal, legal complaint and send it to the host. I don't get why this kind of model shouldn't work for Rapidshare.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Maxo-Texas (864189)
        You know.. because storage warehouses might be used to store illegal goods or even dead bodies in barrels,

        We should require storage warehouse owners to personally search and scan every warehouse daily, looking inside all containers to be sure nothing illegal is in them.

      • That might depend on whether German law offers anything like the Safe Harbor provision of the United States' DMCA. Yes, in the US a formal complaint from the copyright holder can be required, and even then takedown need not be automatic (if the uploader positively affirms that it is not infringing, if memory serves)... but that has no bearing on what a German court might rule unless some treaty says otherwise.

        It might be argued that there should be a provision that, should the service be notified and the c
    • "This makes me wonder whether services like these are a good idea."

      I've been wondering the same thing ever since the original Napster. "What the heck were they thinking? Did these guys really think that they weren't going to get sued into oblivion?"

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by 1u3hr (530656)
        I've been wondering the same thing ever since the original Napster. "What the heck were they thinking? Did these guys really think that they weren't going to get sued into oblivion?"

        Rapidshare, unlike Napster, provides no indexing service. Anyone can upload files, but you have to be told, by the uploader, the URL to download. It's no different, except in scale, from any webspace provider, or for that matter, email service. Also Rapidshare does take down files almost immediately a complaint is received, an

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by georgeav (965554)
      This is like suing the post office or the bank who offer safe deposit boxes because somebody got a PO Box/safe deposit box and stored drugs in it and it gave the key to another person to pick them up. Or, let's say that the post office/bank indeed checks the content and does not allow drugs; but you put there some prescription only drugs (medicine) that is illegal to give to somebody else; in this case the post office/bank has to check a list with tens of thousands of drugs to see if the drugs you put there
    • I've seen them remove illegal content, but sometimes it's on their servers for a long while...

      It usually stays on the server until reported. Similarly, an ISP usually keep a customer until he/she's reported.

  • New business model (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19 2007, @06:48PM (#17689514)
    1) Create crappy copyrighted material
    2) Upload my crappy copyrighted material to every website that allows anonymous posting
    3) Sue every website uploaded to
    4) Profit!
  • While it may be true that users are responsible for posting copyrighted files, it is true that hosts do need to take down blatent copyright abuses. A simple solution is to follow what many pay-for-hosting hosts have done: simply require plaintiffs to file a formal, legal complaint about compyright abuses. I have found in many hosts terms of use that they require a legal document faxed/mailed to them before they will respond. After such a document is sent, they will then act accordingly.

    Shutting down a who

  • Rapidshare are an obvious target (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cliffski (65094) on Friday January 19 2007, @06:58PM (#17689610) Homepage
    is anyone suprised? I can see how having some temporary storage for files that is totally anonymous *may* have some legit uses occasionally, but if you allow people to anonymously upload any content to a site for free, and other people pay a monthly subscription to download multiple files up to 100MB a time, is *anyone* even remotely suprised when 99% of the content is illegally shared content?
    Rapidshare can remove content on a whim, it's no use for anything thats really vital. Webspace is now trivially cheap, and so is bandwidth. If you need to share big binary files, setting up an ftp server or a website is trivial. The only real market for rapidshare that I can think of is illegal content, and it's no suprise to find so much of it there. Every software, movie and game site that is trading illegal software has dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands of rapidshare links.
    This was inevitable.
    • We are connected to each other now. You can't undo that. Your "content" is for the most part boring as all hell. Some of us will be downloading it, but no harm -- they weren't planning on paying good money for that crap anyway.

      Stop trying to prevent us being connected to each other. It's done.

    • Re:Rapidshare are an obvious target (Score:5, Informative)

      by mochan_s (536939) on Saturday January 20 2007, @01:17AM (#17692468) Homepage
      Webspace is now trivially cheap, and so is bandwidth. If you need to share big binary files, setting up an ftp server or a website is trivial.

      No, it is not. Most users get 30/Kbs upload rates. So, setting up web servers and ftp servers from the internet access is not practical. If you buy a website, it can cost about $200-$300/year for the most basic package.

      The only real market for rapidshare that I can think of is illegal content, and it's no suprise to find so much of it there.

      Do you know long it would take to download a 700MB file from Rapidshare? There is a limitation of 100MB per file and 1 file per 90 minutes. It would take over 10 hours! With bitorrent you can get it in less than 30 minutes. It does not make sense for illegal content at all.

      I used rapidshare to share music projects - since most musicians will try and e-mail everything to you. So exchanging rapidshare links was good and we didn't care if it died a few days later since we could have updated the song anyway.

      To tell you truth, I thought only thing unauthorized that was posted on rapidshare was pr0n clips.

      remotely suprised when 99% of the content is illegally shared content?

      Where did you get that number? Oh yeah, you just made it up.

  • ...depends on the order in which your pursue them. It's lucky that law isn't based on anything like logic where the order of facts makes no difference to whether or not they are true.
    • ...depends on the order in which your pursue them. It's lucky that law isn't based on anything like logic where the order of facts makes no difference to whether or not they are true.

      I'm not sure what you mean. If the lawyers for GEMA say "Websites allowing users to upload copyrighted media can be sued for infringement, therefore we are suing sharing websites X, Y, and Z for letting users upload copyrighted material" before they say "Rapidshare is a website allowing users to upload copyrighted media, and
      • The difference is this. Suppose X is easier to prove in court than Y, and X->Y and Y->X. Then the optimal strategy is to prove X first and use that as a precedent for your next lawsuit. Suppose you try to prove Y first. Because it's harder you're more likely to fail, and as a result X will also be a losing lawsuit if Y is seen as a precedent.

        In logic, it may be optimal to prove X first because its easier, but it doesn't become more likely that Y is true is a result. Reordering merely changes the dif

  • Not exactly the German RIAA. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Jesselnz (866138) on Friday January 19 2007, @07:00PM (#17689624)
    From what I understand, the GEMA is funded by individual artists and composers, not major record labels like the RIAA. I wonder how many of their members agree with this lawsuit...

    • Re:Not exactly the German RIAA. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by foobsr (693224) * on Friday January 19 2007, @07:32PM (#17689954) Homepage Journal
      Weniger als ein Zehntel der GEMA-Mitglieder erhalten mehr als 70 % der ausschüttungsfähigen Summe, während über 90% der Mitglieder nur einen Bruchteil erhalten, wie aus einem Jahresbericht hervorgeht. Nur die ordentlichen Mitglieder der GEMA bestimmen die Auszahlungsmodalitäten. c.f. [wikipedia.org]

      Which essentially says that a few determine which 10% of the members get 70% of the bucks.

      CC.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by lelitsch (31136)
        The Wikipedia article is pretty misleading, but your translation is worse. As stated in the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, the GEMA has about 70,000 paying members (artists, publishers, authors), these paying members decide how the royalties are being distributed. This is German law and very similar to the US: to take part in decisions, you have to be a member of the organization. Try electing a union, HOA or club president without being part of the union, HOA or club.

        Now, of course the most popu
  • Like Falco Kraftwerk, and Rammstein?

    How dare they!
  • The GEMA is by no means Germany's RIAA, more like Germany's ASCAP. It's a society that collects licensing fees for distributed and broadcasted music on behalf of the creators (but, as in this case, can also act on its own if it thinks that due fee payments are being evaded). The closest thing to a German RIAA would be the national section of the IFPI.

  • the fact that it was the users and not the operator of the services that uploaded the content onto the sites did not, from a legal point of view, lessen the operator's liability for copyright infringements that occurred within the context of the services

    So with the same logic, could they also sue the ISPs involved, and in fact any nodes in between?
    Rapidshare and similar sites are set up as simply temporary holding places --- tubes, if you will --- that allow users to send files from one to another.

    This real

  • GEMA != RIAA (Score:5, Informative)

    by mseeger (40923) on Friday January 19 2007, @07:16PM (#17689788) Homepage
    Hi,

    the GEMA cannot be compared to the RIAA. While the RIAA is mostly an industry organisation, the GEMA is a representation of the artists. Not that it doesn't suffer the same delusions of grandeur the RIAA does, but at least the money paid to the GEMA really ends up in the pocket of the artists. And the fees the GEMA requests are pennys compared to the invoices the RIAA sends out.

    Regards, Martin

    • The money ends up in the pockets of the copyright and publishing rights holders. Most of it goes to the industry and not to the artists.

      • Re:GEMA != RIAA (Score:4, Interesting)

        by hclyff (925743) on Saturday January 20 2007, @02:48AM (#17692882)

        The money ends up in the pockets of the copyright and publishing rights holders.
        Fortunately, in many European nations (including Germany, I think), you cannot sell or give up your copyright right. Large distributing company still keep the big bucks of course, for making your records available in stores, but at least they can't push you to sell rights on your work. The artist is always the copyright owner, no matter what.

  • GEMA is not the German equivalent of the RIAA. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shark72 (702619) on Friday January 19 2007, @07:17PM (#17689798)

    Before I explain the difference, I should acknowledge that many Slashdotters have equal disdain for anybody in the music business who tries to assert their rights. For example, we normally state that we're in favor of the artists and that we think artists should have more rights, money, and respect, but when the BMI or ASCAP (US performing rights agencies run by and for artists and wholly unrelated to the RIAA) sue businesses for playing music without a royalty, Slashdotters bring out the hatred equal to that of the RIAA. So, if "RIAA" is shorthand for "anybody in the music industry who tries to interfere with the free (as in beer AND speech) distribution of music", then yeah, GEMA is like the RIAA, but it's still important to understand the difference.

    Here's what GEMA is about [www.gema.de], in English. Like BMI and ASCAP, they're a society of composers, lyricists and music publishers.

    I believe (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong) that the actual German equivalent of the RIAA -- that is, the trade group representing record companies -- is the IFPA.

    With all the ire at GEMA's actions, I think the message here is clear: as covered above, we all respect the musicians, and we want them to have more money, rights, and respect. But only on our terms. If they take legal actions or otherwise demand more money, rights, or respect -- in other words, if they simply get too uppity -- then they're on equal moral grounds as the RIAA et al.

    • ... BMI or ASCAP (US performing rights agencies run by and for artists and wholly unrelated to the RIAA)

      Run by artists?

      • The American Society of Composers, Artists, and Publishers is run by its member composers, artists, and publishers. It looks like GEMA works that way also.
        Broadcast Music Inc. is run by radio execs, which means that ClearChannel likely has a large vote. It's probably as much like ROMS as like ASCAP. Many artist-composers sign up with them anyway, esp. if they are signed to the RIAA when they start publishing.
        A strike by the ASCAP caused radio to found BMI. It appears that in the '40s and '50s, ASCAP w
    • What's really amusing is the poster (and the headline) calling them "Germany's RIAA" -- or, written out, "Germany's Recording Industry Association of America." If you want to call them similar, that's one thing, but calling them Germany's RIAA just sounds stupid.
    • Before I explain the difference, I should acknowledge that many Slashdotters have equal disdain for anybody in the music business who tries to assert their rights. For example, we normally state that we're in favor of the artists and that we think artists should have more rights, money, and respect, but when the BMI or ASCAP (US performing rights agencies run by and for artists and wholly unrelated to the RIAA) sue businesses for playing music without a royalty, Slashdotters bring out the hatred equal to th

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by zotz (3951)
      "With all the ire at GEMA's actions, I think the message here is clear: as covered above, we all respect the musicians, and we want them to have more money, rights, and respect. But only on our terms. If they take legal actions or otherwise demand more money, rights, or respect -- in other words, if they simply get too uppity -- then they're on equal moral grounds as the RIAA et al."

      Some may be that way, but not all.

      Look, if an artists signs up with a lot of these rights organisations, they will have to pay
  • Some think copyrights should be defended at the expense of file sharing sites while others think that its up to the copyright holders to defend their rights and request content be removed.

    The only trouble with both of these ideas is that they rely on a broken process or standard. When paper based products and other media that could not be easily created at home were the carriers of such copyrighted content, these arguments made sense. They no longer make sense. In one way or another, both lead to prepostero

  • Back to reality (Score:3, Insightful)

    by billcopc (196330) <vrillco@yahoo.com> on Friday January 19 2007, @07:42PM (#17690044) Homepage
    Hey I'm on Slashdot.. and Slashdot loves analogies, right ?

    What if I'm in a hardware store, and I use a chainsaw to cut someone in half. Am I guilty of murder, or is the hardware store guilty of allowing me to misuse its goods and services ?

    What if I'm on some website, and I use its resources to commit criminal acts. Am I guilty of said act, or is the website guilty of allowing its resources ?

    I don't give a flying toaster about how lawyers will try to bend the facts... it seems pretty obvious to me. Does Lexus get named in lawsuits involving drug busts ? Because their cars seem to be quite loved by high-end coke runners, and it could be argued that having a vehicle facilitates the couriering of illicit substances, just like a file backup web site facilitates the couriering of illicit data.

    Hell, sue the post office while you're at it. Last I heard, you could buy weed online and have it shipped across the continent right to your mailbox. What the hell?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by stephanruby (542433)
      No need to think up of new analogies. There are real examples similar enough in our not so distant past. Content publishers were against photocopy machines when they first came out. They were against video tapes that the consumer could record on. They were against search engines that could index their content. They were against mp3 players. This will come to pass as well. Just as now, it would be silly to be in a world without photocopy machines and without VCR-like devices, soon enough it will be just as s

  • Artists' Decision? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lymond01 (314120) on Friday January 19 2007, @07:43PM (#17690050)
    At some point, an artist makes the choice to have their music managed by the RIAA, and those made into copyrighted, not-to-be-shared-without-being-properly-licensed recordings. I'm guessing that the advertising the RIAA does for artists they think can be successful is the driving force behind musicians still using them.

    Musicians can get a loan and have a high-quality studio recording made of their music. With the internet, they can attempt to market it, and with the new music sites and the ubiquity of the internet, they might even get noticed. But noticed by who? Venues like to see you draw a crowd. How do you become a megastar without radio airplay, music videos, etc? I suppose you can get on the radio by popular opinion (enough calls to the radio stations by your fans), but getting airplay on MTV (do they still play videos?) is a bit more challenging without the RIAA paying for the time.

    I guess it takes money to make money, and the RIAA makes that "easier" if not simply "possible" for the artist by saying, "Give us your act, and we'll make you famous." It just seems like the time is coming for artists to dodge the RIAA and publish themselves. Hell yes, it takes effort, but you're artists! You're supposed to starve.
    • step 3. Allows the user to publish their crap. They don't actual publish.

      maybe someone who stop me whenever I leave my house to be sure I am not wearing a shirt with an unauthorized coyrite material on it?

      What we are seeing is a result of the change of copyright for all practical matters.
      Digital distribution has ended copyright as we no it. The industry can either line copyright with what the people want, or loose it completely.

      In the US, it's the will of the people that allows for copyright, and the will o

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