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GEMA slaps Rapidshare
Germany's version of the RIAA has succeeded in getting a court to fine Rapidshare for alleged offences against copyright. [Google translated version of the page]
The detail seems to be based on 5,000 tracks which - apparently - someone had been using Rapidshare to, erm, share rapidly; the onus, says the court, is on the file-sharing service to make sure that it isn't hosting unlicensed music. There's a €24million fine, as well.
Bad news for Rapidshare, good news for GEMA. Although, perhaps, not as good as they seem to think:
Dr. Harald Heker, Chief Executive Officer of GEMA: "The decision of the regional court in Hamburg is a milestone in the fight against the illegal use of musical works on the Internet. GEMA will continue to protect its members from online piracy. We are confident in this way to be able to achieve the reduction of illegal use of the GEMA repertoire on the Internet to a negligible level. "
Really? You think that closing down one of the dozens and dozens of file-sharing services is going to be that significant?
Maybe they're thinking that they can spend some of those €24million on carrying on the fight. Just as soon as the leprechaun delivers them.
2 comments:
Although I'm usually the first to attack anything RIAA, BPI, GEMA or other evil music empire acronyms, I've always had a problem with the fact that, unlike most p2p services, Rapidshare and other sites like it are actually making money from this illegal trading in the form of the subscriptions the offer. Much as this action isn't going to work in GEMA's favour (like you say there's dozens more), one can't help but consider the fact that these money making enterprises have formed because the RIAABPIGEMACORP have forced people on to them through their practices and this truly isn't a good thing for artists.
Now I need to go clean myself after this disgusting defence. Yuck.
GEMA is the collection society of the authors/publishers, the german version of the PRS/MCPS.
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