German Court Orders RapidShare To Filter Its Content

File hosting web sites like the German owned RapidShare are currently popular alternatives for people to illegally download music, TV series and games. Being in the crosshairs of the music industry and other organizations trying to protect various copyright holders for some time already, "the Regional Court in Hamburg, Germany, has ruled that file-hosting service Rapidshare must proactively filter certain content," today. "Music industry outfit GEMA asked the court to ban Rapidshare from making 5,000 tracks from its catalogue available on the Internet. The court estimated the value of the tracks at $34 million."

"The decision of the Hamburg Regional Court is a milestone in GEMA