(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Popular file hosting service Rapidshare (www.rapidshare.com) has been slapped with a $33.4 million fine by a German court and ordered to adopt stricter regulations for its uploaded content, according to several reports.
The lawsuit was brought by German royalties collector GEMA, who called on the Regional Court in Hamburg to order the file hosting service to stop it from hosting 5,000 music tracks on its site for download.
GEMA released a statement in German addressing the court’s ruling:
“The judgment states that the hosting service itself is now responsible for making sure that none of the music tracks concerned are distributed via its platform in the future. This means that the copyright holder is no longer required to perform the ongoing and complex checks.”
The court concluded that Rapidshare and other similar file sharing sites had not taken the proper measures to prevent copyright infringement from occurring via the service.
GEMA CEO called the ruling a “milestone in GEMA’s efforts to combat the illegal use of music works on the Internet,” vowing that the organization “will continue to do everything it can to shield its members from online piracy.”
Anti-piracy organizations continue to crackdown on illegal file downloading.
In April, four Swedish men responsible for file-sharing website the Pirate Bay were convicted on copyright charges by a Stockholm court, which included a year’s prison sentence each and a total of $3.57 million in fines.
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