The irresistible power of marchitecture - The Good Spinola
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Rapidshare wins legal battle as US Congress attacks it
A CALIFORNIA COURT has rejected copyright infringement claims against Rapidshare made by a US pornography website and the German file-hosting company has criticised a US Congressional caucus for calling it a 'pirate'.
Just as US Congressmen started slinging mud Rapidshare saw the temporary injunction against it that had been obtained by the adult entertainment company Perfect 10 kicked out of court. Perfect 10 had requested the injunction to stop Rapidshare from hosting and distributing adult content. Perfect 10 complained that Rapidshare's file-hosting was illegal and said that Rapidshare was engaged in unfair competition with its fee-based service.
The INQUIRER reported earlier this week that Rapidshare was named as one of six top offending sites by the US Congressional International Anti-Piracy (sic) Caucus "2010 International Piracy (sic) Watch List".
"It is outrageous that a caucus of the United States Congress connects our website to piracy. [This] demonstrate[s] that the Recording Industry Association of America and the U.S. Congress lack knowledge of our operations," Christian Schmid, Rapidshare's founder said. "Our company caters to our users' legitimate interests. This has been acknowledged by two recent court rulings in Germany and by the Southern California district court."
In the California case, the court said Rapidshare's free hosting did not represent copyright infringement of media files owned by Perfect 10, which charges punters a small monthly fee for access to its content. When asked to provide evidence of infringement, Perfect 10 couldn't.
"We are extremely pleased at this groundbreaking decision," said Rapidshare's attorney, Daniel Raimer. "In passing this decision, the Californian Court has accepted the same line of argument, which underpinned the recent landmark decision of the Higher Regional Court in Dusseldorf in the appeal against Capelight Pictures."
Another injunction against Rapidshare was rejected at the Dusseldorf hearing. In that case, Rapidshare had been temporarily banned for a while from file-hosting content from Capelight Pictures.
With this court victory Rapidshare joins The Pirate Bay this week in winning much needed breathing space to continue providing their respective services. µ
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What's funny is the fanatical pursuit some authorities and law-enforcement does one day, acting like it's all important and then another day same thing is not illegal and they will with equal earnest vigor fight the opposite, as if it's some godly moral, and although that behavior isn't universal - some cops and judges and lawmakers realize it's all fleeting or a game people play, but a good many do act like I describe, willing to go dirty because it's soooo important and the next week reverse it all.
Pirate Bay Forever.
Isn't it funny how our system works. one day your not a criminal doing something you have for years until they pass a law. Then your a criminal until a judge says the law sucks and now your not a criminal again.
Thanks to US-Court, ThePirateBay and RapidShare ... i am a better person now
I've been using Rapidshare service for a while now, sending video and other stuff to my friends and relatives all over the world and this is a great news for a lot of users like me...