German court overturns injunction against RapidShare

[p2p rules]

File sharing service RapidShare doesn't have to employ a word filter to combat the sharing of copyrighted files, the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf has now confirmed. The court reversed a preliminary injunction against RapidShare it issued last year, handing the company another legal victory.

Movie distributor Capelight Pictures had won a preliminary injunction against RapidShare for hosting a number of its films, including Insomnia and The Fall, as well as Inside a Skinhead. The court initially ruled that RapidShare had not done enough to prevent the sharing of Capelight's films because it didn't use a word filter, but RapidShare managed to eke out an appeal victory in April by arguing that common English terms, such as "insomnia" and "fall" would cause too many wrong hits with a filter.

A similar argument worked for the most recent decision as well. When it came to Inside a Skinhead, RapidShare said that a filter would hinder people from saving private copies of the file as allowed by German law. The court also said that RapidShare did not have the obligation to stop the dissemination of download links, and reversed its previous injunction.

arstechnica.com