then again they were decreasing bandwidth whilst upping prices so i wasnt going to use them much longer anyway

It just feels like the internet is constantly on a stranglehold and it only gets harder to breathe.

I wish I could go back to the golden period of 1995-2000

This is simply impossible for them to enforce, password protected ZIP files anyone?

...porn, on the other hand, is more like it.

Considering that back in April of this year, Rapidshare was handing over personal details of uploaders who were uploading music files.

More info: http://torrentfreak.com/rapidshare-shares-uploader-info-with-rights-holders-090425/

I share files via RapidShare - all of them fully legal (in fact no-one outside my geographically-extended family has access). So far not a problem. But how do they propose this filtering is actually done? One thing that would have me quitting RapidShare very quickly indeed would be any notion that anyone besides myself and the intended recipients knew the contents of my files.

This sort of nonsense isn't about what is and isn't legal on such file-storing websites. It's about whose has the right to pry into private files. When I post a letter, I don't seal it because I have something to hide - I seal it because the contents are private. If those contents are none of the business of police and govt, then they're certainly none of the business of the commercial media industry. If that's an accepted principle of postal services, I can't see why there should be a problem with transferring private information online.

Or to put it another way - have isps, or indeed the media industry - ever heard the children's tale of the Goose Who Laid the Golden Eggs?

Destroy one of the only remaining expanding industries, why don't you? Duh!

€24,000,000 for 5000 songs equates to €4800 per song...

Now disregarding the whole argument between freetards and Music Asses... These rulings just seems a bit ridiculous to me, i mean sure there's supposed to be some sort of penalty on top of the supposed costs that this downloading has cost the industry... but come on €5000 for 1 song? Do these judges live on the same planet as us?

Given that Rapidshare is a Swiss company with no physical presence in Germany this ruling is legally completely meaningless.

Also the Hamburg court is notorious in Germany for being strongly biased towards copyright holders, so this is no surprise, but the ruling is pure PR as the Hamburg court has no jurisdiction over Rapidshare.

"Rapidshare could not immediately be reached for comment at time of writing"

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Rapidshare.de turned into rapidshare.com a few years ago. and the business moved to switzerland. AFAIK this only applies to rapidshare.de not rapidshare.com.

If they shut down rapidshare, there are lots of other more exotic filesharers ready to take over. In countries where copyright mean copy rights.

Simple ... block all music file sharing and you block the illegal sharing. Simple and cheap. Look for it, it's coming, it'll be here soon.

The recording industry has the power because they have the money. They have the money because some people will still pay outrageous prices for music. We are what we buy and all the music buyers are funding this situation.

If there is so much widespread outrage, why are the music companies still so rich? Not my money, I stopped buying music when they stopped making vinyl platters. But an awful lot of people seem to have no problem with such high prices so there you go. "We have met the enemy and he is us". Well ... not me of course.

Here we go again!

"order Rapidshare to prohibit around 5,000 music tracks from being made available online."

They will be scanning file names to check if theyre pirated or not.

But 5000. Theres a hell of a lot more on there than that.