RapidShare is Risky after all – It Gives out User Data to Record Labels
All the fears have been confirmed - Rapidshare, however, made no official statements
About two weeks ago we were wondering how safe was to use Rapidshare – well, now the answer surfaced and is not a pretty one either.
Rapidshare, a free file-hosting service that has been lately targeted for assisting in copyright infringement has started collaboration with German authorities, disclosing personal data of its users to music industry, ArsTechnica reports.
Allegedly, the record companies are invoking the paragraph 101 of German copyright law, which gives copyright holders the right to request a court order that forces ISPs to find out the name behind a certain IP address.
The whole shakeup started when a German fan that had uploaded Metallica’s latest album, ‘Death Magnetic’, one day before its official release date was ‘visited’ by the police soon after. It seems that RapidShare handed over the user's IP address to the upset Metallica's label (which doesn’t seem to share the new light-hearted view about file sharing as the band itself), which then had Deutsche Telekom discover the identify of the user behind the IP.
ArsTechnica points out the danger such use of the aforementioned paragraph may represent by establishing a precedent:
Critics fear that that the latest series of events is evidence that the floodgates have been opened for a more "creative" interpretation of paragraph 101. After all, if they are able to obtain IP information, record labels may begin using it to go after users on BitTorrent and other P2P networks. This is the same fear that fueled borderline levels of panic when rumors circulated about Last.fm handing over user data to the RIAA earlier this year, though both Last.fm and the RIAA vehemently denied the accusations. Last.fm later said that it takes the privacy of its users very seriously and that it would never hand over personally identifiable data like e-mails or IP addresses.
Copyright owners have already filed lawsuit against Rapidshare, and a German court’s decision in October was that the file sharing website must make efforts to remove unauthorized content uploaders place on its servers.
