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In what was described as a "shot across the bow" of digital pirates, six global publishers, including John Wiley, Cengage and McGraw-Hill, have obtained an injunction against Swiss-based Rapidshare ordering the company to prevent illegal file sharing of the 148 copyright-protected works cited in the lawsuit.
The judgment was handed down by a German court in Hamburg on 10th February, and became effective on 17th February. The court ruled that Rapidshare must monitor its site to ensure the copyrighted material was not being uploaded and prevent unauthorised access to the material by its users. The plaintiffs in this case have alleged that Rapidshare encourages, facilitates, and profits from such behaviour. The company will be subject to substantial fines for non-compliance with the ruling. According to reports, the three-judge court warned that violations could cost the company up to €250,000 on top of the €7.2m in legal fees for the plaintiffs.
Tom Allen, chief executive of the Association of American Publishers, said: "This ruling is an important step forward. Not only does it affirm that file-sharing copyrighted content without permission is against the law, but it attaches a hefty financial punishment to the host, in this case Rapidshare, for noncompliance. Consider this a shot across the bow for others who attempt to profit from the theft of copyrighted works online.”
Allen warned that unchecked copyright infringement could have serious consequences for our culture at large: “Without the ability to earn a living from their work, authors will not have the incentive to create books in the first place. Moreover, publishers won’t be able to develop powerful content resources and educational tools." He added that "distinguishing credible, quality information from that which is unreliable and untrustworthy would become a gargantuan task" and "if that happens, we all lose”.
Plaintiffs in the case were Bedford, Freeman and Worth Publishing Group, LLC a subsidiary of Macmillan; Cengage Learning Inc.; Elsevier Inc; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.; and Pearson Education, Inc.