RapidShare Hires Big DC Lobbying Firm To Convince Politicians That The RIAA/MPAA Are Lying About It

from the world-we-live-in dept

Europe-based RapidShare has been taking a lot of heat lately from the entertainment industry, which has tried hard to prove that the company is one of the "worst" operators out there when it comes to file sharing. Earlier this year, RapidShare was listed as one of the five sites that the Congressional "anti-piracy caucus" considered to be the worst offenders of copyright infringement, based almost entirely on complaints by the RIAA and MPAA. Of course, Rapidshare serves plenty of legitimate purposes as well -- and the company has been known to fight back against charges of copyright infringement and win, both in the US and in Europe, where courts have noted that simply acting as a hosting provider, which responds to takedown requests, takes away the liability.

The company also has been known to hit back at those who accuse of it of being complicit with copyright infringement, and its latest move is to try to counter all that lobbying by the RIAA and the MPAA by hiring the giant DC-based lobbying firm Dutko (which, admittedly, has been having its own problems lately.

Of course, just hiring a lobbying firm isn't likely to change things by itself. You can bet that the RIAA and MPAA are spending a hell of a lot more on lobbying against RapidShare. But it really is a sign of the times that a European company feels the need to hire lobbyists just to explain to US politicians that setting up web servers that host content is not automatically about copyright infringement.

Filed Under: copyright, lobbying, politics
Companies: dutko, rapidshare