RapidShare, the popular file hosting website used by developers and alike has apparently been shut down at least temporarily by a court order.

Heise Online is reporting that GEMA, a German royalties collection agency has filed a complaint against RapidShare, claiming that the service hosts copyrighted materials, which it's fairly safe to say is true.

GEMA wants RapidShare to provide details on how many files hosted on the site are copyrighted works of GEMA members. RapidShare has historically said that it does not inspect the files uploaded by users. We've seen companies like YouTube demonstrate in recent years that it is possible to build copyright detection software to inspect for illegally uploaded files. But we've also seen that no system so far is foolproof, so it should be interesting to see if RapidShare fights the complaint, promises to implement some sort of filters, or fades off into oblivion.

A big blow to all those people, who’ve shelled out money for paid accounts?

RapidShare, File Sharing, Web Services, Website, GEMA, Copyright