The Regional Court in Hamburg, Germany, has ruled that file-hosting service Rapidshare must proactively filter certain content. Music industry outfit GEMA asked the court to ban Rapidshare from making about 5,000 tracks from its catalogue available on the Internet. The court estimated the value of the tracks at $34 million.

Collections society GEMA represent more than 60,000 composers, authors and music publishers worldwide, protecting their copyrights. After a request by the group, The Regional Court in Hamburg has ruled that hosting service Rapidshare is forbidden from making any of 5,000 music tracks from GEMA’s collection available on the Internet.

Rapidshare was also ordered to delete any and all of those same tracks from its servers and ensure that they are not uploaded again by users.

The court found Rapidshare guilty of breaches of copyright law and estimated the value of the tracks at €24 million

"The decision of the Hamburg Regional Court is a milestone in GEMA’s fight against the illegal use of musical works on the Internet," said Dr. Harald Heker, Chief Executive Officer of GEMA.

More information is available at GEMA's press release (German)