RapidShare was once one of the most popular Internet file-hosting sites. It was shut down in the year 2015 when copyright holders put a lot of pressure upon the site providers. Just after three years of its shutdown criminal prosecution started against RapidShare’s operators and their lawyer in Switzerland. They were accused of committing mass copyright infringement. All of them recently have been acquitted by the court. However, a criminal lawsuit was filed in Switzerland. Christian Schmid who was the founder of the site, his wife Alexandra, and one of their former lawyers were those three people who faced a trial in a criminal court of Switzerland.
It was reported that the public prosecutor of the court in Zug made accusations of assisting in mass copyright infringement on the trio. He also sought the directions of the court for the financial penalties on behalf of the copyright holders. He further argued that RapidShare made huge profits and also brought the attention of the court to the fact that RapidShare’s gross dividend was nearly $53m in 2009 only. He also added that the enterprise was at the win-win position at the expense of various content companies and the operators of the site was in a position to put a full-stop on infringement but they chose to ignore all the instance of infringement. They preferred revenue above everything including morals and ethics. Thus, the founder of the site was alone alleged to pay more than 700,000 Swiss Francs by the Public Prosecutor.
The platform used to provide a very simple way of storing and sharing files with others which resulted in its popularity amongst the people who were desperately looking for distribution of copyright-infringing content. This became the main reason for attracting the negative attention of various copyright holders. RapidShare eventually found itself being labeled as a “notorious market” by the USTR.
Zug Court declared all the three persons associated with RapidShare innocent and not guilty. However, the Swiss court didn’t give this judgment in hurry but took its full time in issuing its verdict. This verdict put a full stop to this two-and-a-half-year-long legal battle. A summary of this verdict is available for the public which reveals that all three defendants i.e., Christian and Alexandra Schmid and their former lawyer have been declared not guilty by the court.
Zurich lawyer Andreas Meili represented Alexandra Schimd in this case. He was very overwhelmed with the verdict and described it as a great satisfaction. He also expressed his great concern regarding the expenses which were incurred by his client while defending the case. However, it is not made clear at present whether there will be any sort of opportunity to address the issue of costs or not.
“If you are acquitted, you are entitled to compensation, not the other way around,” he told Tablatt. However, the verdict is in the favour of RapidShare but we shouldn’t ignore the possibility of not accepting the judgment of the Zug court by the public prosecutor and copyright holders. There are also possibilities of filing an appeal against this verdict.
It is very much evident from the transactions of the Schmids that this trial didn’t affect their standards of living that much. The couple bought Eugensberg Castle in 2019 which was worth 36 million Swiss Francs ($40.5 million). They paid this much amount to Thurgau's bankruptcy office to acquire the castle. This 18th-century castle was previously owned by entrepreneur Rolf Erb who had been convicted for committing numerous frauds. This castle is huge enough to have eleven bedrooms and five bathrooms.
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