File sharing service RapidShare has been ordered by the Higher Regional Court in Hamburg to proactively filter files uploaded by its users to prevent illegal sharing of copyrighted content.

The court upheld three separate rulings by lower courts that ruled the site had not done enough to curb the piracy taking place in its servers. The three separate rulings were related to complaints brought on by music rights conglomerate GEMA and by book publishers. The first complaint was filed by GEMA which requested German courts to ban RapidShare from making 5,000 songs from its catalog available to users online. In 2010, textbook publishers Macmillan, Elsevier, McGraw-Hill and Pearson sought to ban RapidShare from allowing users to share 148 book titles.

According to initial reports the ruling will ensure that RapidShare will have to monitor its users' uploaded content for copyright infringement before the service releases them for download on the site. Since it's impossible for the service to monitor the thousands of files being uploaded daily manually RapidShare will have to implement a software that would monitor the content.

The Swiss-based file sharing service has made several concessions to content providers to limit piracy. Following the shutdown of major file sharing site MegaUpload, RapidShare implemented a slower download speed of 30Kbps for free users. Copyright holders didn't think the effort was enough and pushed forward with legal action.

"Internet sites can no longer avoid their responsibilities, and profit from copyright infringing uploads of anonymous users," said Alexander Skipis, chief executive of the German Booksellers Association.

RapidShare hasn't announced if it would appeal the ruling but the court's decision seems to contradict an earlier ruling made by the highest European court where web hosts can't filter copyrighted content because it would violate the privacy of users.

"There is a possible reason for the rushed approach, particularly that of the Booksellers Association. In the hearing, the Higher Regional Court indicated that it would deviate from its former position according under which RapidShare's business model was not tolerated by the legal system," RapidShare spokesman Daniel Raimer told TorrentFreak.

"That shows that the release of a 'jubilation announcement' by the plaintiffs after the publication of the reasons for the judgment would simply not be possible anymore. We are relaxed and look forward to reading the written reasons for the judgment that are expected to be published within the next few days."