p2pnet - rss feed: Music downoads legal in Spain
p2pnet.net News:- Downloading music isn’t illegal in Spain if it’s not done to make money, a Spanish judge has ruled in a decision certain to raise storms of outrage from various ‘trade’ groups operated by Warner Music, EMI, Sony BMG and Vivendi Universal, the members of the Big Four Organized Music cartel.
Prosecutors were demanding a two year prison sentence and a € 7,200 (about $9,192) for a 48-year-old man they’d accused of downloading and sharing music online, says Typically Spanish.
But, in the first ruling of its kind in Europe, “The judge considered that article 31 of the Intellectual Property Law in Spain established the right of the public to obtain copies of music without permission of the author, provided they were for private use and no profit was made,” says the story.
“Judge Paz Aldecoa threw out a case against an unnamed 48-year-old man who offered and downloaded digital versions of music on the internet, according to Spanish press reports,” says Guardian Unlimited.
“He also sent selections of music recorded on CDs out to people in the post, prosecutors claimed.”
Under Spanish law, a person who downloaded music for personal use couldn’t be punished or branded a criminal, says the story, going on:
“That would imply criminalising socially admitted and widely practised behaviour where the aim is not to gain wealth illegally but to obtain private copies,” Aldecoa said in her judgment.
But the judge had got it wrong, Guardian Unlimited has Antonio Guisasola, from Spain’s Promusicae recording industry federation.
“We have already appealed against the decision,” he said. “Peer-to-peer [P2P] sharing is not legal in Spain.”
Guisasola said his federation was still convinced “private use” wasn’t a, “legal excuse for downloading music for free, adding:
“I have been with both the justice minister and the culture minister today and they are both quite clear that peer to peer is illegal.”
Also See:
Typically Spanish - Judge says sharing music over the Internet is not a crime in Spain, November 2, 2006
Guardian Unlimited - Spanish court rules free music downloads are legal for own use, November 3, 2006
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November 3rd, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Very interesting.
A person does what a judge (presumably a lawyer too) thinks is legal and some heatless corporations want him in jail for what he did.
This simple situation raises many questions about music sharing. Some are….
1. Is a common person expected to find and read the copyright law and all related jurisprudence and interpret all that before copying anything on the web to his computer? Who is it that expets that?
Answer: Only a malevolent corporate profit hungry jerk would expect such a thing.
2. If a non common person, such as a copyright lawyer, reached the same conclusion as the judge, that not for profit sharing is legal, and then does some sharing, should he go to jail because he made the wrong interpretation of the law?
Answer: Only a malevolent corporate profit hungry jerkwould expect such a thing.
3. As to the argument, “ignorance of the law is no excuse” is it dead?
Answer: Answer: Only a malevolent corporate profit hungry jerk and some obsolete judges believe in such a backward concept. Laws are so confusing (a worldwide plague created on purpuse or because of legislator’s incopetence) that everyone is ignorant of the law, even lawyers and judges, the proof being this case, where the judge and the acusing lawyers disagree on what should be a simple question, is not for profit sharing legal?
4. The music (over 500 songs) of my family has been, in the USA, stolen (copyright registeerd and all) by major music publishers and recorded without authorization (meaning no licence and no payment of royalties) by major record companies (Sony alone 24 or more records) and no one has been sent to jail for one day. Why should a spaniard go to jail for two years for not for profit sharing songs? when large American and intenational corporations can get away with for-profit large scale copyright (real) theft? Is it not the USA the leader in pushing severe punishment ($150,000 per infringed song, say the lawbook)?
Answer: None of this makes any sense and we are being taken for suckers by the cartels and their copyright lawyers, who are not right about anything.
Does anyone want a two year sentence for savings web pages without the copyright holder’s authorization using the browser’s “file-save as” function?
Answer: I wouldlike to see a cartel copyright lawyer be consistent and say yes to this question. He will be the laughingstock and most sinister of lawyers. Well, actually they already are, except that the destruction of lives of sued, or worse, prosecuted (as in the current case in Spain) file sharers is no laughing matter.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
November 3rd, 2006 at 1:50 pm
“I have been with both the justice minister and the culture minister today and they are both quite clear that peer to peer is illegal.”
I have made, on behalf of my wealthy benefactors, some very
large contributions to the justice minister and the culture minister.
We now have a clear understanding
November 4th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
We now need a traveler’s guide to file sharing.
Let’s say our friend from New York, Thomas, travels widely and frequently.
He now wants to take advantage of his travels to Spain to download music while there, after all, downloading is legal there, just like smoking havana cigars is.
But in what other countries can he download songs legally?
And is the possesion of the downloaded files legal upon entering the USA?
Will the state Department publish the guide? Or will the Copyright Office do it? Or will the Department of Justice do it? Or will they have an anti-turf war so as to avoid the responsibility? And what will congress do about it? Finally, will Bush threaten to invade the “criminal” countries such as Spain, for not jailing the Americans that go to Spain to bypass American laws?
Poor Thomas. He will probably be acused as a criminal by the cartel lawyers because no one would explain the rules to him.
My advise to Thomas: Stay in Spain.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com