CyberLaw Blog

Archive for the ‘Spain’ Category

Spain rejects 'US influenced' copyright bill: “
After a narrow vote, a Spanish parliamentary commission has rejected a controversial bill aimed at protecting content owners from internet downloaders. All of the main Spanish parties, except for Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s Socialists rejected the so-called Sinde Bill, named after Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde. The draft legislation would have set up a government commission which would have then provided courts with details of websites offering access to copyright-protected material such as music, movies, video games or software. A judge could then have ordered the closure of offending websites.

The bill sparked furious opposition from internet users who accused the government of violating the freedom of expression but Gonzalez-Sinde said the law only intended to put an end to Spain’s position as a ‘paradise of piracy.’ Techdirt put a different slant on things, firstly praising Spain’s ‘somewhat more reasonable copyright laws than other parts of the world’ highlighting provisions that say that ‘personal, non-commercial copying is not against the law and also says that third parties should not be liable for copyright infringement done by their users’ adding that obviously Hollywood ‘hates’ this and that Spain’s recently introduced reform package seemed like a ‘checklist of the entertainment industry’s wishes’ and that one of the recent Wikileaks diplomatic cable leaks showed that ‘US diplomats played a role in pressuring the Spanish government to make these changes, at the behest of movie industry lobbyists’.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101221/15434012367/spanish-legislature-rejects-hollywood-backed-copyright-law-changes.shtml

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(Via The 1709 Blog.)

Spanish court clears YouTube of copyright liability for uploaded videos: “YouTube is not liable for copyright infringement because users have uploaded video material from Spanish television station Telecino, a Madrid court has ruled. YouTube is not obliged to monitor all content and weed out infringement, the court said.“

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Spanish court throws out copyright infringement claims against youtube – The Inquirer: “Spanish court throws out copyright infringement claims against Youtube
Says content owners must do their homework
By Lawrence Latif
Thu Sep 23 2010, 17:41

VIDEO SHARING WEBSITE Youtube has had copyright infringement charges against it dropped by Spain’s federal court in Madrid.

The case was brought by Spanish broadcaster Telecinco, which claimed that Youtube was liable for user uploaded videos that contained copyrighted content. The owner of Youtube, and just about everything else on the web it seems, Google said the decision was a ‘clear victory for the Internet and the rules that govern it’.

Youtube already has procedures in place for copyright owners to identify and notify the website of any videos that allegedly breach copyrights. The Spanish federal court’s decision follows European Union law, which states that the onus of notification is on content owners not websites such as Youtube. Once notification has been made, it then becomes the responsibility of the website, in this case Youtube, to remove the allegedly infringing content.

If Youtube had to screen videos prior to making them available, it is likely that the viability of the entire operation would come into question. Google claims that 24 hours of video are uploaded to Youtube every minute and having to pre-screen all of these uploads would cause Youtube to ‘grind to a halt.’

Throughout its statement of victory, Google was careful to say that it respects copyright laws. It even talks about ContentID, a system that it claims ‘prevents copyright abuses and gives owners control over their content’. Apparently many broadcasters already use ContentID throughout Europe, allowing them to not lose out on potential revenue should their copyrighted videos be uploaded to Youtube.

It’s likely that as case law builds up in favour of Youtube, other broadcasters will realise that going to court against an equally well-funded outfit that is simply offering them a chance to make even more cash isn’t really such a good idea.

This latest European court victory for Youtube should help Google turn the web’s most popular video sharing website into a profitable venture. µ”

(Via .)

Pressure Grows on Spain to Curb Digital Piracy: “Critics say it will be difficult to stop illegal downloading in the country because of the popularity of file-sharing sites and a perceived indifference to piracy as a crime.

(Via NYT > Technology.)

ES – Spanish court rules that links to p2p content are legal: “(EDRI-gram)
A civil court in Barcelona has recently ruled against SGAE (the Spanish collective society of authors and editors) in a case brought against Jesus Guerra who was administrating a site with links to P2P content. SGAE accused Guerra of infringing copyrights by having reproduced and communicated to the public works owned by their constituency. The defendant argued that his website was a non-profit site only providing links that could be used by users only through eMule, a P2P application, to connect to other Internet users. No content was actually hosted on that specific website. The judge ruled in favour of the defendant arguing that linking ‘does not suppose distributing, reproducing or making publicly available copyrighted works.’ In the judge’s opinion, the creation of an index of links is not an infringing practice as linking is an integrant part of the Internet.

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

Spain warned on filesharing cut-offs: “

Slow down there José

Communications Commissioner Viviane Reding has warned Spain to look carefully at proposals to cut off alleged illegal filesharers.…

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(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

(Via TorrentFreak.)

Spanish ‘Pirates’ Share Files on Government Doorstep

Sharing copyrighted files on filesharing networks such as BitTorrent is a serious offense, according to the entertainment industry lobbyists, that is. This is also what these groups try to convince lawmakers of, with some success.

In an attempt to prove the opposite, however, a group of Spanish free-culture supporters organized a demonstration on the doorstep of one of the leading political parties in Spain. The two groups, Compartir es Bueno (Sharing is good) and Hacktivistas (Hacktivists) gathered in front of the headquarters of the socialist party yesterday, where they fired up their P2P clients and started sharing copyrighted material. The police were notified beforehand about the demonstration, and were present. No arrests have been made though, as expected.

The demonstration, which was covered by several of the leading news outlets in Spain, was organized in response to the growing propaganda and power of entertainment industry lobbyists. Like many other countries, Spain is mulling a three-strikes proposal that would give the entertainment industry the right to disconnect alleged sharers of copyrighted material. This, despite the fact that sharing copyrighted material for non-commercial use is not against the law in Spain.

Previous court cases have confirmed that this is the case. In 2006, a judge ruled that a man who downloaded and shared copyrighted music was not breaking any laws since the man’s intent wasn’t to make money. More recently, a court ruled that a site providing links to P2P downloads is operating within the law.

The protesters proved this once again by sharing copyrighted material on the doorstep of the socialist party, in front of the police. The demonstration was successful, as Hacktivistas report on their website ‘We have shown it once more: downloading copyrighted files from a p2p network is legal in Spain, as long as it isn’t done for profit.’

Post from: TorrentFreak

Linking to P2P Downloads Confirmed Legal in Spain: “

A court has ruled that a site providing links to P2P downloads is operating legally. The Provincial Court of Madrid ruled that Sharemula.com, a site offering eDonkey links to movies, music, software and games does not break the law. The court’s decision is final and cannot be appealed.

Following a Federación Antipiratería (Anti-piracy Federation) investigation in 2006, 15 people were arrested in Spain in connection with the operation of Sharemula.com, an eDonkey (eD2k) indexing site. eD2k links are similar to URLs or .torrent files, in that they contain no copyright material themselves, but may point to such works.

Spain’s Brigade of Technological Investigations claimed that the site was illegal and should be closed. Just under a year ago the case was heard, but sadly for the entertainment industry, the court ruled that the case against Sharemula should be dismissed. It said that neither the site nor administrators had operated illegally by offering links to copyright works, since they had not done so for profit or commercial gain.

However, the entertainment industry – including but not limited to Columbia, Disney Company Iberia, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner, Universal, Paramount, Sony and MGM, did not accept the ruling and appealed the decision.

Yesterday, the Provincial Court of Madrid ruled that the entertainment industry has no case against Sharemula, and since it has broken no laws, the case should be dismissed. This dismissal is final and cannot be appealed.

The court rejected all allegations that were made by the entertainment industry and concluded that indexing eD2k links (or torrent files) can not be seen as copyright infringement (pdf in Spanish). Sharemula’s main purpose is to index links, and they are not responsible for where these links go according to the court decision. Whether or not Sharemula makes profit is irrelevant.

‘The hearing confirms the position of the defense that linking to P2P networks does not constitute a criminal offense,’ wrote David Bravo, a lawyer in the case, noting that Sharemula did not store any copyrighted material. The site simply links to files that are hosted elsewhere, on computers of P2P users.

It is on this same premise that The Pirate Bay claims to operate legally. With upcoming cases against The Pirate Bay and Mininova in Europe, this decision is very welcome for p2p-site administrators.

FOXNews.com – Spain Arrests 41 in Crackdown On Child Pornography

Associated Press, Wednesday, June 25, 2008

MADRID, Spain — Spain’s Interior Ministry says police have arrested 41 people accused of possessing child pornography videos and sharing them over the Internet.

The ministry says the suspects were arrested last week in 30 Spanish provinces and include farmers, architects, civil servants, electricians and computer technicians.

The ministry said in a statement issued Wednesday that the arrests stemmed from tip-offs by Internet users.

It said some of these users reported that while trying to download music or games from the Internet they ended up with files containing video of adults having sex with minors.