Today El Mundo reports that the record companies, and copyright associations of Spain were dealt a heavy blow when a music downloader was absolved in a lawsuit in Santander. Basically, the judge said that file sharing for recreational/private use is not a crime in Spain. This was good news to the 48 year old accused man for whom the DA was asking that he be given 2 years in jail.
I think that one of the reasons that the record and movie industries lose most legal battles is that their posture of comparing file sharing to theft is not credible. Theft is theft, it involves depriving somebody of something. Judges who rule on file sharing are the same ones who send people to jail for stealing cars. Now when your car is stolen you lose your car. When you share music you keep your music, hardly theft. Whatever the record companies may say about what they lose when you share, sharing music has been around forever and sending a music lover who shares music to share a prison with rapists and murderers would be doing something that if I was running a record company would not allow me to sleep at night. How could somebody in a democracy go to jail for 2 years for doing something that millions of others do and get away with?
Laws that can´t be enforced against most should not be enforced against anyone. Now what is clearly illegal in Spain is to offer file sharing for money and if this man had been sharing files and making money out of it he would go to jail. In practical terms non punishable file sharing means that musicians in Spain, thanks to the internet will have an easier time becoming famous, but a harder time becoming rich. They can still do endorsements, clothes, concerts, and other activities so their added fame in the end may make them rich anyway.
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Sylko on November 3, 2006 ·
It’s the same in Switzerland. 😉
Hernán L. Romay on November 7, 2006 ·
When this type of sentences come through I become a little bit happier (if happiness could be measured in degrees). I was reading an e-mail today, about boycotting a series of companies that belong (supposedly) to the American Senator that´s behind all the restrictive immigration law in the US, including building the “wall of Mexico”. Now, as I read that, I was thinking: “man, you have to be more creative!” What about controlled immigration? Why do people go to extremes as to build a wall and treat immigrants as criminals, simply because they don´t have a paper document? If those people who boast to have found “a solution” to the immigration problem were a little bit smarter, they would really find creative solutions. Regarding file sharing, I support all kinds of sharings. I run a free newspaper and I can tell you it is possible to reach the public for free and still make a good living out of it! Just be creative and, as many American marketers say, make mor pie for everyone and your share will be bigger than your present pie!
Starocie on November 9, 2007 ·
It’s the same in 🙂
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Killy-the-Frog on November 2, 2006 ·
>>>How could somebody in a democracy go to jail for 2 years for doing something that millions of others do and get away with?< It is just simply like that for many things... for example... you can have a lot of trouble because you smoke cannabis in France (I know a guy that went not to jail, but has been sent to the tribunal and has face the judge), but at the same time millions of French people smoke cannabis. Silly world.