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Spain Outlaws P2P File-Sharing
Section_Ei8ht writes "Spanish Congress has made it a civil offense to download anything via p2p networks, and a criminal offense for ISP's to allow users to file-share, even if the use is fair. There is also to be a tax on all forms of blank media, including flash memory drives. I guess the move towards distributing films legally via BitTorrent is a no go in Spain." Here is our coverage of the tax portion of this law.
After they make P2P illegal they then tax one of its possible end-products? Isn't this like simultaneously outlawing heroin and taxing syringes?
"unauthorized downloading" is possible via HTTP, so they ISPs might as well stop completely. I wonder how long this new law will hold up, I wonder if it's even allowed according to EU guidelines.
- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957.
Score one for maintaining the status quo.
I wish p2p would include some sort of payment system. If I could fire up Gnutella or Azureus and have a big debit button where I could pay with a click standardized as a common framework for anyone to plug into their app then the issue would mostly resolve itself. Basically a Gnu_iTunes. P2P isn't bad, missing payment systems is.
Shh.
How do they resolve this against individuals that have a right to distribute their own material?
I would certainly recognize this kind of rule as a violation of my own copyright, by abridging my
right to disseminate my creative works.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Not only is this a dupe it's pure FUD.
From TFA "banned unauthorized peer-to-peer file-sharing in Spain" authorised sharing is still allowed.
These new laws are really no more restrictive than those from other countries.
For some reason I think you'll have no trouble downloading WoW patches via P2P. It's amazing how many people are willing to jump to stupid conclusions without even reading the legislation.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The article also mentions forcing ISPs to block P2P traffic. Routers have no way of knowing if it's authorised or not. Sounds to me like an enourmous amount of perfectly legal filesharing will be shutdown here. Then on top of that, there's the media tax. "The money collected will be paid back to the owner of the copyright" my ass. If I burn a CD of my own copyrighted works, will I get the tax refunded? If you burn a GNU/Linux cd, do you think the copyright holders are going to get paid by the Spanish government? I really don't think so.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
It wouldn't be the first time an article has interpreted something wrong. Blocking P2P traffic is virtually impossible, we all know that. I'm not saying it's not a stupid law, it is, but to me, this article doesn't really clarify just what has been banned and what will be legal. As we've established, companies like Blizzard are using P2P to get their patches distributed (that Penny Arcade cartoon on the issue is hilarious). Perhaps if someone could post the actual text or a translation of it so we don't have to interpret an article that tries to interpret a law which again comes off in a mind-blowing Slashdot header.
Modded Insightful? Why?
The linked article says "unauthorized peer-to-peer file-sharing". So you will be able to download your prescious WoW-Patches, you will be able to send your own videos to your friends... because its not "unauthorized". Where's the problem?
In other words: the summary was BS and you did not get it straight...
That's possibly a good thing. Pissing off a few file-sharers won't make any difference, but if they piss off the big ISP's then they may have a fight on their hands.
So now they are paying the copyright owners, presumably to cover all of those copies that the Spanish people make. So if the copyright holder has been compensated, why in the workd outlaw P2P? Rather than outlawing P2P becasue some uses of it may infringe on copyright, even though it has many valid good uses, why not realize that the copyright holders have been compensated anyway? Sure, I expect that some politicians lined their own pockets in order to pass these laws, but still how can the justify taxing all media, that used for copying and that used for uses that in no way infringe on copyrigh, even flash drives, and then over agressively start outlawing things that might (but certainly don't always) let users copy copyrighted materials when they have already paid the tax?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Simply means that you can use the technology for whatever use you like, but if you are caught downloading unauthorized copyrighted material, by any means (client-server or p2p) you dont go to jail, but you pay money for the damage you have done to the people authorized to sell that material. Seems fair to me..
just goes to show that governments should not be given power over the internet, can you imagine if they got control of the root servers too? that would be ridiculious, besides isn't sending an email a form of file sharing?
as i said it before, there is a growing need for networks such as anonet to free people from persecution in repressed countries, i'll just add spain to the list, i might not have anything to hide but then again if i want to share a file i created with a friend i will, if you build it i will find a way to get around it.
should we blame the governments or their advisors, or should we blame the people that build these type of things to restrict us?
if you are one of the following, please erase your mind: drone, sheeple, religious or government robot. if you are not one of them, please stand up and say somthing.
Relax, I'm sure the brave Spanish telcoes will be happy to do their part for liberty and justice, bearing the brunt of the lucrative government contracts to implement some kind of enforcement system. You'd be surprised just how willing a telco can be to take one for the team like that, if you just look at it on their terms for a moment.
I've already moderated here, but as I feel this really deserves a reply, sayonara mod points.
/. article text. Personally, I wouldn't put it past the MPAA or the RIAA to do whatever they can to ban p2p transfers across the board, simply for the fact that a portion of it is used for infringment.
While I can certainly understand where you come from in saying that slashdot editing has gotten worse, I don't feel that this story is necesarrily one of those. It's a bit overstated, yes, but I don't think that detracts from the fact that the article simply states 'unauthorized downloading, even for personal use'. To me, that implies heavily that the article states a bit more clearly that the ban on p2p transfers reaches much further than a simple ban on transfers that infringe on copyright, and reaches into the domain of banning any and all.
Ultimately, I think that without being able to read the text of the law, noone can really say based simply on the article. All you can really do is take it at face value, which to many is in agreement with the
Finally, on a more offtopic note, get off your horse man. Having a 4 digit UID doesn't mean shit; I'm sure there's plenty of people with 6 digit UIDs who read and enjoyed slashdot for ages before finally registering. I know for a fact that there are people who had accounts and forgot passwords to email accounts used for registration, then forgot the account info for slashdot as well. Who knows, maybe it happened in a different order? Long story short, they made another account. I'm sure there were other considerations too, I'm not going into depth.
All in all, just my 2 cents. Cheers.
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS"
And no matter how long you've been a member, it's nice to see you offering as little information as you complain about!
What's wrong? Where? How is it wrong and what's the correct version? Without offering such an analysis, you're just spewing hot air (hot bits?) yourself.
Now, as to that...
Saying that no content is downloadable is contrary to the article, which states that only the downloading of unauthorized content is banned. I agree that that is sensationalistic, factually incorrect, and should have been caught.
On the other hand, the article does seem to indicate that ISP's may be criminally liable for the actions of their users:
But the government is going after Internet service providers; it's a criminal offense for ISPs to facilitate unauthorized downloading.
Now, that still leaves open to interpretation what "facilitation" may be-but in this case, the summary does seem to match the article.
Also, it is stated in the article that despite this new regulation, blank media will -also- be taxed! It seems to me this is a bit of "having it both ways" on the part of the content providers-outlawing personal copying AND getting tax revenue. Again, it seems that the summary is essentially correct on this point.
While the summary is incorrect on one part, and it should have been caught (and should still be corrected), this is still a subject of interest to many of us who visit this site.
However, regardless, if you're going to make assertions as strong as you just did, it's generally helpful to back them up. If you can't manage that, don't let the door hit you, there's enough of those here.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Stuff that _I_ upload? But _I_ am not doing anything, it's _them_ downloading stuff they know they shouldn't download.
Companies would really like this because it would mean they get twice the amount in damages as they would get if you buy it in a store.
Great idea! Linux distributors should register as copyright holders so they can get their cut of the media taxes!
Seems better than killing retarded people legally and having hundreds of people waiting in the death row.
Yes, and gay marriage is legal, and there's no death penalty, and... it's so unrelated.
The amount of crap that gets modded +5 insightful on /. is annoying enough in general, but when it comes to IP / P2P topics it really jumps through the roof. Here is a bit of information for those of us who have not yet been assimilated into the "information wants to be free" crowd.
1- The law explicitly bans "unauthorized P2P". Authorized P2P, despite the submitter's misleading assertions, is not concerned.
2- The blank levy is not a compensation for massive, indiscriminate filesharing on P2P networks. Rather, it is a compensation for the (perfectly legal) private, physical copying and sharing of copyrighted works, within the circle of family and close friends, and in low numbers, which I understand is definitely allowed in Spain. France and Canada have a similar scheme.
Basically you're allowed to make a few private copies, and in return you pay a bit more for your blank CDs. The money is they redistributed to registered copyright owners, proportionally to the royalties they earn from other, more easily quantifiable sources (sales, public performances, etc.). Not perfect, but that's the best way they could find. It certainly sucks for those of us who use CD for non-musical data, but I guess we're regarded as "collateral damage".
If I burn a CD of my own copyrighted works, will I get the tax refunded?
It's not a refund, it's a payment based on sales. The money levied from the tax is distributed to registered copyright owners, proportionally to their royalties. Note that anybody can register, including Joe Musician; in fact registering is a prerequisite to receiving any kind of royalties. So if you produce your own copyrighted works (and register to the appropriate body), AND some people buy your stuff or play it in public or use it for any other activity which involves payment of royalties, you'll definitely see some money from this tax.
If you burn a GNU/Linux cd, do you think the copyright holders are going to get paid by the Spanish government?
As I said, it's only for music, so basically no. However, I understand that the tax is only applicable to individuals, not corporations (a bit like VAT tax I suppose), so if $random_spanish_distro sends you a CD of their distribution, they won't have to pay the tax on the CD they burn.
Not bypassable by Joe Average or as it is in Spain that should actually be Pedro Promedio
I've found that the average Joe has no trouble using OpenVPN. All you do is double click on a configuration file and the entire network connection is setup, DNS and all. VPN Networks like anoNet (http://anonet.org/) provide unlimited access to the data (porn) and services (P2P) that users want. The user never has to worry about the heavy hand of The Man, as all links are encrypted with rotating keys.
This is great as long as both parties are using it...
As usual, the Professional Pirates (tm) can easily overcome this obstacle.
At most this new law will increase the cost of internet access in Spain, decrease, diminish, and increase the difficulty of the ligitimate usage of the net, and possibly result in some legal actions that ruin some kids lives and criminalise some ISPs (further increasing the cost of internet access!).
Overall though, you're right: Except for those lives that get ruined for the profit of a mega-corp, nothing substantial will change as a result of this.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
(In point of fact, you are republishing copyrighted material when your computer sends it over in packets, so you are *also* directly breaking the law yourself.)
If you want an apt analogy, here goes:
Stuff that _I_ sell? But _I'm_ not doing anything; it's _them_ bringing the contraband to the register and _my employee_ that hands it to them! It's their choice to pick the items off of the shelf!!
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BTW, amusingly, the downloaders make the reverse argument: "Stuff that _I'm_ downloading? _I'm_ not doing anything! I'm just making a copy of what's already being published on the web!"
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None of this has any bearing on the morality of copyright laws. If you think (as I do) that copyright laws in their current form are a bad thing, then petition to have them changed. But don't pretend that P2P sharing of copyrighted material is somehow "white" or "gray": legally, it's "black."
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.