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File Sharing Ruled Legal In Spain
stupid_is writes "As a follow-up to a previous discussion a judge in Spain has ruled that under Spanish law a person who downloads music for personal use can not be punished or branded a criminal. This seems to be a teeny bit clearer than the first article, which points out that downloading is a civil, and not criminal, offense for individuals. The Spanish recording industry federation Promusicae is predictably a bit peeved, and says it will appeal against the decision." From the article: "The state prosecutor's office and two music distribution associations had sought a two year sentence against the man, who downloaded songs and then allegedly offered them on a CD through email and chat rooms. However, there was no direct proof he made money from selling the CDs. Justice Minister Juan Fernando Lopéz Aguilar says Spain is drafting a new law to abolish the existing right to private copies of material. Due to different regulatory regimes in Europe, the proceedings against file sharers differ greatly in each country. However, most European judges tend to take a harder stance on file sharing. Twenty two people in Finland were fined €427,000 last week for illegally sharing movies, music, games and software, while courts in Sweden also fined two men who had downloaded movies and music for personal use."
They are pirates, so I assume it's in gold doubloons.
Slagborr
Euros. It's in the article.
Everyone also needs to keep in mind that in most countries where these things are issues, the offenses related to downloading things versus sharing them are completely different. I don't believe anybody even in the US has been taken to court merely for downloading. It's always about sharing (redistribution). It's frustrating when the media tends to use the two things interchangeably.
It seems that he managed to dodge the Music Industry bull charging right into him, with a quick waist movement and a flourish of his red cape...
No sig for the moment.
The comparison with Finland is invalid since the sentence was given for filesharing and not for downloading files. Untill recently the legislation in finland was as clear about downloads (i.e. they were legal). Now we have the new european version of the DMCA and there haven't been any cases to test whether that status has changed. Since the legislation is essentially (supposed to be) the same throughout europe, I would guess that simply downloading stuff is still legal.
I am completely confused:
1) The first article doesn't say that.
2) The second article sort of *does* say that.
3) Assuming that file sharing really has been ruled a civil but not criminal offense, the "Ruled Legal" headline via the dimwitted Register, plagiarizing submitter and sleepy editor is completely false.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Twenty two people in Finland were fined 427,000 last week for illegally sharing movies, music, games and software...
Er, 427,000 what exactly?
Or perhaps 427,000 people were fined twenty two of something?
Jeez, color me confused...
Two years in prison for copying a few files. Sheesh.
Still, they're working hard to change the laws. What they want now is for downloading to be illegal, AND for a tax to be placed on all recordable media. If they manage to pass it then I'll be paying the RIAA for all the CDs I use for data backups, all the CDs which end up as coasters because I dared to touch the mouse while it was recording, etc.
No sig today...
We know the hive mind that is /. can't grok the difference between copyright, trademark, and patents, but I'd think the difference between uploading and downloading wouldn't be out of reach.
Oh well.
And before you reply, "but BitTorrent...," two points: 1) are there any torrent clients that do not allow the user to control uploading? And 2) if there are, so?
In the words of the parent poster, "Downloading != Sharing"
You need to work a little harder on your trolling skills, that was stupidly obvious and not really very funny. Think of the children.
It isn't piracy that's killing your record store, it's your music selection. There isn't an influx of people that will murder other people to buy that hot hot disc of "Jesus LOVE!" that was released. And no one pirates christian music anyway. To go further, your solution is wholly facist and useless. Drug dealers aren't discriminated against. If you banned EVERYONE that shared a file at anytime, no one would be buying CD's. And it isn't just piracy; there's legit downloading service like iTMS, Napster, Rhapsody, etc. You're losing business because no one may want to buy a complete CD. And your kids are suffering because you run a Christian music store? I feel bad for them alreay, but since you SOMEHOW can afford internet access I assume you are still pretty well off. Either that or little Cindy Lou Who went without her MMR booster so daddy could post as an anonymous Coward on /.
*sniff* *sniff* Smell that? I think you're RIAA. Either that, or Dawinian laws need to be slapped across your face. Sell your record store and get a job you hippy.
In Soviet Russia, dots slash you!
The Spanish recording industry federation Promusicae is predictably a bit peeved, and says it will appeal against the decision."
I don't know what they expect by filing an appeal.
I mean, nobody expects a Spanish inquisition.
Someone fetch the Promusicae the comfy chair or some soft cushions.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Every day, fewer and fewer customers enter my store to buy fewer and fewer CDs. Why is no one buying CDs? Are people not interested in music? Do people prefer to watch TV, see films, read books? I don't know. But there is one, inescapable truth - Internet piracy is mostly to blame. The statistics speak for themselves - one in three discs world wide is a pirate.
One in three discs is pirated. So, are you referring here to counterfeit discs produced on the black market and sold for 3 bucks in the subway? Because those are COMPLETELY different from burning a mix cd from tracks off the internet, which rarely, if ever, get sold. Want to talk unreferenced statistics? The highest downloaded tracks online are also the highest purchased CDs. Shocker.
I buy two artists these days: R.E.M. and Weird Al (Sony connections be damned, I think they just do production anyway...) Every day I listen to the radio and there's just nothing on that I'd bother plunking down my cash for. I'd rather get another DS game or another DVD.
I think people don't buy music because they found other things to be interested in. There's a gigantic amount of entertainment choices out there now. We're past the days of the walkman. Music has to compete against movies (now portable), the DS and PSP, at home there's hundreds of TV stations.
Plus I don't think many people, at least in this corner of the cyberverse, have many good things to say about the media racket.
Is the record retail business going bust due to filesharing?
Maybe, but there are other forces at work here....
You may be loosing business to the likes of Amazon.com, Ebay, and other non-brick and mortar
retail outlets that are undercutting your price. Also there are LEGAL download sites
(such as itunes) that offer customers the choice to buy just the cuts they want, not the entire
CD. Face it, your method of business is going the way of the dinosaur. File sharing may be
part of the problem, but by many accounts it is a small percentage.
Blacklist the pirates? Maybe a good idea, but good luck!
Why don't you modify your business plan to include internet sales? Get a fraging website
for crying out loud! If you don't join 'em you won't beat 'em!
...I actually stopped reading after the line I quoted.
Now I feel bad, wearing out my keyboard like that...
If your plight is true then I AM very sorry for you, BUT changes in markets are part and parcel of business life, period. you have to find new ways to work round new things, everything changes, you have to adapt with it.
You said yourself you took it upon yourself to follow a different demographic, and it worked for you for a good long while it sounds, but now things have changed again, and you have to change again too.
I wouldn't blame piracy for your issues though, as many independent studies have show, the people who download more music are actually the ones who then BUY more music too, though not necessarily from a physical store, just an online one, which is mostly likely the primary candidate for your failing business model, unless it's just that people are always changing, and there may just be a massive drop in interest for the type of music you stock.. maybe even just in your local area, who knows.
Additionally, the demographic you targeted with your store are the LEAST likely to be downloading music illegally, because of the same values you mention, and the type of music they're after, that you stock, is far less likely to be available online illegally in the first place.
It's an easy scapegoat to blame, but it's not the root source of your problems, and you must not waste your time and energy on that, but spend it being productive and finding new ways to increase revenue, or even change market completely if that's what it takes for your sake as well as your kids (ie start selling ipods instead of albums? or something entirely non music related?).
I truly wish you the best of luck!
All the bullfighting ballads you can download, for free!
Where were you when the voynix came?
Is that in spain there is "law" that allow the sgae and company (RIAA equivalent in here) to tax the cd's and dvd's with more than one euro each (in the case of dvd's), to "compensate" for loses due to piracy.
Just so you can understand better... last year they got 300 million euros just in that concept. And believe me, you can bribe a lot of people with that.
Oh, I almost forgot, that money is shared unequally among the capos of the SGAE, leaving all the other 80.000 members with nothing.
In fact, the U.S. Congress took Judge Stearns up on his suggestion, adding the concept of commercial value and intent to profit to the criminal portion of the U.S. Copyright Law in the No Electronic Theft Act.
I would not be surprised to see the Spanish law changed to close this loophole as well. {Prof. Jonathan Ezor, Touro Law Center Institute for Business, Law and Technology}
When will the large record companies, the RIAA, etc. figure out that music has evolved? Music is digital now which means it can be transfered on so many formats that it is impossible for them to control who has what. If everyone remembers, back in the days of tapes, everyone shared music. I remember borrowing tapes and making copies. I never bought music, I bought blank tapes. If a friend didn't have a song I wanted, I listened for it on the radio and recorded it off that (granted the quality sucked). This is basically the same thing as file sharing. Why were they not tracking down the millions of kids that did this in the 80's?
Freedom is a state of mind. A mind is a state of being. Stay the fuck out of my mind and my being. - Corporate Avenger
I don't know the US legal system but from what I understood, every law transgression is 'criminal'. In most EU states, the 'criminal' label describes only the most serious violation. There are less serious violation, not called 'crimes' (I think you would translate it by 'offense') that are still illegal but the difference IIRC correctly is that you cannot be sentenced to jail for an offense.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
...but have no place to go, now you have a place to go!
Run with the bulls and download music and movies!
all the CDs which end up as coasters because I dared to touch the mouse while it was recording, etc.
how old is that burner that you don't have buffer-underrun protection? i haven't had a coater in 5 years due to a buffer underrun (liteon 482448s burner), though i have had a couple due to other factors such as the power browning/blacking out at bad times (i need to get a UPS) or the burning software crashing or whatever.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
When the musical artists of Spain cry out in anguish, suffering their poor fates, who will hear them?
Who will aid these poor souls, the noble artists who wish only to create beautiful works of musical art?
Who will avenge them upon the uncaring souls who insist on simply taking what they want?
El Kabong, that's who! <ka-bong!>
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
If you're serious of course... hahahahahahhahahhahaharoflmao111!!!one
While I know the parent is fake, and made up, I just caught this one line:
They have fought the War on Drugs with skill, so why not the War on Piracy?
And I have to ask... how well has that War on Drugs turned out?
You're serious? Really? I don't know where your christian rock only record store is, but here in the rest of the world the War on Drugs has been a catastrophic failure, resulting in widespread increases in drug use since the eighties. Drug-related and gang-related violence is also up, particularly in urban areas. My guess is that the reason why your business is down is because you grab customers by their shirts and call them little shits; whether he was going to put it up on Limewire later or not you lost a customer, and possibly several others who saw you do it.
Your story is heart-wrenching, yes, but I'll tell one of my own. A few years ago I reduced my CD-buying to a minimum. Back in high school I spent at least half my paycheque every week on old and new CDs and vinyl and I worked as a deejay. I was good friends with the record store owner in my hometown, and I think that I was a good, regular customer. I could depend on him to always have what I was looking for and he could rely on me to be there every couple of days hunting down 7-inches and old 78s. My music collection achieved "ridiculous" proportions just before college.
Then something happened. The RIAA started suing people, and at first maybe it was justified; people were stealing music and there's no way to get around that. But at the same time, something wonderful was also happening and they were putting a stop to it. I was able to seek out rare and interesting bands I'd never have a chance to find out about if not for the internet, and I would go down the street to the record store and buy up their singles and LPs. Most of the people I knew at the time did the same thing. Then the RIAA started suing 13-year-olds, grandparents, single mothers, basically extorting thousands and thousands of dollars from people who really couldn't afford it at all. The fees for infringement became ridiculous and the targets of lawsuits got even more ridiculous and I just stopped buying. Nowadays I add as little money as possible to their coffers (and that means as little as possible to yours, too, buddy) because every dollar I give to the RIAA has a good chance of assisting in the suing of some grandmother out there who doesn't even own a computer.
So before you go around shooting your mouth off about how you're the victim, take a good look around and consider that you might be pointing your finger at the wrong villains here. You're losing your business, but we're all losing our popular culture and creativity at the expense of lining the pockets of RIAA lawyers.
P.S. don't be a troll.
ugh I just duped a post, fed a troll, and probably made an ass of myself just now. It's too early here. *goes to get more coffee*
"Filesharing is theft. Plain and simple"
Once we peel back the "plain and simple" affirmation, we find an entirely incorrect statement. It is technically and legally impossible to steal via p2p.
"As a record store owner, My business faces ruin"
Why say records when you mean CDs?
"CD sales have dropped through the floor. People aren't buying half as many CDs as they did just a year ago"
Where is the blame being helped in iTunes, which is NOT filesharing, but is definitely eating into your business? Also, did you ever think that your unwillingness to serve your customers is part of the problem? I bet there might be a Wal-Mart nearby that will sell someone a CD at 10:30 at night, but you are could not be bothered, so you open late and close early.
"take yourself and your little bitch friend out of my store - and don't come back." I barked"
I wonder what else is going on there, if this indicates your basic attitude toward customers.
"Some people are offended by my blacklist system. I may have made my store less popular for pirates and sympathisers, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to save my industry from destruction"
BR> So, basically, you are the captain of a sinking ship. Not only is the ship sinking, but you are down in the bilges with an axe chopping holes in the hull so it will sink faster. Tell me, have you hung the big sign "F*** OFF, CUSTOMERS!" in the window yet, or is that going up next week?
Where were you when the voynix came?
Yeah you little pricks! get the fuck out of my family oriented record store. If i ever see you dumb little bastards back in here i'm gonna sacrifice you bitches to the devil! and when's the last time you ever heard some teenager walk through a record store talking about how l33t he is because he's gonna "go right out and post this on the internet" smells like bullshit to me
We fed the troll, but I have seen attitudes like this expressed elsewhere, expecially with so-called "mom and pop" stores that have terrible customer service and rip you off and then whine and blame Wal-Mart when they have to close.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Had you been paying attention to slashdot for a while, you'll notice a copy and paste of a particular sob story about their CD store.
I'd pull up the reference from the meme section on Wikipedia but someone has been busy merging articles and deleting information. *coughs*
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
This is a totally old troll rant posted many times before. You all got suckered in again dammit...There is no record store people...
c id=13420069 and http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=187189&cid =15444081 here and http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171333&cid=142 69664
See - http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=160324&
"But this one goes to 11!"
Maybe your customers aren't buying CDs OR pirating music. I'd bet there's a good chance they took their money online to iTunes or Napster. That's not piracy, it's just a newer and more preferred method of buying music. Besides they don't have to deal with asshole clerks at the counter, either.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Unfortunately you can read this in the summary:
Fernando Lopéz Aguilar says Spain is drafting a new law to abolish the existing right to private copies of material.
c++;
[1] Not a typo.
Nope, no sig
Speaking as a Canadian, it is not our job to go enforce our way of living on anyone. However, if you were to ask for help there is much better chance that you would receive help from us and probably other nations as well. I can't say for sure as I am only a regular citizen and have no idea what would happen with our leaders if you asked. Another way to show to the international community that you would like help with your problem would be to show that a majority of you would like the change and that your current leaders would not let this happen. Again if you were to do this then the rest of the world would likely become much more concerned than with what is happening now; which appears to be an ever growing minority, but still less than 50%, of your population does not like the current leader. Find some way to prove that the elections you hold are rigged and there is a chance that you will solve your own problems, if not then come to the rest of the world with your proof and we will be much more inclined to help. Unlike some countries we do not just go attack a sovereign nation because we think there are problems, we require proof before we do that.
Okay, now how do I get a Spanish IP address?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
In Common Law, this ruling would have made a precedent which other judges in further cases should follow. In the Spanish system, judges are only required to follow what is stated in written law; rulings for previous similar cases are used only as a guide, but are not mandatory.
Theft does not mean what you think it means.
You are an idiot and a troll.
Yes indeed, "Christian rock" is practically flooding the torrent swarms and P2P traffic so badly that it's hard to find porn anymore. :-|
;-)
(Just feeding the troll, LOL
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
Ford and GM aren't selling as many cars either, perhaps they need to crack down on those people buying Toyotas or the cheaper imports.
I'd also like to make a $100k per year selling buggy whips, perhaps I can get the government to guarantee the success of my business model?
I'd also like to make it illegal for people to share water. They must buy it from a legitimate bottler, otherwise they make it impossible for those hardworking water bottlers to make a living. Some people mix lemons and sugar in their illegitimate water and make a product that competes with the patented product from Welch's. It's absolutely theft.
Once we solve that, we have to get after the parents who tell children stories -- those are copyrighted works, so reproducing them, however inexpertly, is infringing on copyright.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Australes
In Soviet Russia, CDs pirate YOU!
Scientists need to be able to access the work of those who have gone before, collaborate with their contemporaries, and publish their works so that others may build on them.
In fact, many scientists are paid according as how many references their publications get.
In this sphere, being obstructive like saying 'file sharing is illegal' is not going to allow progress to happen.
So, I understand the point about the commercial music sellers. But please understand that commercial music is a luxury; I might spend spare money on it, or I might not.
But please figure that not all human endeavours are helped by locking down the Internet so that it can't be used.
There is a Euro sign infront of the number (if you can't see that, time to upgrade your browser ;)
The Euro is the name of the currency the European Union is trying to make the common currency of europe. Many countries are in the process of getting rid of local currencies in favor of the Euro.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Depends on how much you infringe.. htm
If you pirate more than $1000 worth of copyrighted works during any $180 day period, then it's criminal. Otherwise it's civil.
See
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/17usc506
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#506
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
What would qualify as sufficient 'proof' in this case? Could you provide some examples of what would be acceptable and not dismissed as 'hearsay' or 'moonie conspiracy theories'?
~Rebecca
When they see that, the people think "what a fucking rip-off" and they go out without getting the music.
This is what I do; now, I borrow CDs from friends or the library and copy them on my server at home. Right now, I have almost 4000 songs there, and I may have paid for about 60 of them; that's when I used to be a sucker that paid $20 for a CD, but I know better now. I haven't bought a CD in about 7 years, and whenever I thought I bought it, I cringe at the utter waste of money.
And you wonder why your store is deserted? If you treat your customers like criminals, well, don't be surprised if they desert or "rip you off"...You just proved to the kids that downloading pirated songs is much less a hassle than facing a grumpy hardass record store owner.
One day, you will have to do what all senseful anglo-saxons do, and accept responsibility for your actions.
12 years ago, you bought into a losing industry, which makes you a loser.
You have only yourself to blame.
And your imminent bankrupcy is well-deserved, if only for your hardassness.
I could go on, and on, but I have some borrowed CDs to copy.
It must be noted that, while the sentence mentions "sharing", it doesn't mention P2P networks or anything. Moreover, what this guy did was to contact other people on "chats" (I don't know if he was using MSN or IRC or some other thing) and he was exchanging files with other people he met through email messages and normal mail (yes, they were sending CD copies to each other). This might have affected, I suppose, the outcome of the case.
In the newspapers yesterday they mentioned what's described in TFA, but today we were delivered the other side of the story, with the RIAA-equivalent organizations saying this doesn't set a precedent and that it was not very important due to the facts mentioned above. Nor that I agree with them or something, but it's nice to have both sides of the story and full information about what the guy was actually doing.
After reading my original comment I think it may have sounded like I don't care, but I do. I would really like to see it proven that someone has tampered with your electoral process so that it can be fixed, which I believe would make the world a better place. I am really interested to find out what is going to happen during the coming elections.
Unfortunately here, we don't have any ability to accomplish what you suggest. Doing so would either require the honest cooperation of Diebold or a court order permitting investigators to aquire that information by force. Since we can safely assume Diebold will continue its refusal to cooperate; that leaves only the judicial/execute branches to acquire that information.
So lets say you take a look at the news section on black box voting, and see the near daily articles; some extreme, some not so extreme on the subject. Admittedly, not every single one of them is a big 'smoking gun' -- but some of them are pretty close, and there's tons of mid range stories to choose from. This is where you have to ask yourself -- is all of this cause enough for an investigation? I think so, and judging from your reply I think you think so too.
Our society has shown that we are willing to lower the barrier to investigation when the potential crime is serious enough -- such as child porn or presidential assassinations. Should a 51% popular majority be required for an investigation to something that could without exaggeration undermine the entire foundation of law? The threshold as you presented it is unattainable without the investigation in the first place. What would the threshold be to simply merit an investigation? If that point is met, at what point does it become valid to request outside assistance to achieve the investigation?
~Rebecca
...I think people are going to have to go back to making their own music again.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
the UN they could get together and offer to send troops in to the US to beat back the repressive dictatorship
So, do you think that China should invade the US to impose democracy? Then we would be able to call the US China's Vietnam... At least Taiwan could breath a sigh of relief as they sidestep the battleground, as could North Korea, Iran, Syria etc.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
So you'd rather live in a very nice, medium sized city surrounded by incredible landscape than a huge, sprawling urban area with the associated issues. Wow. That must be because of the countries they are in, and not due to anything else.
So as long as they allow you to download music for free, and smoke marijuana, they're free? You seem to be forgetting that China has a repressive communist government.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
The structure of the recording industry have changed under the last decades. Almost every one today can own the recording equipement, so what is important to those few companies is to own the legal rights on the recorded piece of art. When our politician will give away the rigth for the people to do private copy, as in Sweden today or maybe in Spain tomorrow, they just sign a blanck check to those companies and don't give a dime for the rights of their own people. Hoppefully, many musicians understand that much better as our politicians and we have today more and more independant recording labels. The future of the recording industry is with those independant labels. See http://www.iaspm.net/recordingindustry.htm for a briefing about the recording industry structure and http://www.matcallahan.com/ The Trouble with Music for the point of vue of an artist:
"Making music is a process as old as the human species,which means that if the music's in trouble because humanity as a whole is in trouble. The Trouble with Music speaks to those troubles and it maps a way out. It's invaluable."
"Like the replacement of essential nutriment by junk food, music lovers are expected to surrender their critical faculties and consume the phony McMusic that can be more effectively controlled and profitably sold than the genuine article..."