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Downloading Copyrighted Material Legal In Spain
Sqwuzzy notes a judge's ruling in Spain that makes that country one of the most lenient in the world as respects sharing copyrighted material over P2P networks. "The entertainment industries in Spain must be progressively tearing their hair out in recent months as they experience setback after setback. ... After Spain virtually ruled out imposing a '3-strikes' regime for illicit file-sharers, the entertainment industries said they would target 200 BitTorrent sites instead. Now a judge has decided that sharing between users for no profit via P2P doesn't breach copyright laws and sites should be presumed innocent until proved otherwise." This ruling occurred in a pre-trial hearing; the case will still go to trial.
At least that's what is said at least in Catalonia. In Spain, Justice is not reliable at all. It is collapsed and it's not independent from political forces. Therefore, the term "Spanish Justice" is an oxymoron, a contradictio in termini.
Downloading material is not copyright infringement. Distributing copyrighted material (uploading) is. No one should be punished for downloading unless it can be proven that it was their intent to distribute the material to others. Unfortunately, the P2P protocols are built around the premise that everything you download is automatically shared with other people. Plus, the RIAA goes to great lengths to attempt to confuse people about the difference between downloading and uploading.
Let's put it this way -- if receiving on unauthorized copy of copyrighted material was actionable, then I could just copyright something, arrange to have someone else email it to everyone in the world, then start suing everybody who didn't delete the email!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Allow me, for a minute, to be a Professional Musician. I shall now think to myself.
Me to Self: Self? ("yes?") You know, I wrote[/performed] some great music here. I think I'd like to sell it to people.
Self to me: That's a great idea. But you know, once you sell it the first time, anyone can download it for free.
Me to Self: Well, I really do want to make some money on this... but I'll only get paid for the first sale, huh?
Yup.
Ok. Well here's what I'll do; I'll just wait until someone is willing to buy my 3 minute recording for about $10,000. They can distribute it as much as they want after that.
...
Seriously. Plumber analogy is bad. Why? Toilets keep breaking. The SAME toilet. Music doesn't "break." And if it's free to download again, and if the only time the originator gets paid is the FIRST time, then that FIRST time is going to be pretty stinking expensive, and we'll be back to the rich people (or a church) being the "patron of the arts" ... that system. Which worked back in the 18th century. But really not a whole lot since, if I remember correctly, Beethoven.