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.

Comments

Re:downloading copyrighted material

[doshell]

Obviously its only illegal if you do not have the rights to do so. When you go to microsoft.com or any other website, its assumed you have the right to download them. This is totally different than when you're downloading material that's copyrighted and you haven't got the permission to do so, be it either that you haven't paid for it or you do not have the licenses or any other reason.

So every time you want to visit a website you write them a letter first asking for permission to download their data? After all, you could be infringing on some copyrighted material, and you won't even know until it is in your possession.

Re:What isn't copyrighted material?

[clone53421]

Of course, some people would argue that you end up subsidizing a lot more than just the illicit file-sharers if you live in the Netherlands.

Re:I heard the same thing about Sweden...

[Gerzel]

Wow basic ideals of modern justice...unfortunetly unheard of on the internet these days.