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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.
I heard the same thing about Sweden... then suddenly The Pirate Bay went down after police raided the building that housed the servers.
I want you to say:
Lack of gain
in Spain
Drives RIAA mainly
INSANE!!
fifty times. You'll get much further with the Lord if you learn not to offend His ears. ;)
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do.
There is a thing called fair use. In the Netherlands for example we pay about 24 eurocents on every empty cd or dvd we buy. In return it is legal to download music and movies for personal uses. I can imagine Spain also has this ruling.
If, instead of being akin to losing some sales to piracy, all sales were legally lost to piracy, how would companies stay in business?
Even in the complete absence of copyright, the first sale can never be lost to piracy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_performer_protocol
http://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html
Plumbers only get paid once for installing my toilet, no matter how many people use it. I'd rather a world with no professional musicians than no professional plumbers.
Big Content has always had to deal with the cost-of-doing-business, just like every other industry. Sharing a video tape, a book, a CD or whatever else it has to produce, does take away from their business (though there is discussion that sharing leads to future purchases in the same way giving out free food at the grocery is an advertising expense).
From a business perspective, I am absolutely certain it has become cheaper to produce their content to CD over Tape (or DVD over VHS), and even more cheaply as a digital download. Content, just like insurance/financial services, is one that should could thrive if it embraced the newer, cheaper methods of production/sales/distribution than trying to do things the old way.
I'm glad that the court is identifying that internet-based sharing is no different in essense, than sneakernet sharing which is always something the companies have had to deal with and has always been a cost-of-doing-business. The fact that it is "online" is ultimately irrelevant, and even if greater sharing drives down sales (which is debatable), online/digital distribution should also lower costs which if done properly, should allow them to remain profitable. Business is about adaption. No business has a fundamental right to exist. Suing your customers and taking rights they either explicitly had, or felt they had is no way to keep those customers, in which sharing and distribution become irrelevant.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
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.
no profit
copyright laws were created so that some other guy with a printing press or vinyl press wouldn't make and sell copies of a book or recording all on his own without regard to the creator
it never was intended, and never had anything to do with, the idea of someone reproducing material and giving it away FOR FREE
simply because such a person would be insane: all that expense for nothing. to not be motivated by profit is simply nonsensical on the old media world, which was the whole point in copyright: keep the profit with the creators
but the issue of effortless file sharing is a fundamental change in how media works, and has more to do with traditional publishers coming to grips with a new reality. IANAL, but i would like to see a legal argument that says copyright law is only valid for the pursuit of those PROFITING from illicit copies, that those copying for free are essentially outside the scope of the spirit of intellectual property laws and their intent and purpose. which is a fundamentally true argument: the internet is new technology and makes possible what was not possible before, so to apply laws from an old era onto it without thought is to fail to understand the issues in play
such an approach would draw a nice line between the old media world and the new media world as defined by the new economic laws the internet forces onto the world, welcome or not
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Now I can have legally approved sex with a 13 year old AND listen to my downloaded Counting Crows album at the same time... *take a holiday in spain, leave my wings behind me*
I am sure you are joking but just an fyi - if you happen to be coming from the US - going to another country with the intent of doing something that would be considered illegal in the US (e.g. sex w/13 y/o) you would be convicted of doing that crime upon your arrival (assuming they 1) knew of your intent and 2) prove that you did it).
/. so step 1 is out of the way :)
Well you made a post on
BTW there was, about 6 months ago, a trial where a guy sent e-mails to his friend talking about going to south america to get underage prostitutes. He did this. When he came back the cops arrested him. Not sure how they knew he actually did the deed (I don't remember) but they used his e-mails to show his intent. He is in jail.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
Just why would anyone think downloading something that has a copyright on it would be illegal?
Maybe because the copyright lobby has been pushing the "downloading X is illegal" meme for all it's worth (X = music, movies, software, ...) without bothering to draw a distinction between the circumstances under which it's legal and the (far larger number of) circumstances where it's perfectly legal.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
If, instead of being akin to losing some sales to piracy, all sales were legally lost to piracy, how would companies stay in business?
By selling services instead of copies. You can't pirate technical support, programmer man hours, etc..
Well, they'd do it by erecting technical barriers to copying. DRM plus a million. Because they would have to.
And it still wouldn't work.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
There's only 3 countries that haven't signed on to the Berne Convention (Iran, Myanmar, and another one I can't remember)
The one you can't remember is Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Cambodia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kiribati, Kuwait, Laos, The Maldives, Mozambique, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, The Seychelles, Sierra Leone, The Solomon Islands, Somalia, Taiwan, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda and Vanautu.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Well I happen to be such a musician and in the real world it doesn't work like that. I started with the guitar at age 6... I'm 30 now and still learning. Along the way I picked up other instruments like bass and piano and even the trumpet are no secrets to me anymore. I have been in about 17 bands thru the years and reality is, when I write a good song, I want to perform it. And no mp3 can replace the good feeling the people have when they see the guys and me performing. And that is where a little money comes from. Ticket sales. My songs? Please, download them, give them to your friends. And when you see a poster hanging in your town with my bandname on it. Buy a ticket and come see us perform. You'll have a great night. And we will have a little cash to do what we really want to do. Just play.
The law in Spain is that any non-profit copying of material is OK. All the judge has done is make it clear to the RIAA that P2P involves no exchange of money so therefore it's legal under Spanish law.
(IANAL but I live in Spain...)
No sig today...