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P2P and P2P Links Ruled Legal In Spain
Nieriko writes After three years of arduous litigation, Jesus Guerra Calderon, owner of both a small bar and the P2P link webpage 'elrincondejesus.com' has beaten the SGAE (something like the Spanish version of the RIAA). The historic ruling states not only the legality of link webpages, but also the legality of P2P file-sharing networks. Quoting the judge: 'P2P Networks as mere data transmision networks between individual internet users, do not breach any rights protected by the Intellectual Property Law.' Downloading a file (from a P2P network) for private use is perfectly legal as long as there is no lucrative or collective use of the downloaded copy."
I think my headline is a lot better.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I hardly think digital transmission of data destroys anything.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I think in Spain they realized just how much the corporate superstructure of the media industry contributes to civilized society: Nothing.
Art and entertainment have value. Paying suits huge amounts to "monetize" art is not only inefficient from the point of view of the economy as a whole (although it is lucrative to them) but undermines the art itself. These people actually end up eliminating the incentive for artists to practice art for art's sake, and replace it with a "make art that sells" incentive. The result is that we get art that does nothing more than appeals to populism, from artists who are only concerned with that agenda.
Exploration of niche areas of morality and challenging flaws in the social order are not serving to that agenda. Thus, we won't get art in the vein of James Joyce's writing, or Mozart's composition, or Shakespeare's plays. Instead, we get the trash that is modern music and cinema.
Thank you Spain, for moving to destroy the stranglehold that corporate interests have on the artistic output of society. Next on the agenda: kill all the fucking lawyers.
I hate printers.
That really happened, but...
That's the law in Spain, up to now. It has always been. If you aren't profiting by copyright infringement (other than getting the copied thing, that is), then you are in the clear. In any case the current (left leaning) government has drafted a new law that makes illegal all that the SGAE wants to be illegal .Well, not all, they would like individual users to be punishable too, and the government said no thanks; and they wanted the webs to be closed without judicial intervention, and the government initially complied but then changed it to need judicial intervention, but with the new law judges should put them down, anyway). So from now on (I'm not sure about if it's fully operative now but should be soon) it should be fairly easy to put down a "links" site. At least when it's hosted in Spain.
Anyway the situation in Spain is, I think, not too bad. Individual users are protected if they just download things for themselves or others, or even if they make a thousand photocopies of a book and give them away, as long as they get no profit from it. But that will surely change in the future too. When two groups fight for something, and one (the SGAE) has a clear financial objective, and the other (the file sharers) a vague convenience one, the first group will in the end prevail, against all reason, logic or fairness.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
It's called social rebellion, coming from an anarchist extra lobe in spaniards' hearts. They fuck you, you fuck them. Once equilibrium is restored, we can go back and reopen discussion with media, to plan what the future should be like. At the moment we have to be pirates (soft pirates, we don't go around with a knife in the mouth assaulting SGAE yelling "for Tutatis") in order to compensate for revolutionary tax that they have imposed on CDs and other materials.
By the way, I don't see any real discussion of future plans on how the arts business should be managed in an ideal society. Example: have you ever heard anyone talking about a science-like management of artists? they would receive fellowships/short-term-contracts and fight for resources just like scientists do. Only the good ones survive this sieve, and end up having a merit-based stable job. People now will come with the argument that art cannot be judged on absolute values....bullshit. Talk to real understanders of arts and they will tell that good art can be distinguished from bad art.
Well, it isn't exactly as good as it sounds. First of all, private copy is quite old. I think it comes when all people recorded tapes to his friends. Legislators thought that it would be easier to provide a legal way of doing this, than turn half of the citizens into criminals. So, copy of copyrighted products is legal in Spain (and many other countries as France) provided two conditions: don't make money with it, and don't publish it. In exchange, a canon was applied: for every tape bought, copyright holders would receive a little compensation. What judges say with this sentence is first, that p2p is a way of private copy, as it works peer to peer, and second, publishing links to a work, is not publishing the work. But the panorama isn't good at all in Spain. The author organizations still try to criminalize the copy, and lobby aggressively for it. Government is quite near this position, and last legal reforms hardens things a little. Also, government tried to legalize a way of closing websites without judges intervention (so a sentence like this one cannot prevent the closure). In mass media, this powers spread continually the message that copying and downloading is immoral and illegal (which is not true), comparable to terrorism or person traffic. US government is also making high pressure to make countries adopt a stronger copyright police. And no one wants to say no to Obama.
It's quite simple, really. Some artists and corporations feel they should not be bound by that part of the copyright law stating that after a limited time the copyrights return to the public. This is motivated by limitless greed. The public response has been to renege on their end of the agreement, and copy freely. In other words, greed begets greed. Monkey see, monkey do.