Spanish Police Arrest Their First Ever eBook Pirate (torrentfreak.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Spain's Ministry of the Interior has announced the first ever arrest of an eBook pirate. The suspect is said to have uploaded more than 11,000 literary works online, many on the same day as their official release. More than 400 subsequent sites are said to have utilized his releases. The investigation began in 2015 following a complaint from the Spanish Reproduction Rights Centre (CEDRO), a non-profit association of authors and publishers of books, magazines, newspapers and sheet music. According to the Ministry, CEDRO had been tracking the suspect but were only able to identify him by an online pseudonym. However, following investigations carried out by the police, his real identity was discovered.

Comments

It figures

[Daetrin]

The police put a lot of effort making sure this guy goes to jail for making information available for free. Meanwhile there are tons of fake authors and stores online (some of them even represented on big sites like Amazon) who are selling the works of others for a profit. And no matter how often they get reported the police either don't care or are incapable of tracking them down (despite the presence of a clear money trail.)

Re:It figures

[smooth wombat]

The police put a lot of effort making sure this guy goes to jail for making information available for free.

It's not information. It's a work someone put a lot of time and effort into creating and this asshat thought he was entitled to give it away to people without compensating the author.

If you want to produce something and give it away that is your right. You do not have the right to give away or steal someone else's work.

Oh, Please!

[RobotRunAmok]

He is not "making information available for free." He's putting authors' novels on the internet without being given the distribution rights.