Spain Takes Unpopular but Sensical Approach To P2P Networks

The battle against piracy has been met with some crazy, zany lawsuits and policies. There’s the horror stories of grandmas and 8 year old girls being sued for thousands of dollars because of a few songs. There are talks that the RIAA will now be tracking uploaders, instead of downloaders. Websites themselves have had to close shop because of apparent pirating taking place.

Perhaps we can all take a step back and really look at the situation. While doing this, perhaps we can take a cue from Spain and how the situation is being handled there. In numerous cases, the judges are falling on the side of the sites in question. In this article, from TorrentFreak, we can learn of the reasoning behind the court’s decisions,

“The Coalition quickly backtracked, suggesting they would accept some type of throttling instead, but that fell largely on deaf ears too. Then new Coalition president Aldo Olcese said that the solution would be to go after the country’s 200 torrent sites instead, but this could also prove problematic. Time and again Spanish courts have ruled that sites that link to infringing content are not illegal, providing profits aren’t made directly from any infringement.”

Of course the organization that is trying to protect the copyrights (SGAE), didn’t take this lying down. They’re now trying to intercede against these sites with a more creative approach. Instead of relying on courts, they’re going after the sites privately. In doing so, they can file an injuction against the site and have it closed so its legality can go before a court.

In one such case, the SGAE lost again as the judge ruled in favor of the website. Here’s what the judge had to say,

P2P networks, as a mere transmission of data between Internet users, do not violate, in principle, any right protected by Intellectual Property Law,” said Raul N. García Orejudo, a judge in Barcelona. Although some activities are barred, those do not concern P2P he said, noting that there has to be a presumption of innocence.

Along with ruling on P2P networks, the courts also addressed the act of uploading and downloading copyrighted material using these sites. Basically, the belief is that if you’re using the community websites for copying and sharing files then it’s not an act of “reproduction”. Meaning that no one benefits monetarily from the sharing. However if an actual website hosts the data, then it’s different because there’s profit based on ads and so forth.

I for one am shocked at the stance of the courts in Spain. Not in a bad way, but to hear a different perspective regarding downloading, and P2P networks is a breath of fresh air.