Filesharing “accepted social practice”, says Spanish judge [Update]
A judge in Santander, Pais Vasco Cantabria, Spain, has ruled that a man who had been sharing music files on the Internet has not commited a crime, as El Mundo reports (in Spanish). Instead, his activities were found to be protected by the Spanish right to make private copies.
The sentence says that considering filesharing a crime would mean "the criminalisation of socially accepted and widespread behaviour", and that what he has done "does not merit penal sanctions".
His accusers had demanded that for his abominable deeds, he be sentenced to two years in prison, a fine of EUR 7.200 and EUR 18.361in damages. (I wonder where the last figure came from. Did they count the songs on his hard drive and price each at iTunes’ 99 ct? Had they asked the BSA to compile the figures, they would have been even higher.)
Let’s see how the industry reacts, and how well the sentence holds up. The article implies that he was sued under laws that prohibit illicit copying for profit. This would mean that in effect the charges were dismissed not because they were ludicrous, but because they were simply not applicable.
It is good to see, in any case, that the judge grasped the fine distinction between for-profit and not-for-profit filesharing. The part about this being socially accepted conduct is of course the cherry on top of the pie.
UPDATE: The Register also has the story. It says that the Spanish authorities are taking the logical next step: Since putting a man in prison over filesharing has been ruled an impractical and inacceptable criminalisation of an accepted social practice, they’re planning to criminalise the practice on a greater scale:
Justice Minister Juan Fernando Lopéz Aguilar says Spain is
drafting a new law to abolish the existing right to private copies
of material.