Slashdot Log In
Spain Outlaws P2P File-Sharing
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu Jun 29, 2006 01:03 AM
from the nobody-expects-the-spanish-p2p-ban dept.
from the nobody-expects-the-spanish-p2p-ban dept.
Section_Ei8ht writes "Spanish Congress has made it a civil offense to download anything via p2p networks, and a criminal offense for ISP's to allow users to file-share, even if the use is fair. There is also to be a tax on all forms of blank media, including flash memory drives. I guess the move towards distributing films legally via BitTorrent is a no go in Spain." Here is our coverage of the tax portion of this law.
Related Stories
[+]
News: Spain Adds 'Copyright Tax' to Blank Media 348 comments
Poker Forums writes "Just read on Zeropaid that Spain has recently voted in compulsory copyright licensing, levying a tax on all blank media. This includes cd-r, dvd-r, flash media, printers, scanners, cell phones, everything. The tax will be collected by the government and 'given to the copyright holder.'"
[+]
Your Rights Online: File Sharing Ruled Legal In Spain 136 comments
stupid_is writes "As a follow-up to a previous discussion a judge in Spain has ruled that under Spanish law a person who downloads music for personal use can not be punished or branded a criminal. This seems to be a teeny bit clearer than the first article, which points out that downloading is a civil, and not criminal, offense for individuals. The Spanish recording industry federation Promusicae is predictably a bit peeved, and says it will appeal against the decision." From the article: "The state prosecutor's office and two music distribution associations had sought a two year sentence against the man, who downloaded songs and then allegedly offered them on a CD through email and chat rooms. However, there was no direct proof he made money from selling the CDs. Justice Minister Juan Fernando Lopéz Aguilar says Spain is drafting a new law to abolish the existing right to private copies of material. Due to different regulatory regimes in Europe, the proceedings against file sharers differ greatly in each country. However, most European judges tend to take a harder stance on file sharing. Twenty two people in Finland were fined €427,000 last week for illegally sharing movies, music, games and software, while courts in Sweden also fined two men who had downloaded movies and music for personal use."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
WoW (Score:4, Interesting)
Also if you want to really push the boat out they've now made it illegal to play online games, since they work in a way you could argue is P2P in some cases.
Re:WoW (Score:5, Informative)
I assume the patches would fall under "authorized peer-to-peer file-sharing".
Parent
Re:WoW (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:WoW (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:WoW (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Downloaded linux without paying? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Wrong Wrong Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
1- The law explicitly bans "unauthorized P2P". Authorized P2P, despite the submitter's misleading assertions, is not concerned.
2- The blank levy is not a compensation for massive, indiscriminate filesharing on P2P networks. Rather, it is a compensation for the (perfectly legal) private, physical copying and sharing of copyrighted works, within the circle of family and close friends, and in low numbers, which I understand is definitely allowed in Spain. France and Canada have a similar scheme.
Basically you're allowed to make a few private copies, and in return you pay a bit more for your blank CDs. The money is they redistributed to registered copyright owners, proportionally to the royalties they earn from other, more easily quantifiable sources (sales, public performances, etc.). Not perfect, but that's the best way they could find. It certainly sucks for those of us who use CD for non-musical data, but I guess we're regarded as "collateral damage".
If I burn a CD of my own copyrighted works, will I get the tax refunded?
It's not a refund, it's a payment based on sales. The money levied from the tax is distributed to registered copyright owners, proportionally to their royalties. Note that anybody can register, including Joe Musician; in fact registering is a prerequisite to receiving any kind of royalties. So if you produce your own copyrighted works (and register to the appropriate body), AND some people buy your stuff or play it in public or use it for any other activity which involves payment of royalties, you'll definitely see some money from this tax.
If you burn a GNU/Linux cd, do you think the copyright holders are going to get paid by the Spanish government?
As I said, it's only for music, so basically no. However, I understand that the tax is only applicable to individuals, not corporations (a bit like VAT tax I suppose), so if $random_spanish_distro sends you a CD of their distribution, they won't have to pay the tax on the CD they burn.
Parent
Re:Wrong Wrong Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
1. What's autorized and what unautorized in the first place? There's a private organization that decides: the SGAE (Sociedad General de Autores y Editores). I suggest you read the wikipedia article about them.
2. The blank levy existed before the private backup law and this levy exists because of the music piracy, that's how it passed. Besides, it's not a bit more, it's 40-50% more http://www.asimelec.es/htmventa/Noticias/redinoti
Stick the collateral damage up your ass, I'm not willing to be stolen by a bunch of thieves that support no more than 100 groups/artits and charge for all. My hard earned money is worth more than that.
AND, this tax it's not only for CD.. it's gonna be passed for every media capable of holding a song: hard drives, usb disks, dongles.. everything. So, yes please, steal 40 euros for an HDD originally priced at 100 and charge 140!!! After all it's just collateral damage!!!
Man.. YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE THAT'S WRONG WRONG WRONG. I can't believe you got modded insightful for that pile of trash you wrote.
Excuse me for my harsh language, but speaking about the SGAE stirs my nerves.
An angry spaniard.
Parent
Re:Wrong Wrong Wrong (Score:4, Informative)
What's a music CD-R you ask? You might notice if you have a consumer music CD burner (and very few people do), the only media it will accept are specially labelled music CD-Rs. These cost more than the regular CD-Rs you use in your computer due to the royalty that is placed on them.
They're pretty rare now, since most people use the burner in their computer, which takes regular CD-Rs. Also, it doesn't usually affect people who record their own music on CD-Rs, since professional burners (the ones you buy at a musical instrument or pro-audio store as opposed to a stereo store) do not require the special discs either
Parent
Re:WoW (Score:4, Interesting)
On the flip side, if I rent a server at a hosting company for $50 a month.. or for that matter, a virtual host for $15 a month, is it no longer "peer-to-peer" since I'm just a server?
If I set no outgoing connections on bit-torrent, then aren't I just downloading like any other?
Parent
Re:Inbound bandwidth proportional to outbound? (Score:5, Interesting)
* Peers are people who are both downloading and uploading.
* Seeders are people who have already downloaded the entire file and are uploading it out of the kindness of their hearts.
Peers will continually kill the connections with the worst download/upload ratio, meaning you will get virtually nothing from peers if you don't upload.
Seeders upload to anybody, though they _may_ be clever by avoiding uploading the same parts of the file more than once during a limited amount of time in order to maximize the amount of data that can be distributed between peers.
So in other words, if trhere are a lot of seeders you will get ok download speeds without uploading.
Parent
Keyword is CIVIL OFFENCE!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:money terms.. (Score:4, Insightful)
(In point of fact, you are republishing copyrighted material when your computer sends it over in packets, so you are *also* directly breaking the law yourself.)
If you want an apt analogy, here goes:
Stuff that _I_ sell? But _I'm_ not doing anything; it's _them_ bringing the contraband to the register and _my employee_ that hands it to them! It's their choice to pick the items off of the shelf!!
---
BTW, amusingly, the downloaders make the reverse argument: "Stuff that _I'm_ downloading? _I'm_ not doing anything! I'm just making a copy of what's already being published on the web!"
---
None of this has any bearing on the morality of copyright laws. If you think (as I do) that copyright laws in their current form are a bad thing, then petition to have them changed. But don't pretend that P2P sharing of copyrighted material is somehow "white" or "gray": legally, it's "black."
Parent
Re:Not About Lawsuits (Score:4, Insightful)
This is great as long as both parties are using it...
As usual, the Professional Pirates (tm) can easily overcome this obstacle.
At most this new law will increase the cost of internet access in Spain, decrease, diminish, and increase the difficulty of the ligitimate usage of the net, and possibly result in some legal actions that ruin some kids lives and criminalise some ISPs (further increasing the cost of internet access!).
Overall though, you're right: Except for those lives that get ruined for the profit of a mega-corp, nothing substantial will change as a result of this.
Parent
why the tax? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:why the tax? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:why the tax? (Score:3)
R.I.P. ISP in Spain? (Score:4, Insightful)
"unauthorized downloading" is possible via HTTP, so they ISPs might as well stop completely. I wonder how long this new law will hold up, I wonder if it's even allowed according to EU guidelines.
Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? (Score:5, Insightful)
- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957.
Re:Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? (Score:4, Insightful)
Precisely. A government has the rights that its citizens give it, and nothing more. Do you have the legal or moral right to forcefully take your fellow citizen's money ? No, and neither shall any Government you delegate your rights to. Do you have the legal or moral right to decide what's right and wrong for your fellow, equal-in-rights citizen to do ? No, so neither shall your Government.
Parent
Re:Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? (Score:5, Insightful)
If by "pretty fucking stupid" you mean "right on the money", I agree.
A government has whatever power it is given, by whatever agreement or coercion it used to get it
No. A government has whatever power it can get away with up until its citizens revolt. Consider, as a trivial example, the NSA spying program. Blatantly illegal, yet since we haven't revolted, not only don't we see thousands of executive branch employees (as well as complicit corporate partners) going to the federal pen - We see a push to legalize such activity in one of the most blatant guttings of the 4th amendment in US history.
Furthermore, you have a missing modifier on "given" - Who has given that right? We all speed (and many would go even faster than they do if not for the legal risk), yet the government seems to believe it has the right to limit how fast we can drive. Over half the US considers current drug laws far too draconian, yet we still have an inmate population made up primarily of nonviolent drug offenders. We all recognize that our election system has more flaws than any so-called "democratic" system can bear, yet rather than fix it, we just switch to less auditable polling mechanisms.
Spit out the Kool-Ade and open your eyes.
Where does the Apollo program fit into this "criminal" idea?
The "circuses" part of "bread and circuses". Keep the plebes entertained, and they'll bear far more before rising up.
Research grants for improving crop yield?
The "bread" part of "bread and circuses". A starving population recognizes that it has little to lose by risking death a few weeks sooner than would happen otherwise.
What about the interstate highway system?
You do know why Hitler commissioned the Autobahn, right? And why Eisenhower copied it? However convenient the rest of us might find it in times of peace, it exists for the purpose of facilitating military deployments - Between existing military bases, to points of foreign attack, and, if necessary, to the location of any potential insurrection.
The post office? [...] The DARPA work that created the Internet?
If you don't see the need for a tyrranical regime to have efficient lines of communication, I don't have the words to explain it to you.
I guess you could twist each of them into the "criminal" idea, but I really think you'd be kidding yourself.
Well, at least one of us would kid themselves, but consider the cost of error... Incorrectly distrusting the government has basically no cost. Incorrectly trusting them - Well, Arbeit Macht Frei, right?
Now, before you dismiss me as a complete loony - I don't think the US has gone too far quite yet. The current Megalomaniac-in-chief has certainly pushed us closer to the edge than anyone since Lincoln (including Nixon - You'll notice that when he got caught with his hand in the cookie-jar, he had the decency to step down. Even Reagan at least still had the humility to lie about his actions). But we can still turn things around if we can wake up enough of the zombies. Sadly, I consider that unlikely, but at least still possible.
Parent
Re:Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's worth noting that Atlas Shrugged is a philosophical treatise wrapped in a rather awkwardly executed work of fiction. The Ayn Rand "quote" is the words of a character. Unlike PhDs writing academic papers, who must carefully frame their claims and exhaustively make caveats for all assertions, writers of fiction have the luxury of creating characters that are permitted to speak in hyperbole, and make utterly reprehensible statements. Judging the words of an arrogant bastard character as if they were part of a peer reviewed paper is the real stupidity here. Rand was making an expansive, dramatic point, based on a kernal of reality. Pedantically pointing out that there are some things the government does without "creating more criminals" is an utter (and probably willful) failure to recognize the difference between writing fiction and writing a research paper.
Parent
And if you do use P2P.... (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder what the cost will be to set up the infrastructure required to enforce and prosecute these laws.
Re:And if you do use P2P.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Equally intelligent (Score:4, Funny)
It is a well known goodfact that copyrighted material which is not transfered via p2p is mostly transfered via http and/or ftp, so why not just ban those protocols and be done with it! After all, seperating babies and their bathwaters respectively is just to ardious a task for the simple minds of government officials.
Score (Score:4, Insightful)
I wish p2p would include some sort of payment system. If I could fire up Gnutella or Azureus and have a big debit button where I could pay with a click standardized as a common framework for anyone to plug into their app then the issue would mostly resolve itself. Basically a Gnu_iTunes. P2P isn't bad, missing payment systems is.
Re:Score (Score:3, Interesting)
-
I call Dupe and FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA "banned unauthorized peer-to-peer file-sharing in Spain" authorised sharing is still allowed.
These new laws are really no more restrictive than those from other countries.
it's not FUD.. (Score:5, Interesting)
since every protocol on the internet can be used for unauthorized p2p sharing ISP owners must now either cease all service or go to prison.
This is a subtle but radical difference from what other nations have done, and it spells doom for all spanish ISP's
Parent
Re:it's not FUD.. (Score:3, Insightful)
They got it all! (Score:3, Interesting)
These guys got it all! Now they just need to ban internet and computers, even if your use of it is fair, this way there will be no more piracy.
In other news, arresting 100 persons is still a good thing provided that one of them is guilty.
Does this make any sense at all? (Score:4, Insightful)
So now they are paying the copyright owners, presumably to cover all of those copies that the Spanish people make. So if the copyright holder has been compensated, why in the workd outlaw P2P? Rather than outlawing P2P becasue some uses of it may infringe on copyright, even though it has many valid good uses, why not realize that the copyright holders have been compensated anyway? Sure, I expect that some politicians lined their own pockets in order to pass these laws, but still how can the justify taxing all media, that used for copying and that used for uses that in no way infringe on copyrigh, even flash drives, and then over agressively start outlawing things that might (but certainly don't always) let users copy copyrighted materials when they have already paid the tax?
Tergiversed/wrong news (Score:5, Informative)
1) A "canon" will be fined over blank media (optical and flash), but hard disks and volatile RAMs are excluded.
2) Still exist the "private copy right", when there is no meaning of making further money selling/dealing with downloaded data (in spanish "sin ánimo de lucro").
As corollarius, can be said that the "canon" has been aproved due to the fact of admiting two points:
a) The citizen is right to get and give (aka share) data from a P2P network, or share a phisical book or disc without having to pay to the author.
b) The "canon" is intended to compensate in some way the point (a).
Well, after my try of claryfing that the P2P it is *not* illegal in Spain (neither for downloading a movie nor for a disc, while not intended for making money of it), I'm against that canon, as it is indiscriminate, thus not fair.
There are many organizations here fighting for civil rights to revert the "canon" law/instruction.
Flash drives? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The problem is (Score:3, Insightful)
I would certainly recognize this kind of rule as a violation of my own copyright, by abridging my
right to disseminate my creative works.
Re:What about Windows Update (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:What about Windows Update (Score:5, Interesting)
Ummm, wasn't copyright infringment already a civil offence in Spain? So you're saying that they passed a law to make the civil offence of copyright infringment into a civil offence?
-
Parent
Re:So let me get this straight (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:So let me get this straight (Score:4, Insightful)
The linked article says "unauthorized peer-to-peer file-sharing". So you will be able to download your prescious WoW-Patches, you will be able to send your own videos to your friends... because its not "unauthorized". Where's the problem?
In other words: the summary was BS and you did not get it straight...
Parent
Re:So let me get this straight (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:So let me get this straight (Score:5, Interesting)
The traffic analysis necessary to detect BitTorrent traffic is trivial; nothing else opens a large number of connections and starts sending data the way that BitTorrent does. Encryption has worked with some ISPs because they've only made a half-hearted effort to traffic-shape. As it currently stands, many users have a choice of broadband providers and will switch if their carrier is too aggressive, and in most cases it's easier to simply cap all of an heavy user's bandwidth than to waste the cycles trying to find the BT traffic in particular.
But rest assured, the traffic analysis is child's play. If ISPs want to stop BT traffic, encryption won't present any impediments.
Parent
Re:This just in (Score:5, Informative)
Not bypassable by Joe Average or as it is in Spain that should actually be Pedro Promedio.
Anyway, the only winners out of all these will be CacheLogic and Ellacoya which can do the enforcement and guess who has been the longest running trialist of their kit.
Guessing once, twice, thrice...
Yep, right guess. Telefonica.
This looks like the local equivalent of Baby Bell has bought itself a law that coincides with the way they see the network. By the way, compared to them even Ma Bell was a pinko commy hippy progressive.
Parent
Re:How stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
as i said it before, there is a growing need for networks such as anonet [anonet.org] to free people from persecution in repressed countries, i'll just add spain to the list, i might not have anything to hide but then again if i want to share a file i created with a friend i will, if you build it i wil
Re:How stupid. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:How stupid. (Score:5, Informative)
Here you go [nationmaster.com]. While an actual figure like "10th in the World" is hard to compute accurately, the figures given in the link should show that Spain is not exactly a struggling country.
Parent
Re:SENSATIONALIST CRAP and LIES (Score:3, Insightful)
While I can certainly understand where you come from in saying that slashdot editing has gotten worse, I don't feel that this story is necesarrily one of those. It's a bit overstated, yes, but I don't think that detracts from the fact that the article simply states 'unauthorized downloading, even for personal use'. To me, that implies heavily that the article states a bit more clearly that the ban on p2p transfers
Re:SENSATIONALIST CRAP and LIES (Score:5, Insightful)
And no matter how long you've been a member, it's nice to see you offering as little information as you complain about!
What's wrong? Where? How is it wrong and what's the correct version? Without offering such an analysis, you're just spewing hot air (hot bits?) yourself.
Now, as to that...
Saying that no content is downloadable is contrary to the article, which states that only the downloading of unauthorized content is banned. I agree that that is sensationalistic, factually incorrect, and should have been caught.
On the other hand, the article does seem to indicate that ISP's may be criminally liable for the actions of their users:
But the government is going after Internet service providers; it's a criminal offense for ISPs to facilitate unauthorized downloading.
Now, that still leaves open to interpretation what "facilitation" may be-but in this case, the summary does seem to match the article.
Also, it is stated in the article that despite this new regulation, blank media will -also- be taxed! It seems to me this is a bit of "having it both ways" on the part of the content providers-outlawing personal copying AND getting tax revenue. Again, it seems that the summary is essentially correct on this point.
While the summary is incorrect on one part, and it should have been caught (and should still be corrected), this is still a subject of interest to many of us who visit this site.
However, regardless, if you're going to make assertions as strong as you just did, it's generally helpful to back them up. If you can't manage that, don't let the door hit you, there's enough of those here.
Parent
Re:Spain is so backwards (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Spain is so backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Yuo 1337 sLasHdOt reading 5k1llz (Score:3, Insightful)