File-Sharing Admin Convicted For Crime He Didn’t Commit
Written by enigmax on April 15, 2009Last week a 22 year-old was sentenced to 6 months jail for running a file-sharing site carrying links to copyright works. On the surface it appeared that court ruled that due to placing advertising on the site, the admin had profited from infringement and therefore committed a crime, but all is not as it seems.
A week ago we reported that a Spanish Court made its decision in the case of file-sharing site Infopsp.com. According to the complainants – Spanish Association of Publishers and Distributors Entertainment Software (ADESE) and the Spanish Videographic Union (UVE) – the site, which had around 17,300 members, operated illegally.
InfoPSP didn’t host any illicit content itself but instead offered links to video games, movies and music hosted on 3rd party sites. In Spain, merely linking to copyright works is not illegal. InfoPSP carried advertising and it was widely reported in the Spanish media that this was the reason the admin, Adrián Gómez Llorente, aka Kuve, was found guilty and sentenced to fines and 6 months in jail. However, in the murky world of copyright infringement, it’s no surprise to discover that all is not as it seems.
In September 2008 we reported on the case of Sharemula, a site which offered eDonkey links to movies, music, software and games. Just like InfoPSP, Sharemula found itself the subject of legal action but eventually the admins were found not guilty, since they had not carried out copyright infringement for profit. Here’s the strange part though – Sharemula DID carry advertising, just like InfoPSP.
Seeking clarification, TorrentFreak contacted the offices of David Bravo, a Spanish lawyer who specializes in intellectual property rights. According to Spanish law, the reason why the Sharemula admins were acquitted was because in order to have committed a crime, direct profit must’ve been made from the actual dissemination of the copyright works. Since the site carried only links, any dissemination was carried out by the site’s users and not the site itself. In short, no crime was committed on Sharemula and bizarrely, no crime was committed on InfoPSP either.
So it begs the question; how on earth did the admin of InfoPSP get found guilty of criminal copyright infringement and sentenced to 6 months jail and fines of 4,900 euros?
The answer lies, unsurprisingly, with the complainants in the case – the Spanish Association of Publishers and Distributors Entertainment Software (ADESE) and the Spanish Videographic Union (UVE). Of course, file-sharing site admins being protected under Spanish law is the last thing these groups need. What they actually need is someone’s severed head displayed prominently on a pike in order to deter others, and a widely-reported 6 month jail sentence is ideal for reaching this aim.
To get the truth, lawyer David Bravo conducted an interview with KUVE, the convicted InfoPSP admin, which shines an awful lot of light on this issue – and pretty shocking it is too. First off David asked Kuve if he’d ever carried any copyright material on the InfoPSP server;
“Absolutely not. The web server contained only the files needed for the operation of the forum,” explained Kuve. “Under no circumstances did we ever host any copyrighted works.”
David then asked Kuve if it was true that InfoPSP simply displayed links which were supplied by users of the site. “Indeed, the website was a forum where users could share a link to a file,” Kuve replied. “These links were torrents, hosting servers or file upload sites like Megaupload, Gigasize, Rapidshare etc.”
Kuve then went on to explain that he and his lawyer understood that all ongoing trials against similar sites (such as Sharemula) were resolved in the favor of the sites in the criminal courts. However, the threat of being chased by the complainants for damages through the civil courts was very real and the costs associated with this would have been too much for Kuve to cope with.
So a deal was done. Kuve would admit to being a criminal and accept the court’s decision with the assurance that he wouldn’t be chased through the civil courts by the plaintiffs. Kuve and his lawyer decided that it would make sense, financially at least.
“I am a student and therefore do not have the financial resources needed to hire a defense expert that could ensure results in the trial. Besides, continuing with the trial meant that the civil courts could convict me and I would be forced to pay financial compensation which I couldn’t cope with,” said Kuve.
“I would have loved to defend my interests to the end and it is for this that I wish all the people in my situation who can afford to stay and fight for something that affects us all, the best of luck.”
“The real news here is that a person has been found guilty of something that was not an offense under 100% of the judges who had resolved earlier identical cases,” says a concerned David Bravo.
Javier de la Cueva, a lawyer working with David, told TorrentFreak something that will be of interest to lawyers representing admins like Kuve in the future. Javier and David maintain a repository relating to Spanish court decisions on hyperlinking and release these documents under a CC-By License.
Thanks to this repository, any lawyer in Spain can use the documents to defend similar cases. The documents have already enabled lawyer Franciso José Andújar to successfully defend TVMix.
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49 Responses
Bastards….
Pity the truth wont get as much publicity as the lies purported by the anti-piracy scumbags did..
So why would he get chased through civil courts? Since he didn’t do anything illegal they wouldn’t have had a case or am I just getting things confused?
Thank you for your entry and just one detail in case it could be an interesting experience for other cause lawyers.
Under Spanish law, rulings have no intellectual property so we simply publish them.
What we license CC-By are our legal writings. Free legal culture :-)
this is not right he did nothing wrong :@
What happened with human common sense? Is this really the direction society wants to go?
Bastards for sure.
“In 2009 a crack forum unit was sent to prison by a Spanish court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Spanish underground. Today still wanted by the ADESE, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you want a download; If no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire, The Kuve Team.”
This is just wrong. Plain and simple. Don’t they even have rights to a fair trial and a lawyer like in America?
# 2 Apr 15, 2009 at 22:47 by user
User, I deal with these cases with David Bravo in Spain.
Music industry begun in Spain to prosecute these websites alleging criminal offenses. After plenty of resolutions that make clear these websites do not constitute a criminal offense, industry is beginning with civil actions.
Although it is cristal clear that there is no criminal offense, we still do not have any final resolutions in civil jurisdiction.
So, the point is the industry would claim in civil courts a huge amount of money if the webmaster did not declare himself guilty of a criminal offense.
So I am confused about the Spanish legal system. Is copyright infringement considered a criminal offense? Thus do the Spanish courts consider themselves civil and criminal courts?
So, how can one get a prison term from a civil lawsuit? Or am I all mixed up?
If he actually serves the prison term, then Franco never left.
This is what we come to expect from a Government that was up until the late 90’s was still controlled by the fascist party, and yet is somehow in NATO and the EU.
# 7 Apr 15, 2009 at 23:07 by 4l13ndud3
We do. You would be surprised.
WTF?
Incriminate yourself or we’ll sue you!
In a civil suit, the burden of proof is much easier to work with compared to a criminal court case.
All you have to do in a civil court is make it /look/ like they did it, where as in a criminal court you have to prove that they /actually/ did it.
And it will get no major coverage since the media is controlled by evil. That is just pure evil.
“InfoPSP carried advertising and it was widely reported in the Spanish media that this was the reason the admin “-” was found guilty”
Atleast it got reported – In England the news likes to pretend P2P doesn’t exsist. In the newspapers and on Tv they don’t mention anything :(
@ #9
I think what you’re failing to understand here is that NATO and the EU are fascist organizations. NATO is just the strong arm enforcement team for the UN, and the same elite families who set-up and run the UN also set-up and run the EU. As well as the IMF, BIS, WHO, CFR, RIIA, Rand Corp, Club of Rome and a whole plethora of other GO’s and NGO’s that are right now being merged into one Global Fascist Government.
i sympathise with Kuve. not a nice position to be in at all. however, will it not now open the flood gate, allowing anyone and everyone to be prosecuted and forced to plead guilty, simply through fear of possibly having to pay huge fines/damages and a lack of money for a good defence lawyer? surely innocent is innocent, whichever way you look at it and whichever type of trial. obviously, the word ‘justice’ means as little to the judges as it does to the copyright organisations and they should be instantly removed from office! as for the coverage, i am sure someone will find a way :-).
‘“I am a student and therefore do not have the financial resources needed to hire a defense expert that could ensure results in the trial. Besides, continuing with the trial meant that the civil courts could convict me and I would be forced to pay financial compensation which I couldn’t cope with,” said Kuve.
“I would have loved to defend my interests to the end and it is for this that I wish all the people in my situation who can afford to stay and fight for something that affects us all, the best of luck.”’
And there we have the very definition of David vs. Goliath. Stuff like this makes me want to take a number one on some of those executives and other corporate nonamers.
“So why would he get chased through civil courts? Since he didn’t do anything illegal they wouldn’t have had a case or am I just getting things confused?”
The point of the courts, theoretically, is to find out whether or not he did something illegal.
#7 In USA criminal cases are also frecuently settled.
#9 In Spain a copyright infringement is a criminal one if it is a for-profit infringement. If not, it is a civil one.
Of course there are both, civil and criminal courts. Copyright holders tried criminal courts, they did loss. Now are trying civil courts (they will loss too). It is the smell of desperation.
He won’t serve the prison term.
I share to share and obtain information.
It started when my mother shared the first bit of information with me. It was the word “mama” which was then uttered back to her. Since then I could not get enough information in the form of sounds, site, touch and taste. I then spent the rest of my life absorbing and sharing as much information as possible.
Everyone on this plan shares and receives information through words, images, sounds, motion and ideas.
I was born to be a pirate. It all started with the very first bit of information shared with me, “mama”. I am a pirate of all information. We are all pirates of information and we can never be stopped.
Everyone should get an insurance for litigation costs.
This strikes me as a case needing a defence fund!!!
Problem is all this publicity about the legal rogering he’s received is a bit late now… The publicity needs to come beforehand so the defence fund can happen before decisions are made that will effect the rest of somebody’s life… In this case, he’s made his deal and plead guilty in return for avoiding the civil process.
It’s a bitch but it’s to late.
> It’s a bitch but it’s to late.
Actually, on second thoughts it may not be toooo late.
Think about it, while its too late for poor Kuve of course, the main idea was they would intimidate others like him, now that the story has broken the sheeple of course are intimidated, but the sheeple dont really run torrent/link sites in the first place, its the more tech savvy and people who are willing to stand up to “the man”.
Now that they know the back story, they know its a load of BS and can actually plan ahead: if the scumbags target me… I’ll do this, these are my options etc.
Sheeple are the leachers (hit and runners), the “only rapidshare please” and kazaa crowd (”bit torrent is just too darn complicated… and dont even get me started on that usenet thingy” :D ) so no real loss there.
I know if I was in Spain this wouldnt phase me one bit now that i know the whole story.
All that has been accomplished is they have slowed their demise a little bit, maybe 1km less per hour… not that it matters coz the train is going at about 100 miles per hour… champaign all around when it reaches its destination! :D
Cheers!
he was making money from a website designed to trade artist’s hard work for free. that’s what the site was designed for. that’s why it was popular. and that’s exactly what people did. the fact that it was only links and that he himself didn’t host any of the infringing content is nothing more than a technicality for cowards to hide behind.
intellectual property is as important as physical property and should be no less protected under the law.
“I was born to be a pirate. It all started with the very first bit of information shared with me, “mama”. I am a pirate of all information. We are all pirates of information and we can never be stopped.”
LOL
ridiculous analogy…
#22 (Anonymous)
Sorta like hiding behind the name “Anonymous”, right?
If you’re going to make accusations then don’t hide. It just makes you look scared and your point weak.
Most of us with names and pseudonyms can be found all over the internet. Just do a search to find out more about us. We don’t hide.
#6 is 100% win.
Lol do rlslog next!
#23
what does it matter? his point still stands. how does being anonymous have anything to do with it? get off your high horse idiot
#9
Spain is a “civil law” system, meaning they have roots in the legal system of ancient Rome. this is to be distinguished from the other meaning of civil, namely “civil suit” vs. “criminal suit”. A civil law system obviously still has criminal suits.
Their favorite target huh? Young man without a penny, damn sharks.
Spread the word all, can’t let this one slide by…
stupid nitwit Kuve
admission of liability in this criminal case does not provtect him from civil action from other copyright owners like Sony Columbia or Warner Bros.
what a silly defendant and even stupider lawyers for the defendant.
never make a deal you fool, sell out.
#30 It does it if he reaches a separate settlement with the claimants as he did.
#9 There is nothing strange about the Spanish courts criminal cases are seen in criminal courts, civil cases in civil courts. This is was presented as a criminal case and seen in a criminal court. Although he could have been found innocent of a criminal offence that does not stop him for being found guilty of a civil one (in a separate trial, in a separate court, in the future). That is why he settled out of court by agreeing to plea guilty. Everybody has the right to a fair trial however you obviously forfeit that right by pleading guilty to the charges.
All of this is the same in Spain or in the US. Remember what happened to O.J??
And get you fact straight Franco died in 1975 there has been no fascist government in Spain ever since.
“he was making money from a website designed to trade artist’s hard work for free.”
No. He was running a non-profit service to provide free material to music consumers without any economic gain.
“that’s what the site was designed for.”
No. It was designed to offer people an easy method of finding digital files from an index.
“that’s why it was popular.”
A site is never popular because an owner makes money out of it. It is popular because the person who runs the site meets the demands of the consumer. Something that the entertainment industry has a lot to learn from.
“and that’s exactly what people did.”
Were the people making money? No. Nobody was making any money anywhere. Complete nonsense.
“the fact that it was only links and that he himself didn’t host any of the infringing content is nothing more than a technicality for cowards to hide behind.”
If for once in a while the law is on our side, you call us cowards? Heh, lol, an impressive display of hypocrisy for someone who is a member of a corporate organisation which resorts to paying off politicians to shape the law according to how they want.
“Intellectual property is as important as physical property and should be no less protected under the law.”
Nonsense. If I have the personal skill to reverse egineer my friend’s x-box to make one myself for €10,- it doesn’t show that I’m a thief but that the business model and product of microsoft is outdated and obsolete; it can be copied with ease by anyone with a low amount of resources. As long as I don’t sell the x-box to other people for €50,- I’m doing nothing wrong. Business models should never have to be protected against technological advances, that’s what innovation and meeting your stakeholder requirements is for and that is something that your industry is clearly lacking.
@22:
Hey “Judge Dredd”, by reading the above article and comments, the spanish criminal judges obviously doesn’t agree with you, so unless some divine entity made you jury, judge and executioner, why don’t you keep your fascist antisocial ranting to yourself asshole!!
I still don’t understand how a guilty ruling can occur if the law says no wrong has been done. You can’t plead guilty to a crime that isn’t one. That’s like trying to plead guilty to sitting in the sun.
So, uh, what exactly did happen here?
The funny thing is, the artists themselves say they get minimal profit from CD sales: if people like your music they will you to your concerts, and THAT’s where money is for artists. And they don’t get a penny from legal mp3 downloads, because their old-fashioned contracts don’t mention internet distribution. Big companies are getting all the profits.
For proof, just google “La Excepción”, the spanish hip hop band that just left their big soul-sucking company precisely because of that. They’ve put their last CD for free on the internet, and they’re counting on concerts to earn real money.
Just when they think they have a win.. PSYCH..
The only time they have ever won is when the defendant doesnt have any money or time to defend himself.
so if I only post the links to child porn its ok?
“… a person has been found guilty of something that was not an offense …,” says a concerned David Bravo.
———————————–
INACCURATE + MISLEADING TRANSLATION
———————————–
Kuve was not ‘found’ guilty, but as a dumb tactic pre-emptively pleaded guilty, thus he convicted himself of a ‘crime’ for which he technically could never have been found guilty, in order to avoid fighting a *potential* civil lawsuit.
This is why DB actually said: “…una persona se ha declarado culpable de algo que no era delito…” and Kuve should sue his idiotic lawyer as soon as he gets out of prison.
@9
I don’t wanna drink my milk!
Hmmm, sounds like copping a plea to a murder charge that didn’t take place.
These assholes BLACKMAILED him to state he commited a crime which according to spanish law he did not.
I can’t begin to state my anger at these people and their dirty methods of FUD, intimidating an terrorising people like us who help others do file-sharing …
This shows how a judicial system can be set up in a way that poor people with little resources to endure years of trials de facto don’t get equal treatment before the law.
This stinks to high heaven.
Shame on the media industry for their bullying. May they realise how futile their FUD is on a big scale.
this stuff really make me lol…
Can the big money greedy companies please get off their public!!!
I can easly post you a manifesto from a very similar site that offers a better data sharing community but that would put the community i’m currently in under threat which to me is a BIG no no….
Capitalism was a experiment tried tested and failed by the world goverments…
i’m sure i’m not the only one that knows this…
Were is all our money? in the banks… Who messed up managing our money??? the banks…
Who know own the banks??? the goverment…
I don’t believe this. No one is so stupid as to take PRISON over a court judgement they can’t pay.
It’s not just 6 months in at the pound you in the ass hotel, it’s a lifetime record. Travel, employment, it’s never ending what your caught off from.
After prison he won’t be the same.
His lawyer telling him this was a good thing is also, REALLY out there.
#47 He won’t go to jail. It is a 6 months conviction, and it is his first criminal conviction, so the Spanish law states that he won’t go to prison.
Of course he can travel and work.
A bad settlement, but not so bad as you think.
I’m from spain and all the newspapers and tv are manipulating the information to make it seems that it’s the end of p2p and the guy is really guilty.
Oh.. motherfuckers…
Its all about intimidation. The RIAA will hunt down any one using P2P, so the best way to stay ahead is to use sites that let you privately share your files with friends. That way if the RIAA wants to see what I’m sharing they’d have to get a subpoena. I think that http://www.myotherdrive.com lets you set up security groups for who can see your files.
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