Linking to P2P Downloads Confirmed Legal in Spain
Written by enigmax on September 19, 2008A court has ruled that a site providing links to P2P downloads is operating legally. The Provincial Court of Madrid ruled that Sharemula.com, a site offering eDonkey links to movies, music, software and games does not break the law. The court’s decision is final and cannot be appealed.
Following a Federación Antipiratería (Anti-piracy Federation) investigation in 2006, 15 people were arrested in Spain in connection with the operation of Sharemula.com, an eDonkey (eD2k) indexing site. eD2k links are similar to URLs or .torrent files, in that they contain no copyright material themselves, but may point to such works.
Spain’s Brigade of Technological Investigations claimed that the site was illegal and should be closed. Just under a year ago the case was heard, but sadly for the entertainment industry, the court ruled that the case against Sharemula should be dismissed. It said that neither the site nor administrators had operated illegally by offering links to copyright works, since they had not done so for profit or commercial gain.
However, the entertainment industry – including but not limited to Columbia, Disney Company Iberia, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner, Universal, Paramount, Sony and MGM, did not accept the ruling and appealed the decision.
Yesterday, the Provincial Court of Madrid ruled that the entertainment industry has no case against Sharemula, and since it has broken no laws, the case should be dismissed. This dismissal is final and cannot be appealed.
The court rejected all allegations that were made by the entertainment industry and concluded that indexing eD2k links (or torrent files) can not be seen as copyright infringement (pdf in Spanish). Sharemula’s main purpose is to index links, and they are not responsible for where these links go according to the court decision. Whether or not Sharemula makes profit is irrelevant.
“The hearing confirms the position of the defense that linking to P2P networks does not constitute a criminal offense,” wrote David Bravo, a lawyer in the case, noting that Sharemula did not store any copyrighted material. The site simply links to files that are hosted elsewhere, on computers of P2P users.
It is on this same premise that The Pirate Bay claims to operate legally. With upcoming cases against The Pirate Bay and Mininova in Europe, this decision is very welcome for p2p-site administrators.
Previously: Police Arrest ‘Wanted’ P2P Pre-Releaser
Next: Warez Scene Member Sentenced to 18 Months Jail
62 Responses
I’m fairly sure that all laws in Europe has to follow that of the European Union. Europe has no precedent. Things are looking up
Finally, some good news for file sharing.
#1 Basically all laws are suppost to follow EU laws inside of Europe, but some countries have vetos on certain aspects and others just plain ignore them.
For example ‘Systembolaget’ of Sweden has a monopoly on alcohol over 3.5% (7proof?) despite this being very much against EU market laws.
Any links for good dedicated hosting in Spain?
Not all countries in Europe are member of the EU ;) so not all countries have to follow EU law.
However I welcome that decision. Otherwise search engines like Google would also have to be illegal.
As heartwarming as that is, I can’t help but expect that there will be many more lawyers willing to try to convict in the future. 0s and 1s, dood. 0 and frickin’ 1s!
Spainish webhosts will hike there prices 500% when the bittorrent trackers come a knocking.
This is great, yay for Spain :)
how some little news can make your day so much brighter. thank you torrentfreaks :)
It is nice that the “Whether or not Sharemula makes profit is irrelevant” bit was added in. Advertising on torrent sites makes the non-profit angle kinda sketchy.
Oooh where are all the trolls now?
Huh bitches?
Thats what I thought.. owned.
This is the same thing as telling someone where to find drugs, its not illegal to do so, although it is illegal to obtain those drugs.
Finally a country that doesn’t bend to all those corrupt companies throwing money at them.
all aboard the new spanish torrent sites…
Lets get all hosting of torrent trackers to spain ASAP!
This decision tells that the courts are not entirely corrupt, and that it is very much worth it to fight for legalizing P2P.
Roze
http://www.28chan.org/apstdt/
Great news!
Yea for Spain!
Time to brush up on Spanish lessons and check out web hosting!
The big question really is if they take the case to the European Courts of Justice.
I doubt Spain has an opt out on Copyright law or directives relating to it.
#3 But surely Systembolaget is not the only seller of liquor? I bought Jack Daniels whiskey’s in Stockholm bars while there with colleagues back in July, because they came at the same price as a large beer. To put it simply: I don’t understand Sweden’s system at all.
Hah, take that media giants!
Awesome! The hydra’s growning new heads.
So does this mean that the legal risk factor is super-low if a BT tracker is hosted in Spain?
OUtstanding! Link away folks! Link away!
JIff
http://www.anonymize.us.tc
p2p is for n o 0 bz
@Test0
Nope, we don’t. The european union have much to say about imports/exports, use of chemicals, agriculture, working conditions and stuff like that. But
every country have their own laws. I who live in Sweden do personaly hope that our courts gives the same resault though.
If hosting companies of one country could team up and win one court case, they would all gain by all the torrent trackers moving to them and from those who plan to start new tracker.
a thought.
w00t, but if most sites move their servers to Spain then what will the MAFIAA do with all their takedown notices and fancy lawers?!?! Poor guys might lose their jobs, be unemployed, and might have to resort to P2P to see movies and get software because they’ll be too poor to buy it… That would be *horrible* ;-)
WOW – some sense
And running an eDonkey server has also been confirmed legal recently, in Germany this time: Court: Edonkey server admin not liable for infringement.
w00t! :)
does this mean hosting a warez-site with rapidshare links or bittorrent site is legal in spain now?
Epic Fail anyone ?
:)
UK, Germany, France, are you ready to go the limit? Time for the EU Courts to earn its money !
@5
There aren’t many countries remaining in Europe that are fortunate enough to not be members of the EU. The most important ones are Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. There are no others that are of any economic consequence.
spain = epic win filesharing country
@17
Sytembolaget is the only shop allowed to sell liquor. Liquor can still be purchased in a pub or restaurant.
just wondering what are the laws in the U.S.? on the one hand torrent searching sites are beeing fined 110 millions (for linking to links oO) on the other hand some very large warez boards are hosting in the U.S. seems weird to me …
Sounds like a bright light of sure hope, which cannot be darkened by the copyright embracing devils… in short, sounds like damn good news…
I would like to mention the other lawyer in the case: Javier de la Cueva http://derecho-internet.org
Bad news. Should be illegal.
Well before we start sucking each other dicks it would be good to consider that the court ruling only asserted that there was no CRIMINAL offence.
Meaning that there may still be civil actions against the site and even if those cannot put you in jail they can be pretty damaging all by themselves.
@38 You make a great point, but I don’t think we should ignore this important gain. After all, we know the riaa, mpaa, ifpi, ect all want to make filesharing a criminal offense (look at what they want in ACTA). It’s nice to see one country stand up to them. Perhaps more will follow Spain’s example.
Good news for sites providing P2P links. But still can the law charge the downloaders?
“But still can the law charge the downloaders?”
Copyright infringement is illegal mostly everywhere and that is unlikely to change. Legalisation of linking to files that link to files is a worthy shorter term goal.
“But still can the law charge the downloaders?”
Certainly not in Spain, we pay some kind of tax every time we buy a cd, hard disk, cell phone, etc that goes directly to the Spanish RIAA, but that enables us to use p2p legally.
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Finally, some sense appears in the law courts. Spain should be proud.
¡Vive España!
I know where i will host my torrent site http://www.torrentin.com from now on. Time to leave the USA!
Spain is a third world country, so who cares?
@47 Sure. You, citizen of a first world country, can come here and taste our third world historical monuments, our third world culture and museums and, of course, our third world beautiful girls, food and sunny weather. Or maybe you just can stay in your own first world country (who cares?)
@42 you are wrong, as i said several times in my blog (putasgae.info) we are paying a tax for every cd/dvds/etc.. because of your right to make a a legal private copy.
@47, America is head there pretty fast! Enjoy your depression.
america first world? 5% inflation, 10 times the murder rate of civilized countries, people starving all the time because there is no social security?
Lets all move to Spain
Feel comfortable with the possibility of starting an age-gap relationship in a community where people think just like you. Recapture some of your youth and try striking up a relationship, whether romantic or just friendship, with a yonger someone! __Agelessdate.c om__ is your cupid!
err… someone should really take care of spammy comments
I wonder how many servers will move to spain now!
@47
Are you crazy? You are referring to one of the oldest countries in the world that had one of the first truly ‘global’ empires. It gave rise to two of the most infamous Popes, and at least one genuine anti-Pope. They have one of the richest histories of art, architecture and culture in general. Thanks to Spain, over 350 million people speak Castilian Spanish, which has survived for over 800 years and is now the second most used language in the world today. The ‘great’ United States of America and many other genuinely great American nations, known as the New World, were discovered and colonized by the Spanish. It’s history, while bloody, is rich and is still ongoing. Recently Spain became the first country in the world to grant full marriage AND adoption rights to gay couples.
Whatever you might think, it cannot be in doubt that Spain is in the First World, while the United States is in the Second World.
I am not Spanish, do not live in Spain and cannot even speak their language, but I am also not ignorant.
awesome tbp for ever (well not literally) but i think the beackon of torrents is thepiratebay and if they fall it’d be a huge precedent, things are looking up with linking to pirated content being legal in spain.
FUCK YEAH, SEAKING!
jesus this is getting rediclous i forgot downloading/uploading media kills someone everyday, you know b/c there are gangstas with machine guns who are watching over avi files for dear life!! Inside the US has there even been any convictions for downloading anything that wasnt for kazaa p2p programs?? I havnt seen much on torrents or warez i think one on torrents but never on warez!
Take that media giants!
It’s days like this that make me feel glad I live in… Spain! haha
” 14 Sep 19, 2008 at 15:18 by Anonymous
This decision tells that the courts are not entirely corrupt, and that it is very much worth it to fight for legalizing P2P.
Roze
http://www.28chan.org/apstdt/
”
P2P is not illegal – it’s what we do with it that people see as the problem. For every person sharing a free Linux distro they would like to say there are a thousand ’stealing’ the latest Hollywood re-hash of something that was once good. If the movie companies could learn to keep up with the times there wouldn’t be a problem. At the moment it seems to be all about profit rather than delivering good content so for now, as far as I can see, if they’re dumb and rich enough that they can afford to pay someone $47,000,000 to ’star’ in a movie, then f**k ‘em…
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