Portugal Hands Jail Sentence to First Convicted File-Sharer
Written by enigmax on June 28, 2008In the first conviction of a file-sharer in the country, Portuguese authorities have handed down a harsh sentence of 90 days imprisonment in order to “set an example”. The unnamed individual faced court after the Portuguese version of the RIAA issued a complaint about unauthorized uploading.
It seems that every country around Europe has its own ways of dealing with file-sharers. In the UK these days it’s customary to send out educational warnings, but in the past borderline extortion letters seemed in order, depending on the mood of the day. Downloading has been tolerated in the Netherlands but France would like to disconnect persistent file-sharers from the Internet.
Another day sees another country’s interpretation of the law when it comes to dealing with file-sharers, this time from sunny Portugal. Following a complaint from the Portuguese version of the RIAA, a court in Portimão has handed down a severe sentence in the country’s first ever case involving a file-sharer. One incredibly unlucky individual has been sentenced to 90 days in jail for uploading music on P2P networks, with the severity of punishment decided upon “to set an example”.
The individual was investigated after a complaint from the Portuguese Phonographic Association (AFP), which was confirmed by João Teixeira, an association member and director-general of EMI in Portugal. News reports suggest the conviction was related to ‘downloading’ music but this is a common mistake. The individual was accused and found guilty of ‘uploading’ or distribution of copyright works and is just one of more than a hundred other complaints under investigation right now.
Mr Teixeira said that although he was pleased with the sentence (calling it a “necessary evil”) he noted that there are other methods that can be employed to stop file-sharers, such as the recent “3 strikes” law in France. However, it seems he will settle for a jail sentence sending the message to the masses: “The problem is people know they are doing something illegal, but they also know there are no consequences, at least until this week,” he said.
Fortunately, it seems that the jail sentence handed down can be replaced by the individual paying fines to the court plus some compensation, although there is no indication of the amounts involved at this stage.
Taking the same stance as some of his associates in the UK, João Teixeira lays the blame for file-sharing at the door of the ISPs, claiming that they encourage people to do so.
Previously: OiNK’s Bail Date Extended for the 4th Time
Next: Coming Soon: Pirate TV Show
70 Responses
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Poor soul… Guess not just the RIAA need to be shot… but all *versions* of the RIAA need to be shot.
It’s insane to send someone to jail for any amount of time for file-sharing.
Oh my God.
WTF!?
This is really screwed up!
Locking people up for file sharing is ridiculous!
guess im lucky to live in croatia. here p2p is legal for personal use. or its not ilegal. anyway, we dont have any laws against it (yet). even our isp (t-com) once advertised flat-rate with unlimited movie and music downloads :)
hope it remains like that for a long long time
Browse and download anonymously and securely. Cover your tracks, be discreet, use port blocking.
Do the above and AFAIK there;s nowhere in the world that you can be prosecuted for filesharing.
What if more people begin to blame the ISP for encouraging people to download, where are we heading then? Back to the 56kb/s age? It’s cowardly of them to blame the ISP when they can use the speed to download legal stuff as well.
They are doing this to scare people. It would be better if they kill3d torrentsites and convict those who are behind the torrentsites instead of having a single convition.
Just wonder why you FOOLS deleted my link to new Dutch law … pathetuc censorism …
well, Mr. Doctorow asked the question when it’s time to declare war on musicindustry!
It is probably about time when “they” managed to get a corrupt system of politicians that give them the laws they demand and judges that sentence people that do fileuploading -downloading without that they demand/pay money for that “service”!
They send filesharers to prison and like to call filesharers Pirates, maybe its about time to act like “real” pirates:
get rid of those “content” guys once and for all!
Jun 28, 2008 at 20:21 by WakuWaku
relax, it is probably just stuck in the MOD clearing chan and will surface once a MOD checked that it is not stupid spam
Relaxe and smoke some weed in case you are from the country that law you linked too ;-)
Nobody wants some unity here …
thats clear.
I try to inform people here and comments are getting deleted.
Go figure.
* Takes beer and walks to Lenny Kravitz concert … (3 min. walk) … *
Hey there, I live in Portugal and I must say that this is f**cking ridiculous, these lawsuits started about 2/3 years ago when the portuguese RIAA started sending letters, trying to blackmail portuguese citzens. The letters asked for money or they would go for a real lawsuit.
This is blackmail, yet, the AFP has more money then the average John or Jane, so they can commit crimes and nothing appens to them, yet if you share music online…
Just a thought.
PS: Sorry if anything doesn’t make sense, justice isn’t teh only thing here that sucks…schools do so aswell.
Set an example … In World War I it was called “por encoureger les autres” and they shot them at dawn.
This is where they depart from a ‘moral’ cause and simple prove what an evil organisation they are.
Sure, in the US it’s a fine and bankruptcy, in Portugal it’s jail time, what happens when they extend operations to China or the Middle East- Hhands chopped off? Executions?
It’s time to go to the mattresses against the MAFIAA.
OMFG…
Why someone hasn’t slaughtered those anti-pirate terrorists is beyond me, sure, the murderers might get life but they will free the world from these a$$holes!
use one-click hosting sites, bittorrent is long gone for me! much more safer.
Said by Lipe das Couves:
“Hey there, I live in Portugal and I must say that this is f**cking ridiculous, these lawsuits started about 2/3 years ago when the portuguese RIAA started sending letters, trying to blackmail portuguese citzens. The letters asked for money or they would go for a real lawsuit.”
Reminds me of a certain law firm named
Davenport Lyons, who send threatening letters to people they’ve
claimed to have downloaded games like Call Of Juarez, Dream Pinball 3D, and Colin McRae Dirt.
@17, LOL! One-click hosts are not safe. Imagine if they gave IP logs to authorities, also there are no encryption on one-click hosts.
Torrents are much much safer, espesically when they are using SSL encapsulation on all sessions.
However, I prefer FTP (file transger protocol).
Actions like these sure do “set an example”. Thanks. :)
THIS NEWS IS FALSE !
No one has been sentence until today.
Not even a bit-torrent tracker (www.btuga.pt) owner, whose site was shutdown by the portuguese authorities.
So, Enigmax, double-check your information before post it.
90 days , they want to give us up to
1million in fines and 5 years in jail OR BOTH
and when you cant pay the fine
the max becomes
100,000Days for the fine and 5 years OR both
essentially over 270 years in prison for the max.
YUP
go for it, see you all on da flip side,
free cable , 3 square meals , cost taxpayers that are left 40K/year
woot screw da taxpayer hollywood yaaaaaaaa
gt even beat up an actor. at least then when yur doing time its for a real crime called assualt….
and ill say it
“1st one you pay the second one is free”
anyone from prison knows exactly what that means……
All my best to this poor bastard… Just shows it could be anyone of us next if the public rather than the torrent sites.
We can’t really blaim the ISPs, the trackers, even the music industry (there trying to milk the cash cow after all, we’re all capable of it). It’s politians who are taking the side of the music industry and forcing the hands of ISPs and consumers that is the problem.
And can we honestly say we’re doing enough to fight it?
The internet was made to be used by everyone, who has the right to really disconnect them?? Artists really aren’t making money today are they? Make some decent music then people will buy it… seriously if most of lil waynes songs can be so popular any idiot that can pronounce the words money and hoes should be able to land higher than him on the boards and people will by your cd’s. If it isn’t about the music get the F*** out of the industy and make money another way… as for file sharing, if you have it and want to share it, you should do so… It should be your free will, not someone else forcing you to decide what to do….
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