Following action by the MPAA-affiliated Anti-Piracy Federation (FAP), in May 2014 a court in the city of Zaragoza ordered local ISPs including Vodafone, Movistar and Orange, to block several sites allegedly engaged in copyright infringement.

Within days, SpanishTracker, PCTorrent.com, NewPCT.com, PCTestrenos.com, Descargaya.es and TumejorTV.com were rendered inaccessible. The injunctions were not permanent, however, and could be appealed by the sites’ operators.

As can be seen in the Alexa statistics shown below, direct traffic to NewPCT took a huge hit following the court order. However, the site quickly set up alternative domains and there were several reports in local media indicating that proxies and VPNs had quickly become popular with those looking to regain access to the site.

But while the court order was cheered by rightsholders keen to see Spain dispel ideas that the country is a safe-haven for file-sharing sites, the celebrations were to be short-lived.

The site blocks, championed by both FAP and the police Computer Security Brigade, were this week lifted by a court in Zaragoza.

A judge sitting in Court of Instruction No.10 found that there “insufficient grounds” for maintaining the domain blockades to protect property rights, “especially when it is not absolutely necessary for the continuation of the investigation.”

El Mundo reports that when the case was being processed back in 2013, a court already found that “the facts alleged did not constitute a crime.”

The ISP blockades against the domains are expected to be lifted in the coming days, leaving local and international rightsholders to ponder whether changes in Spanish legislation due this year will help solve the piracy conundrum.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Soto had been in the computer business since he was 16 and had created several file-sharing applications including Blubster, the so-called “Spanish Napster”. The labels claimed that Soto’s creations were designed to profit from infringements of their copyrights, something which amounted to unfair competition. In trying to prove their case the labels went as far as spying on Soto with a hidden camera.

In 2011, Madrid Commercial Court No. 4 rejected the compensation demands of the labels and ruled in favor of the developer, declaring that his technology was “totally neutral.”

Things quickly improved for Soto. In December 2011 he received a 1.6 million euros grant from the Spanish Government to develop a new search engine called Foofind, a project described by the Government as having “enormous potential for the future of our country.”

Now Soto is back – and ready to cause the biggest file-sharing stir in recent memory by not only launching his own BitTorrent client, but by launching a Foofind-powered (and by default Spanish Government-funded) torrent site.

Add in the fact that Soto is releasing all the code as Free Software to “ensure the open Internet” along with a promise not to infringe on users’ privacy and we have a very potent mix indeed.

“Lately we’ve seen more and more proof that what just a few ‘conspiranoids’ like myself were alerting years ago is now unfortunately becoming true: the war to control the Internet is being won by corrupt governments and corporations,” Soto tells TorrentFreak.

“We believe that the most powerful weapon we have in this important battlefield is Free Software. Constructing search engines, P2P servants, robots and what not, and releasing them all under a free license that lets everybody read the code, modify it, and replicate it, is a way to give control back to the people.”

The end result is two products. The first, called Torrents Downloader, is a no-nonsense torrent client with built-in search and freely available source code. It has no adware, no third-party software ‘additions’, and at v0.1 is just beginning its life.

“We are trying to make the most streamlined Bittorrent client, one that everybody would feel comfortable with. We realized that too often, we engineers tend to build software that we love to use but our moms would hate, and we want to change that!” Soto explains.

The second product in the Spaniard’s offering is almost certainly going to cause chaos. Soto and friends have secured one of the most desirable domain names (torrents.com) to launch possibly the most important torrent site (torrents.fm) in recent memory. The team have not only created a great product, but unlike the vast majority of other torrent site operators they are not hiding away. They are proud of their product and ready to stand by it – no matter what.

“We’ve been fighting for what we believe is right for almost 15 years. I received my first multi-million lawsuit from the majors six years ago. We will keep defending ourselves, and so far we’ve won on every court decision,” Soto says.

“When dealing with those organizations, you can’t avoid being harassed, but you can avoid losing the legal fight. Moreover, we’re open to sustainable partnerships with content companies but not to being controlled by copyright conglomerates that are merely protecting dying, legacy business models.”

The indications are, however, that Soto will indeed find himself in a head-on collision with Hollywood and the major labels. His torrent site is not only beautifully presented (Soto says his team comprises the most talented designers and coders he’s ever met), but also indexes tens of millions of torrents linking to every kind of content imaginable.

“Our robots are crawling everything, they discover new torrent sites on a daily basis. Some have a small number of magnets, others have vast amounts of torrent files. Either way, we work to make everything easily findable. We just surpassed the 30 million files mark and we are rapidly growing,” Soto explains.

So how will Soto and his team make themselves less of a target? Most importantly the site will remove links to unauthorized content within the parameters of applicable law but Soto says that being tough is equally important.

“In the past we have found that by doing the right thing, and fighting every legal attack, not surrendering to injustice, are the only ways to endure. Sooner or later, every industry that believes they can make a living from litigation ends up eaten by their own business model,” he explains.

For the entertainment industries, learning from the lessons of the past would be a good place to start, the Spaniard says.

“History repeats itself. In the past, some of today’s biggest money makers for Hollywood were enemies but they put down their weapons and subsequently made money together, like the infamous fight between broadcasters and cable companies, who now make billions of dollars together. We’re open to talks but we will continue to defend the open internet for society’s sake,” he concludes.

Torrents.fm can be found here and test pilots for Torrents Downloader should head over here.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Leakers come in all shapes and sizes and many have been arrested in countries including the United States and UK. Some are serial leakers with so-called ‘scene’ groups but others have simply got their hands on an album via legal means a couple of days ahead of an official release.

While many of its European neighbors have, up until recently Spain had never identified or arrested a music leaker. At a press conference yesterday, police confirmed that progress has been made.

The story began on October 24 when a posting appeared on the web forum Manerasdevivir.com offering a pre-release copy of an album by Warner-signed rock band Extremoduro. For 10 euros the poster said that site users could obtain a copy, posting a photograph of the CD plus a couple of low-quality rips to show he had the goods in hand.

However, somehow the band itself found out about the offer and decided to try to stem the leak themselves. Through a representative they spoke to the soon-to-be-leaker and pleaded with him not to allow the album into the wild. It didn’t go well.

“Do not threaten to report me, because [if you do] tomorrow I will [release the album] to all music forums and YouTube,” the leaker reportedly responded.

That “cocky” attitude resulted in a complaint to Spain’s Guardia Civil who launched Operation Agila to track the potential leaker down.

The man turned out be a 31-year-old employee of Novodisc, the company hired to manufacture the band’s CD. He worked in the warehouse which backed up his earlier claims of being able to get other albums in advance of their official release. Police raided the man’s home and found evidence that the forum poster and the warehouse worker were one and the same person.

Police say that the arrest marks the first time they have been able to identify and detain someone responsible for leaking music on to the Internet in advance of its official release. But despite their achievement and swift action, they still couldn’t stop the inevitable.

On November 4 the man apparently made good on his threats to dump the album online. According to the IFPI-affiliated industry group Promusicae by November 7 the album was available for download on 54 sites. Warner Music reacted by incurring costs of 120,000 euros to get the album out in double-quick time.

“The leak of [the album] has been particularly severe because the record company that publishes it was forced to advance their release date by 20 days in order to mitigate the effect of the thousands of illegal downloads taking place,” Guardia Civil said in a statement.

“Activity in some illegal file-sharing networks increased by over 1,000 percent as a result of this leak. Mainly affected are the producers, artists and distributors, since a disk that they had invested many months of work in was being distributed in lower quality files without any financial benefit to their rightful owners.”

Without managing to sell even a single copy for a measly 10 euros, the man now faces copyright infringement charges and a sentence of between six months and two years, four years if the case is deemed to be “serious”.

In the meantime, the album – titled “For all Audiences” – has gone straight into Spain’s charts at the number one position.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

But under pressure from the United States in particular, Spain has been forced to introduce new legislation or face the consequences of being labeled a bad player and commercial partner. To that end the country has amended its copyright law and indicated that it is prepared to get tough on facilitators of copyright infringement.

This week there was another sign that when the circumstances are right, Spain is indeed prepared to take a tough line against operators of file-sharing websites.

The case dates back to 2006 when IFPI affiliate PROMUSICAE (Spanish Music Producers) and MPA affiliate the Federation for the Protection of Intellectual Property (FAP) teamed up to file complaints against local file-sharing sites.

What followed was police action in February and March 2007 which saw the closure of 21 websites including Bajatetodo (plus linked sites Bajateseries, Bajateanime and SoloDVDrip) and the arrest of 10 locals, none of whom had previous criminal records.

The case against Bajatetodo and associated sites has just concluded after more than six and a half years and it’s particularly bad news for the site’s former owner.

In a decision handed down October 30 but only just made public, the head of the Castellón criminal court sentenced David León Marín to 18 months in jail along with a fine of 21,000 euros.

The court said Marin had “..made available to Internet users content protected by intellectual property rights without authorization from the legal owner for profit and to the detriment of others.”

In addition to the jail sentence and fines the 32-year-old was handed a ban which forbids him from creating or administering any website for a total of three years.

“With his technical intervention and having indexed, classified and discussed the works, [Marin] made the works directly available for download. It was his direct work and acts as an intermediary which gave access to the work in question,” anti-piracy group FAP said in a statement.

FAP further adds that the verdict is in line with the decision in a case concluded earlier this year which found that the admin of three sites – Divxonline.info, Estrenosonline.es and Seriesonline.es – was guilty of “communicating a work to the public”. He was sentenced to one year and seven months in prison.

“The significance of this ruling is that it confirms what other Spanish judges have also estimated and what we have always maintained in our defense of intellectual property, which is that linking is an act of making available to the internet user and should be considered a continuing offense against intellectual property.”

The decision to jail Marin comes just a day after former Minister of Culture Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde, whose name was used to refer to Spain’s anti-piracy ‘Sinde Law’, said that the problem of unauthorized links appearing online would not be solved by putting citizens in jail.

David León Marín has 10 days to appeal.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Recently Spain has been trying to repair its image and last week the government approved a new bill which if passed will see operators of file-sharing sites jailed for up to six years.

While the U.S. will welcome any kind of clampdown, many believe that there is no legislative way out of the problem. Spaniards are used to the culture of copying and site admins will be able to sidestep the new law by moving their operations overseas.

Recently a new and interesting voice has entered the debate. Carles Pastor, a film and TV producer for many years, recently launched a brand new search engine designed to direct Internet users towards legal video content.

At first glance Beodee looks very much like the new wave of torrent and streaming sites, but this site is financially supported by Spain’s Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports. During its launch earlier this month, Pastor expressed confidence that by catering to the needs of the many thousands currently downloading movies for free, the site can help in the fight against piracy.

In an interview yesterday, Pastor expressed optimism that things can move forward but stressed a need to “totally reinvent” the movie business model to reintroduce those currently using unauthorized sources, adding that chasing down pirates and passing new legislation is not the answer.

“The whole sector cannot be dying at the same time as you see more movies [being produced] than ever,” he noted. “We should instead maximally conform to consumer needs.”

Pastor is hoping to achieve the above through his new platform. Beodee currently indexes around 6,700 feature films, TV shows and documentaries and offers a price comparison service for users looking to find content right now at the cheapest possible price.

The producer acknowledges that things won’t be easy. Spaniards aren’t exactly famous for willingly paying for content but he hopes that with a good service and fair price matters will improve. There are, however, further significant obstacles to overcome, such as restrictions on offering movies still in cinemas and pricing interference from “large North American producers” which limits competition.

Nevertheless, Pastor hopes that with increased marketing and competition, Internet download platforms and search engines like his will help bring an end to the monopoly. Beodee currently has expansion plans for France, Germany, Holland and several Latin American countries. To our knowledge no comparable service operates in the United States.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In January 2012 it was revealed that the United States had threatened to put Spain on a trade blacklist but just months later the country responded by introduced the so-called Sinde Law which was designed to offer greater protections for copyright holders. However, even though the legislation included provisions to close infringing sites, there was clearly no appetite to do so.

Now, a year-and-a-half on, Spain is having another go at appeasing the United States. Under new measures approved yesterday, operators of file-sharing sites – who up until now have been able to operate fairly freely – could have to face a harsh new reality.

The Government-approved amendments to the penal code target owners and administrators of file-sharing sites that link to content hosted elsewhere. Previously these types of sites remained within the law provided they didn’t profit directly from a file-sharing transaction. Under the new amendments, those making even indirect profit from an infringement (such as via advertising) now face jail sentences of up to six years.

But while the government has signaled a crack down in one area, it insists that flexibility will remain in others, particularly against basic search engines and regular users.

“In no case will we act against regular users, neutral search engines, or against P2P programs that allow the sharing of content,” Minister Alberto Ruiz Gallardón said.

The idea of going after sites and not users was welcomed by local writer Lorenza Silva.

“You can not criminalize the entire population,” he told Elpais. “But making life difficult for the biggest contributor to the problem and going after those who generate the most benefits from it is the right strategy.”

But already questions are being raised over the new amendments. To show that a file-sharing site operator has committed a crime under the law it will be necessary to show that there has been a “significant breach of intellectual property rights” but there are no clear guidelines on what that actually means.

And for Spain, a country in which it is commonplace to buy counterfeit DVDs on the streets and where youth unemployment has reached 56%, there are many who think the government has got its priorities wrong.

“To jail? We’re not going to put anyone in jail for copying a disc or links. It sounds more like a pantomime,” local rock musician Sr Chinarro told Elpais.

Now that the Cabinet has approved the amendments they will head over to parliament for debate. Only time will tell if the government will really follow through with its threats against local sites or whether the population will respond by spending more money on media in any meaningful way. While there is a chance of the former, the latter seems a distant dream.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Four months later Spain introduced the so-called Sinde Law which was designed to offer greater protections for rightsholders. It included a provision to close infringing sites but to date that has never been used.

“More than ever, websites providing or linking to illegal content can be secure in the knowledge that takedown measures are nonexistent and result in no consequences,” the international Intellectual Property Alliance complained last year.

However, all that could be about to change. Today the Spanish Government unveiled its plans for amendments to its copyright law that will excite copyright holders eager for protection. During a press conference Culture Minister José Ignacio Wert said that the reforms have three objectives.

The first, with a nod to the SGAE scandal in 2011, is to ensure that content rights management entities operate with “greater transparency” than they did in the past, with fines being levied if irregularities are found.

The second objective is to crack down on those who facilitate “large-scale” downloading of movies, music, TV shows and other cultural content.

Finally there is to be a review of the right to make private copies, for which rightsholders are currently compensated through a levy on blank media. As we will see, objectives two and three are linked.

In respect of piracy, the reforms aim to boost the powers of the Comisión de Propiedad Intelectual (Copyright Commission). The draft, known as ‘Lassalle Law’ after Secretary of State for Culture Jose Maria Lassalle, envisions the Commission obtaining new power to deal with infringement.

Sites will be required to remove wide ranges of infringing content on request, such as that from a particular rightsholder or artist, without having to deal with each instance individually as is the case today. Failure to comply will be costly, with penalties of up to 300,000 euros ($388,400) for sites that repeatedly fail to remove illicit content.

“This is about putting in measures to prevent recurrence,” said Culture Minister Wert, who went on to clarify that search engines such as Google, that may unwittingly link to content but comply with takedown requests, would be exempt.

Further augmenting the tools available, the draft sees the Commission being empowered to force companies to remove their advertising from illicit sites. In line with moves already underway in the United States and elsewhere in Europe, payment processors will also be forced to withdraw their services.

Finally, the amendments to the right to make private copies will be of real interest to users of file-sharing networks such as BitTorrent and eD2K. Currently Internet users aren’t prosecuted since their downloads are covered by a levy on blank media, but the draft envisions these freedoms being removed – and then some.

The reforms see the right to private copying only covering legally obtained media, meaning that in theory file-sharers could be prosecuted for their downloads from unauthorized sources. But that’s not all. Even though the blank media levy will be removed, compensation will still be paid to rightsholders. However, in future it will be the general Spanish tax-payer footing the bill, rather than just those doing the copying.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

On March 1st the Sinde law went into effect and now, a month on, the Spanish Ministry of Culture has revealed that in total almost 300 official complaints have been received.

The Comisión de Propiedad Intelectual (Copyright Commission) has received 213 copyright complaints plus 79 closure requests from rightsholders against specific websites accused of online piracy.

The Commission will investigate all allegations and has the power to dismiss claims or set the ball rolling for further action, including the removal of links said to infringe copyright through to the court-ordered closure or ISP blockade of entire websites.

Although the process between complaint and site shutdown can in theory be completed in about a month, the Ministry of Culture reports that no punitive action has yet been taken in respect of the 300 complaints.

It is not clear how many of the complaints being processed, if any, are the result of a hacktivist sabotage campaign launched on the day the Sinde law came into effect.

The group Hackivistas encouraged sites to link to a copyrighted track from artist Eme Navarro, a member of the music rights group SGAE but also an outspoken critic of the Sinde law. Hundreds of websites reportedly linking to Navarro’s song without permission, with Navarro subsequently reporting them to the Ministry of Culture.

While the initial aim of the campaign was to overload the Commission, it was also designed to discover more about the uncertain takedown process. Current thinking suggests that Spanish hosting companies will be asked to shut down non-compliant websites and ISPs will be asked to block those hosted outside Spain.

In theory it’s possible to shut down sites within a month, which could mean that the first closures from the first batch reported by the Ministry of Culture will be seen in April.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

One of his arguments is that Promusicae, the well-known recording industry outfit, is violating antitrust laws. The group has set up a digital system to send music to radio stations for airplay, which the professor says is unfair since non-member companies and independent artists can’t join.

The music group was not happy with this accusation and has filed a lawsuit against the IE Business School professor, claiming that he defamed the group and threatened their honor.

Through the lawsuit Promusicae demands 20,000 euros in damages and a public apology. They claim that the accusations are false and state that “some of the information supplied on the website is false and violates the honor and good name of the group.”

The professor, on the other hand, says his claim was well researched and that he consulted experts in competition law before he wrote it up. And even if that’s not the case, Dans believes he has the right to make such claims in an open and free society.

“In short, what I said in the article was my opinion, protected by the right to freedom of expression and, as I documented it properly and professionally, the right to freedom of information.”

” I stand by my opinion,” he writes in a new blog post. “Of course it may be debatable, but even if it were not well founded and I was wrong, I can not think how it can be an attack against the honor of a society such as Promusicae.”

Dans says the music group is only out to censor critics like himself.

“The reality? Promusicae are using the ‘honor’ argument to restrict the right to freedom of expression and information. After many years of direct confrontations and repeatedly being humiliated in numerous public forums, now they want to shut me up through a lawsuit.”

“They do not want to be mentioned or talked about,” Dans writes.

The irony of the situation is that the lawsuit is having completely the opposite effect. The news has been widely covered in the Spanish media over the past 24-hours and it’s being shared in English too.

A classic example of the Streisand Effect.

Dans is now taking the opportunity to ask small labels and artists to help him prove his point. So instead of hiding the accusations through a lawsuit, Promusicae has made itself more vulnerable than before.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Threatened with being put on a United States trade blacklist, the Government passed the so-called ‘Sinde Law’ in a rush late last year. The law allows for the blocking of allegedly infringing sites based on reports from copyright holders, a position similar to that proposed by the US SOPA bill.

Today the Sinde law went into effect and immediately it was met with resistance from opponents. The group Hackivistas was quick to organize a rather unique form of protest. They encouraged sites to link to a copyrighted track from the artist Eme Navarro, who’s a member of the music rights group SGAE, but critical of the Sinde law.

While Navarro generally publishes his music under a Creative Commons license, he created an “all rights reserved” track specifically for the protest. Thanks to the hacktivist campaign hundreds of websites are now linking to this copyrighted song without permission, and Navarro reported a first batch of sites to the Ministry of Culture early this morning.

As a result, the commission tasked with reviewing all the requests will be overloaded with complaints. All the reported sites have to be processed on order of arrival, so the protest will significantly slow down this review process.

“The aim of this action is testing this law and being the first ones who use it in order to show the absurdity and the censorship that it will bring,” the hacktivists say commenting on their action.

The sites participating in the campaign do risk being blocked by Internet providers, but according to the law they have to be notified about the alleged infringement first. Then they get the chance to remove the infringing link to avoid being blocked.

Besides from the “sabotage” angle, another goal of the protest is to find out how the takedown process works. Right now there is still much uncertainty about how the commission will operate and how websites will eventually be blocked, a Hacktivistas member told TorrentFreak.

“Nobody knows how they will shut down websites. We suspect that they will ask Spanish companies hosting the websites to shut them down, and that Spanish service providers will block websites that are hosted outside of Spain.”

“They will also censor foreign websites, so anyone in the world can join us. We want to check what happens in every case,” the hacktivist added.

Hacktivistas is known for their controversial campaigns. In 2008 the group gathered in front of the headquarters of the socialist party to share copyrighted files in public. The police knew what was going on but didn’t touch them, suggesting that P2P downloading is legal.

In the years that followed the group wrote handbooks to avoid internet censorship, mapped copyright lobby networks, and launched fake governmental campaigns to promote copyleft and free access to cultural goods.

Joining the current protest is easy, websites can add a link to the infringing track through a simple piece of code provided on the campaign website. Just make sure not to ask Eme Navarro for permission.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.