

Spain: Linking to Copyright Infringing Material Not Infringement - srl
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/08/spanish-court-rules-linking-potential-copyright

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yason
However, I don't follow the opposite train of thought.

If linking to copyright infringing material is infringement itself, then it
surely must be infringing to link to material that is linking to copyright
infringing material? Otherwise Piratebay could just give pointers to 3rd party
services that host torrents that point to infringing material. (Well, magnet
links could be considered links to torrents that link to warez.)

But that technically leads to a situation where you can't link to any site
that could host links (to links) to infringing material. Mention piratebay.org
-- oops, a link. Or you previously linked to some site that now has these
copyright infringing links. Boom, you're infringing copyright.

That might be nerd's thinking but you really do have to have the line drawn
somewhere because laws must generally be well-defined. You can't have a gray
area where legality of something depends on the whim of the case. Linking is
either illegal or it isn't, and if it's illegal it must be clear what
constitutes linking.

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nextparadigms
It says linking to copyright infringing material is _not_ infringement.

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kasmura
... in Spain

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eLobato
Yes and no. Case law (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_law>) is one of the
most powerful tools to defend yourself in court. Obviously you can't be
reporting a judicial decision taken in Iran to sue a group of homosexuals and
kill them, but the thing is that you can refer to previous judicial decisions
if sued in a court within the European union. In fact in this judicial process
the lawyer referred to similar binding precedents in the Netherlands. I'm not
quite sure about how the legal system works there in the US but I guess that
citing previous sentences of EU's courts can be of certain help when sued for
something as ridiculous as this (i'm not 100% certain about this tho). Source:
I'm Spanish and the SGAE (equivalent for the american RIAA in Spain) is always
on the newspapers' frontpage for such idiotic things...

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tassl
Even though I live in the US I am not really sure how the royalties system
works here. In Spain there is a society, called SGAE (Sociedad General de
Autores Espanyoles) that collects the money from the artist that they
represent. This society is really related with the current political party in
power (PSOE) and since the judicial power has been consistently saying what
the current links says (linking to copyright infringing material is no
infringement) they are pursuing a law to evade the judges and close websites
without any requirement from the judge.

If a hair salon (for example) in the US plays music of an artist, do they have
to pay a canon/fee for playing this music? I am asking because I am still
shocked than in Spain they have to pay the SGAE...

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saool
It's Sociedad General de Autores y Editores, and it doesn't collect money
anymore.

EU rendered their business illegal and recent corruption news obliged the
government to pass a bill taking away their right to collect, afaik.

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tassl
You're right about the name, but I think they still collect money, what
they're not collecting right now is just the digital canon.

~~~
mobiplayer
They're not collecting the digital canon _from companies_.

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maqr
Spain generally seems to have the right take on intellectual property. They
also do not allow software patents.

I wonder if Spain could become the new hub for startups.

~~~
tassl
Investment in Spain has been (traditionally) far away from technology.
Starting a company in Spain is not easy and people are generally looking for a
stable job, they don't want to take the risk of starting a new company.

In my opinion, Spain doesn't have (in general) the culture of the entrepreneur
even though some cities (like Barcelona) are trying to change it (22@, for
example: <http://www.22barcelona.com/index.php?lang=en>).

~~~
tluyben2
Agree here; it's very painful to find people with an entrepreneur mindset in
Spain. Even if you find someone who _says_ he/she is an entrepreneur, usually
they are very far removed from it compared to other countries; very little to
no risk taking, always that hang to stability in income and living situation.
Comfort over anything else.

On the other hand, this does open opportunities; Spain has one of the highest
unemployment % of the world because of this; people want stable jobs and they
want them provided on a silver platter, but there really is not too little
work. If you open a company, on your own or with other people (foreigners
included), there is tons of work for people who want to work. And then this
unwillingness to take (even very small) risks, is a competitive advantage.

