
Spain's new piracy penalty: Six years in jail - Libertatea
http://www.zdnet.com/spains-new-piracy-penalty-six-years-in-jail-7000020973/
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ashray
6 years is way too much for a non violent crime. There are rapists and murders
and drug dealers who get by with less at times. It's amazing what the right
kind of lobbying can do in this world.

On the other hand, I personally see this as part of a policy of appeasement
and am now waiting for some huge 'donations/low interest loans' to come out to
Spain from the USA/MPAA/RIAA/etc.

I'm not Spanish but I have seen the culture of copying and sharing and using
pirated software that exists in Spain. A penalty like this may shut down a
file locker or two, or may even take down a few torrent sites, but it will do
nothing to deter file sharing in general - what's more ridiculous is that the
proposal clearly states that it's in line with the people's culture to
generally share software/music/movies/games/etc.

Given that it's such a half assed effort it could only be a response to
pressure from the US, a response tuned to not raise too many eyebrows in Spain
but at the same time unlock some bonuses/favors from the US govt.

Ultimately I think this has come as subsequent pressure and a fallout from the
whole Rojadirecta debacle a few years ago.[1] (those guys basically sued the
US government for seizing their domain... AND WON[2]!)

1 -
[http://torrentfreak.com/tag/rojadirecta/](http://torrentfreak.com/tag/rojadirecta/)

2 - [http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-returns-seized-domains-to-
stream...](http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-returns-seized-domains-to-streaming-
links-site-after-18-months-120830/)

~~~
outworlder
Any jail time AT ALL is too much for non-violent crime. If a citizen is no
threat to others, it is not necessary to take away his freedom (and along it,
his job, and contact with his family). This is a monetary crime at best
(usually, without profit for the pirate) and a monetary compensation is in
order, nothing more. A hefty fine can hurt a lot and is a deterrent, but not
taking away the ability to support oneself.

~~~
a2kadet
You think Bernie Madoff should have walked?

~~~
rayiner
I do. You can't have a broad policy of "non-violent crimes = no jail time" if
you do a case-by-case of "who we like" and "who we don't like." Because that's
why Weev and other hackers are getting jail time.

~~~
MysticFear
So the worst penalty for a financial crime is to lose all your money? Low odds
of being caught, very high reward, and assuming you didn't have money to begin
with a zero penalty for being caught. Seems like a financial criminal's dream.

~~~
rayiner
If you have no money to begin with, you're probably in no position to commit a
real financial crime. "Poor people financial crimes" are still crimes
involving some level of physical violence (breaking into a house, picking
someone's pocket, etc).

If you do have money to begin with, taking it all away and imposing fines/wage
garnishment as penalties are a major deterrent.

~~~
ledge
"Rich people financial crimes" involve an aspect of violence too, or at least
can have the same impact as violence. When Bernie Madoff screws someone out of
their savings, and that person then can't pay their insurance/medical bills, I
would say that fits under a broad definition of violence.

For someone with Madoff's connections, it wouldn't be hard to acquire a false
identity and resume some kind of low-level fraud. Putting him in prison is the
best way to protect the public IMO.

I personally think that prison sentences are just as valid for non-violent
crime as violent crime anyway. It's a disincentive, it's aptly punitive in
cases such as Madoff's, and it makes it harder for the offender to re-offend.

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davekinkead
Perhaps this is not the best example given that Spain isn't from a common law
tradition but I find the encroachment of criminal penalties for what are
essentially civil matters very disturbing.

Criminal law exists to sanction actions that threaten society enough that the
state is justified punish offenders ie murder or physical theft. Civil law by
contrast exists to right wrongs between private parties ie suing for
compensation.

Copyright violations strike me as a clear case for tort. It's a commercial,
not a penal matter, but thanks to effective lobbying, the state has now become
the MPAA's commercial lawyer.

~~~
Silhouette
_Civil law by contrast exists to right wrongs between private parties ie suing
for compensation._

I'd be the first to agree that draconian penalties for copyright infringement
are inappropriate, but I don't think the above is a strong argument, partly
because it assumes that whoever is being sued for copyright infringement
actually has sufficient funds to make good on any harm they've done, and
partly because it assumes that harm can be quantified to a standard a court
will accept. Neither of those things is necessarily true, though substantial
harm may come to the copyright holder who has been wronged all the same.

~~~
reginaldjcooper
Okay, then you can jail people if and only if you prove beyond a reasonable
doubt that the downloaders they enabled were going to buy that music
otherwise. Criminal court? Criminal court standards.

Six years is still pretty fucking ridiculous. And I somehow doubt the
newspapers will see any management go to jail for grabbing people's photos
from Flickr.

~~~
coldtea
> _Okay, then you can jail people if and only if you prove beyond a reasonable
> doubt that the downloaders they enabled were going to buy that music
> otherwise._

Providing pirated content is against the law whether the downloaders were
going to buy the music otherwise or not.

So I don't see how your requirement applies.

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bostonpete
This should not come as a surprise to anyone. Spain has been trying to crack
down on piracy since the 16th century.

~~~
na85
If I wanted "witty" puns I'd read reddit comments.

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txutxu
Spanish here (living outside).

I've work for the government and their lawyers, in companies based on pirated
software (from MS, from Adobe, etc).

Can we please start fighting piracy there ?

Then we should follow fighting piracy in the power positions.

We have a lot of that, and trust me, even on public evidence of the crime,
they don't go a single year to jail.

Maybe when all that is clean, we should think on how we can waste our jails
better...

~~~
susi22
Can you revise your comment? I can't understand it.

~~~
balabaster
I think what this person means is that he's worked for both government, their
lawyers and private corporations where there is evidence of large amounts of
illegal software in use.

Also they are saying "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." i.e.
they make sure their own house is in order before passing judgment on anyone
else. Get rid of all their own illegal software and only then are they in a
position to charge others with the same crime after all, nobody is above the
law.

... except those with enough money or information to bribe, blackmail or
topple governments and assassinate other world figures with impunity.

------
Mordor
Spain, a country with high unemployment, takes a step towards crushing its IT
infrastructure.

~~~
Nux
I'm not sure about the IT infrastructure, but it's quite fantastic what's
going on!

~~~
kaonashi
The high unemployment is fantastic? Or the response in the face of it is?

~~~
aktau
perhaps he meant "fantastic" as in "Imaginative or fanciful; remote from
reality". As in, whoever thought of that law must be having the best dealer
connections.

~~~
kaonashi
The whole situation in Europe is just a collective descent into madness, led
by those in high offices. The only surprising part is that they're about 20
years past due.

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benologist
a) it's a proposal

b) it's for the people operating/owning "link" sites that exist purely to
profit from and facilitate piracy. These people gamble the income from
millions or billions of monthly ad impressions are worth it, they don't
deserve a free pass.

c) users of such sites are not being targeted, except by the site owners
peddling mountains of spyware and affiliate scamware all over their sites

~~~
k-mcgrady
If this is all true I honestly don't see much wrong with this law. 6 years
might seem like a lot for a non-violent crime like this but with the amount of
money those sites can make anything less probably wouldn't be much of a
deterrent.

~~~
zimbatm
"6 years might seem like a lot for a non-violent crime like this but ...". 6
years is a lot for a non-violent crime. Full-stop. It doesn't matter if you
like the practice or not.

What happens if you have a legitimate publication and link to a source that
happens to also have illegal material ? This opens a can of worms.

~~~
benologist
Nobody cares about incidental linking to infringing material. What they care
about are streaming sites and file locker sites. SurfTheChannel is a good
example, it was an index of links to pretty much any tv show or movie hosted
on sites like the former Mega network etc:

"At the site's peak in mid-2009 it generated up to £50,000 ($78,500) per month
in advertising revenue, and was more popular than Facebook"

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfthechannel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfthechannel)

~~~
betterunix
So the site was more popular then Facebook, and therefore, we must take it
down to protect the business interests of the RIAA and MPAA? Where are all
those "vote with your dollar" people now? It sounds to me like people voted.

~~~
dragonwriter
The people with the most dollars voted with them -- for a government that
protect _their_ interests over the people with smaller numbers of dollars.

------
rvschuilenburg
"after pressure from the US over its piracy record".

~~~
ghostDancer
As seen on the first group of leaks from wikileaks, Joe Biden pressured and
threatened spanish government till they made a law then called Biden-Sinde or
Sinde , as it was not enough for RIAA/MPAA lobbies, now we are going to have
the new one and they have removed the right to remove DRM for backup personal
copies also (which existed before) , when the corporation masters order the US
politicians obey when the US politicians order the lame spanish politicians
crawl and obey to their masters. Edited to add that the piracy numbers they
usually use for Spain are all lies.

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altero
> However, users of these link-sharing sites will not be targeted under the
> new law and search engines and peer-to-peer users will also be exempt.

Most of these sites are actually warez search engines. This makes this law
pretty toothless.

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balabaster
Er, am I missing something... doesn't this violate section 20 of their
constitution which guarantees a right to freedom of expression?

~~~
matthewmacleod
You're missing something. Regardless of the rights or wrongs of this
particular situation, it's self-evident that a right to freedom on expression
is not _carte blanche_ to publish anything – you're still rightly subject to
controls.

~~~
ds9
OK, there could be an argument that _knowingly_ linking to infringing files is
outside of freedom of expresssion. But the article says nothing about a
knowledge criterion.

It says "owners of sites found to be making money [directly or indirectly!]
from linking to pirated material will face prison sentences of up to six years
and the closure of their site. ... users of these link-sharing sites will not
be targeted under the new law"

This is even worse. _Users_ who knowingly post links to infinging files would
be a more appropriate target than the site owners. Under the new law, anyone
who allows user posts will have to pre-moderate everything or prohibit users
posting links?

The obvious problem with the law is much more basic: how can the site owner
know whether there is or is not infringement at the other end of a link? Are
site owners expected to somehow have a list of all copyrightable works _and_
know the terms on which each of them is licensed to each recipient?

Placing the burden on the operator of the linking site creates a situation
where no one will dare to make a link, because if it turns out to go to
something infringing the linker will be subject to prosecution.

------
acd
Use Ubuntu, employ programmers without work in Spain to replace proprietary
software with opensource government systems. Save a lot in the long run on
license costs. Proprietary software companies will become desperate and offer
huge software rebates.

~~~
CaptchaReader
This has been done already for years. Regions like Andalucia, Galicia or
Extremadura have been enforcing the use of free software, even creating their
own Ubuntu based distros. It's not software piracy what is being targeted
here, but movies and music. The software industry can't (or doesn't want to)
lobby as hard as the entertainment industry.

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snarfy
This isn't even about Spain. Once the precedent is set internationally, they
will argue they need to bring the US laws in line with international law.

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cliveowen
Jeez, if I was Spanish I would probably get the chair.

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bane
This makes as much sense as life in prison without the possibility of parole
for littering.

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Fuxy
US can't impose trade sanctions on a EU members without incurring the wrath of
the EU so very unlikely.

~~~
Nux
Really? Cause it looks to me like USA is doing exactly whatever the fuck it
wants.

In the end a lot of this is done behind the scenes, EU spirit may be OK, but
the signing is done by people and people can be threatened, bribed etc.

~~~
atlanticus
Pretending the Spanish government has no responsibility for its actions makes
it so much easier for the US to get its way, but I guess it makes people feel
better.

~~~
contingencies
The Spanish government has the primary responsibility of protecting its own
citizen's interests, chiefly basic freedoms.

