Spain outlaws P2P filesharing
Published June 29th, 2006
A Spanish intellectual property law has finally banned unauthorized peer-to-peer file-sharing in Spain, making it a civil offense even to download content for personal use.
The legislation, approved by Congress on Thursday, toughens previous provisions. An early May circular from Spain’s fiscal general del estado, or chief prosecutor, allowed downloads for purely personal use.
Now Spaniards caught grabbing content from, say, eMule, will have to reimburse rights holders for losses — although such losses will be difficult for authorities to track.
But the government is going after Internet service providers; it’s a criminal offense for ISPs to facilitate unauthorized downloading.
The law also introduces a small tax to be levied on all blank media — from a blank CD to mobile phones and even a memory stick. Computer hard disks and ADSL lines have been left out of the legislation despite their widespread use for illegally copying music and films. The money collected will be paid back to the owner of the copyright.
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