Spanish Gov't Moves Forward On New Law To Make File Sharing And Links Sites Illegal

from the that-didn't-last-long dept

Tue, Mar 23rd 2010 3:25pm — Mike Masnick

A bunch of free culture sites got pretty excited recently when a Spanish court ruled that file sharing sites, as well as links sites, weren't illegal. Of course, we noted this was hardly a new thing. Spanish courts had already made similar rulings in the past. In fact, the timing of this ruling seemed particularly bad, since we'd noted a few months ago that there were proposals being pushed to change copyright law in Spain. So it should come as little surprise that just days after that last ruling, the gov't has started moving forward with getting the new law approved, and many expect it will be in place within a few months.

The new law sounds particularly bad as well. It would set up a governmental bureaucracy that could simply denounce any site as illegal, if it feels that it offers links to infringing content. Once "denounced," the Spanish high court would get a grand total of four days to determine if the site should be shut down -- and the only reason why it would be allowed to not shut the site down would be if there were clear concerns about freedom of expression. Basically, if the gov't feels a site has too many "unauthorized" links, it gets shut down with minimal review. So much for a more balanced approach to copyright law.

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Filed Under: copyright, file sharing, legal, p2p, spain

17 Comments

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NAMELESS.ONE, 23 Mar 2010 @ 4:17pm

so when do we start teh world wide revolution?
so far i has me a lawyer, a politician , an actor and GENE Simmons on a pitch fork, WHO else do we add...
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2010 @ 4:31pm

they are just doing what is needed. lawlessness on the internet isnt a tolerable situation.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2010 @ 4:36pm

Re:
You mean the sites that are following current law are lawless? Oh, silly me, lawlessness just means "the current law doesn't favor me!!!!!!!!!!"
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Sneeje (profile), 23 Mar 2010 @ 4:38pm

Re:
I'm sorry, perhaps my sarcasm detector isn't calibrated correctly, but how exactly do unauthorized links = lawlessness? Aren't there laws against copyright infringement, which include due process (while this one doesn't)?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2010 @ 4:42pm

Re: Re:
I suspect he's just a troll.
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CrassIndividual, 23 Mar 2010 @ 4:45pm

The internet is file sharing. You could not see this web page to make your comment without it. The internet is not lawless. You just do not like how the laws apply. Much like the prohibition of alcohol in the United States these great new laws will fail. I suggest that you find a new way to sell music like many other already have or get a hair cut and get real job. Do I owe you money for that last sentence?
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James, 23 Mar 2010 @ 4:46pm

Interesting
Posting a hyperlink is essentially a form of free speech,.. if you want to persecute someone you go after the person hosting the content.

The copyright nazis are almost as bad as the drink nazis who try to go after bars because a drunk drinks too much and drives him or herself home.
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The Groove Tiger (profile), 23 Mar 2010 @ 5:12pm

Re:
I agree, current laws allow an intolerable amount of lawlessness on the internet. We need new laws to make the lawlessness unlawful.
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teknosapien, 23 Mar 2010 @ 5:44pm

huh
guess they won't have Google to push around any more
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CrassIndividual, 23 Mar 2010 @ 5:59pm

The only lawlessness I see in this equation is in the way corporate copyright holders are trying to make a crime out of a mole hill and a mountain into a kangaroo. A Company is not a person. They should not even have the right to hold copy rights let alone get away with accuse thousands of people of infringing those rights when they knowingly have no intention of proving their case in court. The only thing they can prove is that if you do not have the money to fight them they will they try bury you. To top it off they have gone so far as to install a IP cop paid for by my taxes. They all need to go the way of tower. My local Record shop is doing great. They just opened another location. I do not say independent record shop because there are no (corporate)dependent record stores around here any more. They all died because they sold mostly crap. well there is borders books. They have some music. Same with Barnes and Noble. Good places for classical.

But anyway. You get the point. Corporations are the lawless criminals that are actual committing crimes, copyright infringement is not a crime! yet...
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Mar 2010 @ 8:36pm

Re: Interesting
so is yelling fire in a crowded room, bashing gays or teaching holocaust denial.
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NAMELESS.ONE, 23 Mar 2010 @ 11:15pm

@11
so what are you trying to say TAM
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Chargone (profile), 24 Mar 2010 @ 1:20am

Re: Re: Interesting
one can make a case that the first two seriously endanger people in an immediate manner.

though you're probably right on the last one.

which is part of why so few countries have blanket freedom of speech. (and an aweful lot of even the more liberal ones have censors as an official part of the government structure)
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Mario, 24 Mar 2010 @ 4:02am

Re: Re: Re: Interesting
"though you're probably right on the last one."[n.a. holocaust denial]

Actually, holocaust denial is a perfect example of the absurdities that censorship leads to. I don't deny the holocaust, but I'm also against of a group of people forbidding another group of people denying it for no other reason than that they can. There is concrete evidence that the holocaust happened. What evidence do the holocaust deniers have to support their argument? None, of course. And if people would stop conflating hard facts with opinions, then all the leverage of the holocaust deniers, or, for that matter, of all manipulators and people spreading disinformation would go up in a puff of smoke.

If the standard operating procedure for all these kinds of debates would be based around telling the other guy "Show me the proof!", then there would be no need for any kind of censorship. In reality, almost nobody starts with "Show me the proof!". Most of the people start with "If you say so, then you must be speaking the truth." That grants fact status to any and all opinions, which is much, much worse than you could imagine. I'll stop here because this has the potential to evolve in a novella-length diatribe and I don't have the time for it right now and most of the other readers probably don't have the stomach for reading it either.
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Joel (profile), 24 Mar 2010 @ 9:49am

The future...
I think the kids today will all have to study law to learn what not to do or how wo get around these things.
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Dave, 24 Mar 2010 @ 12:09pm

Gets worse.
Sounds as if they have been talking to Mr. Mandelson. Mandybill, anyone? No......on second thoughts, don't let him see this. Might give him even more crackpot ideas to rush through the UK parliament.
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CrassIndividual, 24 Mar 2010 @ 5:45pm

Seconded Mario and dually noted.
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