Spanish Sports Streaming Site Declared Legal

from the expect-more-anti-Spanish-sentiment dept

Tue, May 11th 2010 4:02am — Mike Masnick

We've already covered how Spain has extremely reasonable copyright laws -- which recognize that you should not blame someone just for pointing to copyrighted material, and which allows for non-commercial copying. Of course, this has greatly upset the entertainment industry, with both the recording industry and the movie industry making random threats against Spain, leading to efforts to change copyright laws in Spain to make those industries happy -- even as an economic analysis of the changes suggest they would be a mistake.

Giving more ammunition to the industry folks, though, Chris alerts us to the news that an appeals court in Spain has upheld a lower court decision protecting a website that indexes downloads and streams of sporting events. Once again, the court points out that the site itself doesn't host any of the material itself, and thus is not infringing on copyrights. I'm not familiar with how the Spanish judicial system works, but apparently this ruling cannot be appealed.

But, of course, with the efforts to change copyright law well under way, I imagine this ruling will just be used as another reason to change the law, rather than another example of a reasonable ruling that focuses on not blaming those who just point elsewhere. Still, this ruling reminds me of the Israeli court ruling from last year that found that watching sports streams online was fair use and not copyright infringement. But, of course, if ACTA gets approved, thanks to US lobbyists, such interpretations of copyright law will quickly get stamped out...

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Filed Under: copyright, spain, streaming

17 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2010 @ 5:56am

spain is quickly painting itself into a legal corner. they will pretty much be the opposite of every other western country.
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RD, 11 May 2010 @ 6:05am

Funny also ....
What is also funny is how, now that ACTA has been released publicly, and after several articles on the topic here, virtually NONE of the Big Media Corp lapdogs are commenting here on how great ACTA is and how we are just being alarmist for no good reason. Suddenly, after the public release, there has been almost no comments from these people. Funny how that is.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2010 @ 6:11am

Re:
Haha, poor little spammer. Go somewhere else.
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Richard (profile), 11 May 2010 @ 9:16am

Re:
spain is quickly painting itself into a legal corner. they will pretty much be the opposite of every other western country.

Being in a minority does not mean being wrong. Historically the minority have turned out to be right time after time after time.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2010 @ 9:29am

Re: Re:
the minority is often like a whiny child, screaming at the top of their lungs until the majority gives in a little to make them shut up. it doesnt make them right, it just makes them annoying. spain can join sweden, china, and russia as havens for widespread copyright violations. i wonder which government officials run tube sites and tv websites?
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Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2010 @ 11:15am

Re: Re: Re:
Don't forget Canada, the US, Brazil, and every other country where you think justice is too difficult.
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KevinJ (profile), 11 May 2010 @ 11:46am

Re: Re: Re:
"the minority is often like a whiny child, screaming at the top of their lungs until the majority gives in a little to make them shut up. it doesnt make them right, it just makes them annoying."

You do know that your statement perfectly describes the RIAA and the MPAA, right? They whine and complain that things aren't fair. And that if they don't get their way they'll take their toys and go home.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2010 @ 12:12pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
except they own the toys. you dont. sorry, nice try to spin something, but the reality it there.
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KevinJ (profile), 11 May 2010 @ 12:36pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You don't do very well on reading comprehension do you?

If you look at my post again you'll notice I said "their toys." And since English doesn't seem to be your strong point, "their" is the possessive form of "they" (dictionary.com) that in this case means the toys belong to the subject of the statement (the RIAA and MPAA). And whether or not they own the toys doesn't change the fact they continue to act like a petulant child by constantly demanding that the government bend to their will.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2010 @ 5:38pm

Re: Re: Re:
Projection is amusing.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2010 @ 8:22pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
so is arrogance, mike.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2010 @ 9:46pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Which you have in spades, Matilda.
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Anonymous Coward, 11 May 2010 @ 9:48pm

Re: Funny also ....
That's what happens when you're standing on a principled bedrock of shiny plastic discs.

"THEM STEALERS ARE DESTROYING OUR DEMOCRATIC INDUSTRY!!!"
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Anonymous Coward, 12 May 2010 @ 7:45am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
TAM: Keeping the tinfoil industry alive in style.
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