Portugal: File Sharing For Personal Use Is Legal And IP Addresses Are Not People
from the holy-sanity,-batman dept
In a move that should remind you of Spain's ruling that personal file-sharing was legal, before America's entertainment industry helpfully wrote the Spanish people a new law (wait...what!!?!?), file-sharing for personal use has been declared legal in Portugal. How could something so monumental happen, you wonder? Well, funny story: the entertainment industry made it happen.The tale goes something like this. An anti-piracy group sponsored by the entertainment industry called ACAPOR got all uppity about Portuguese filesharing a year ago and decided to helpfully deliver boxes (yes, physical boxes) of IP addresses suspected of filesharing infringing files to Portugal's Attorney General's office. They did this while wearing shirts that proclaimed "Piracy is illegal" in case anyone thought they were there for a cause that is actually useful and/or interesting.
“We are doing anything we can to alert the government to the very serious situation in the entertainment industry,” ACAPOR commented at the time, adding that “1000 complaints a month should be enough to embarrass the judiciary system.”Secure in their knowledge that justice would be done, ACAPOR's minions then went home and did whatever it is these kinds of people do when they aren't making fantastic amounts of noise and generally making fools of themselves.
Well, as is their duty, the folks at the Attorney General's office did look through the boxes of evidence ACAPOR had provided...and promptly threw them out.
The Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DIAP) looked into the complaints and the prosecutor came back with his order this week. Contrary to what the anti-piracy group had hoped for, the 2,000 IP-addresses will not be taken to court. Worse for ACAPOR, the prosecutor goes even further by ruling that file-sharing for personal use is not against the law.Oops. Turns out those "Piracy is illegal" shirts are as ill-informed about the law in Portugal as the people wearing them. Especially since, for good measure, the AG informed ACAPOR that IP addresses are not people, so their evidence wasn't so much "evidence" as it was "a horrific waste of time and trees".
“From a legal point of view, while taking into account that users are both uploaders and downloaders in these file-sharing networks, we see this conduct as lawful, even when it’s considered that the users continue to share once the download is finished.”
Now, not one to let facts get in the way of saying something stupid, ACAPOR boss Nuno Pereira pushed back on the AG's office.
“Personally I think the prosecutors just found a way to adapt the law to their interest – and their interest is not having to send 2,000 letters, hear 2,000 people and investigate 2,000 computers,” Pereira says.Sure, that makes sense. Everyone knows if you're looking to avoid having to send letters and do paperwork, becoming a lawyer is the way to go. But did you really expect an anti-piracy group to take a sane thumping gracefully?
Of course, as we've seen elsewhere, whenever a country reacts sensibly concerning things like file sharing, the entertainment industry lobbying engine revs right back up... and suddenly the countries are described by US politicians in the worst possible terms. Any bets on whether or not Portugal just wrote itself onto the USTR's Special 301 list and the Congressional Anti-Piracy Caucus' "watch list"?
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Filed Under: file sharing, legal, non-commercial, portugal
Companies: acapor
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I'll take that bet!
It's pretty much a sure thing, and I could use the $5.
;-P
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Re: I'll take that bet!
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Hilarious
Just decided that this quote deserves a shot at the "Funniest/Most Insightful." Tim for the win!
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Re: Hilarious
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Re: Re: Hilarious
Though it might be erroneous it makes perfect sense when you realise exactly what the law (especially Civil) is all about and how much reading of old tomes, writing, being bored out of your skull, and what a general time sink letters are in the pursuit of 'law'.
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Re: Re: Re: Hilarious
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Injustice!
...when they're paid to adapt the law to OUR interest!
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Re: Injustice!
What he wants is:
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Re:
That is the job of the American Government.
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An apt way to describe every piece of maximalist legislation bought/passed by the legacy entertainment industries and their puppet politicians.
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Re: I say
:-)
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Re: Re: I say
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Re: Re: Re: I say
There we go, nailed it!
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Re:
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Re: Re:
> > see drug use in their country decline.
> Drug use didn't decline, but the crimes attached to
> drug use (robbery, assault, etcetera) did. By a lot.
It then follows that decriminalizing* copyright infringement will not cause infringement to decline, but the crimes attached to infringement will decline by a lot (bribery, corruption, closed door meetings, laws written in secrecy, SOPA, ACTA, TPP, seizing domain names without evidence, settlement letters directed to IP addresses, mass John Doe lawsuits, etc).
* copyright infringement is supposed to be a civil matter, not a criminal matter
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It's a copyright consumer nation telling the copyright producing nations it's no longer going to make anyone pay. That's just wonderful for them.
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Re:
http://www.imdb.com/country/pt
And music? These people might disagree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Portuguese_musicians
Do you ever actually think before opening your mouth?
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Re: Re:
How much outside stuff is consumed inside the country.
NET CONTENT CONSUMERS.
Next.
Do you every actually think before replying?
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Funny how your criteria is not only ridiculous but changes depending on what you're talking about at the time...
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I suspect his comments are America-centric and he only considers what he personally comes across in his sheltered view. I bet he hasn't even considered the Brazilian market...
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The common sense that it's the technical innovation of phonographs that spawned a whole new market for music and their ability to leverage it for mass distribution that was their added value is turned on its head. Why ? To hide the inconvenient truth their physical distribution trade no longer matters and they can't justify taking such a large cut of the actual creators right any longer either. They just try to sanctuarize the rights they've managed to capture from the creators in the past.
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Re:
But, if you weren't completely ignorant, you would acknowledge that many Portuguese authors enjoy much success in Portuguese speaking countries, and sometimes, even in other countries.
Many of our best singers and musicians (Tony Carreira, Quim Barreiros, etc.) consistently make venues sell out in Portugal. Also, ever heard of Jos� Saramago, the Nobel Prize winner? What about Manoel de Oliveira, the 100+ year-old film director of international acclaim?
We have a healthy community of artists, and that is all that matters, in the end, correct? Because our laws are not meant to protect YOUR interests, they are meant to protect ours.
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Re:
It's a case of the haves (having corruption, bribery, laws written in secret against the public interest) telling the have nots how they should also bow down to the dying dinosaurs who are unable and unwilling to adapt.
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Definition of irony.
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Nice
It's such a good ruling, that I give it about a year before it's repealed.
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Re: Nice
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Yet again, the industry might want to think about offering legal options before they whine that people find ways to obtain content they can't legally obtain...
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portuguese courts
There is a lot of pressure to clear the case backlog, so why would the prosecutor's office want to take on 2000 nuisance cases in this struggling economy?
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Ideal future...
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Mr Geigner
As an aside, I wish I still had my insider badge so I could join the chat (don't have spare money atm, going through grad school). So I wanted to say here and hope you see it that I finally got to read Midwasteland. I really enjoyed the book, and thank you for sending me the PDF awhile back.
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Re: Mr Geigner
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