Spanish Judge Rules Personal File Sharing Legal

[Kanamori]

Copyright violation is not theft. It has the potential of limiting the profit of some company that is given the sole right of copying that thing, but using copying illegaly. Stealing is going into a store or warehouse and taking something that they've already made.

[Scurvy]

Copyright violation is not theft. It has the potential of limiting the profit of some company that is given the sole right of copying that thing, but using copying illegaly. Stealing is going into a store or warehouse and taking something that they've already made.

there's very little difference, both are taking something away from the company and gaining it for yourself

[Soulforged]

The ruling sent shockwaves through the music industry as the decision allows Spain's 16 million internet users to swap music without being punished. Spanish recording industry federation Promusicae says it will appeal against the decision.

Well it's not like they had been punished before. The cases that end with a penalty are usually notorious ones, but the real ammount of filesharing happens in relatively minimal ammounts between particular users as day by day exchange without much notice.

The truth is, that intellectual property (wich is of course a misleading name considering that most of the property's right characteristic don't apply) is an old institution decaying on a world that evolves towards common information more and more. Is a conservative institution, and I think it's just and right with some limitations, but it might no work anymore on the internet era. However renewing the way people use to transmit their work might also be a way to go through this an conserve intelectual property: like the world of music is doing now, adding more and more artists to the trade of files through internet.

Judge Paz Aldecoa of No. 3 Penal Court ruled that under Spanish law a person who downloads music for personal use can not be punished or branded a criminal. He called it "a practised behaviour where the aim is not to gain wealth but to obtain private copies".

The fact that he calls it a "practised behaviour" seems to show that he believes it's an accepted custom. We should also notice that the judge seems to be talking in abstract, not about this case, but about music downloading in general.

However Spain is not ruled by common law or case law. Court rulings don't have that much importance.

Justice Minister Juan Fernando Lopéz Aguilar says Spain is drafting a new law to abolish the existing right to private copies of material.

This is a little more relevant, and a little extreme I believe. The only material affected by this "practised behaviour" is the one susceptible of being downloaded through the internet. This law must have a different end, a broader one.

[Conqueror]

there's very little difference, both are taking something away from the company and gaining it for yourself

Think about it like this: Around the corner there's a shop that sells apples. I go in that shop and steal an apple. Now I have one apple, while the shop has lost one apple from their inventory without being paid for it. That is theft.

Now there's a record company that sells music. My friend buys a CD (1 song) from them. He then rips the CD on his computer and makes an mp3 of the song. Then he emails the song to me. Now I have a copy (mp3) of the song and my friend has a copy (actually two, an mp3 and a CD) of the song, while the record company lost exactly one copy (the CD) and was paid for it. But they can make more CDs. That is copyright violation.

So there's the difference: the record company does not end up losing CDs that didn't get paid for (whereas the shop did end up with less apples without compensation) - instead they end up with a situation where supposedly less people will be interested in buying those CDs.

EDIT: found a better way to phrase this...

[Ironside]

there's very little difference, both are taking something away from the company and gaining it for yourself

The point is that the thing that's taken away from the company is potental revenue, not actual revenue. For example, if a person downloads an album that he/she would never had bought anyway (because it's too expensive), the record company haven't actually lost something in the process.

In that way, it's as much stealing as when you consider buying something in one store, but doesn't because you can get it cheaper somewere else.