Spanish Court Rules In Favor of P2P Engineer 365
Sir Mal Fet writes "In line with previous rulings discussed here, a judge in Spain has ruled that P2P technologies are 'completely neutral' (original in Spanish ; Google translation ), thus dismissing a lawsuit originated in 2008 from the Spanish Association of Musical Producers (Promusicae), Warner, EMI, and Sony suing Pablo Soto, a Spanish man who created the Blubster, MP2P y Piolet programs to share files. The labels demanded 13 million euros in damages arguing that the mere existence and distribution of P2P technologies violated copyright, but the ruling stated the technology itself was neutral, so the creator could not be held responsible for how the software was used, and demanded that they pay for legal expenses. Promusicae said it was going to appeal the ruling."
He also might be suing them back... (Score:5, Informative)
The Spanish press ( http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Pablo/Soto/industria/discografica/siempre/va/paso/detras/elpeputec/20111221elpeputec_3/Tes )also says this guy might be suing them back, because in the course of the lawsuit against him, these cartels applied some really dirty tactics against him (like hiring goons to follow him every day, etc.)
Re:That is like suing Ford (Score:4, Informative)
"Anyone with half a brain knows that these services were created for the purpose of sharing copyrighted material."
Everything not in the public domain is copyrighted. On one hand this doesn't mean is not intended to be shareable (obvious example being code copyrighted under the GPL), on the other, Spanish legislation is crystal clear: just sharing copyrighted material is perfectly legal (while the entertainment lobby is pressing hard to change this).
Re:That is like suing Ford (Score:2, Informative)
Whoooosh!
Re:That is like suing Ford (Score:2, Informative)
People with cars kill people.
People with knives kill people.
People with clubs kill people.
People with hands kill people.