14 DAY TRIAL // Even though in the past Spanish courts acquitted people who administrated websites that didn't actually host copyrighted content, this time two site owners were fined and sentenced to one year in prison for posting links that pointed to illegal materials.
According to Torrent Freak, the Provincial Court of Vizcaya has sentenced the operators of FenixP2P.com and MP3-es.com as a result of an appeal made by two entertainment industry representatives.
If the first time the charges brought against them were dismissed, just like in every other similar case in Spain, this time things took a different turn.
“FenixP2P was a P2P links page that all courts have declared exempt from criminal liability in recent years,” explained FenixP2P's lawyer, Carlos Sanchez Almeida.
“Given the general atmosphere in the country after the internet campaign against the Sinde Law, a statement like this can only be understood in political terms. The Provincial Court of Vizcaya did not hear directly from experts and witnesses, in violation of the principles of contradiction and immediacy,” he added.
The court clearly understood that neither websites actually hosted any illicit content but it claimed that the links that lead their customers to copyrighted works earned them profit and that's why it ruled in favor of the accusing party.
Unlike other cases where such acts were seen as an exchange between individuals, now the judge considered them to be a “public communication”.
The defendants say they will not let this go, planing an appeal to the country's Constitutional Court and maybe even the European Court of Human Rights.
The lack of clear regulations and laws makes this topic highly sensitive. While some countries accept these piracy acts to a certain point, others condemn them right from the beginning. In Spain, the copyright law, also known as the Sinde law, is highly controversial, suffering many changes in the past, but clearly being far from a definitive form.