A Spanish judge has dealt a blow to the global music industry after ruling that there is nothing illegal about downloading music for free from the Internet as long as it is for personal use.
The decision, the first of its kind in Europe, opens the way for Spain's estimated 16 million Internet users to swap music through online sites.
"This is extremely unusual," said a spokesman for the international recording industry body IFPI, as the judgment was announced on Thursday.
Judge Paz Aldecoa threw out a case against an unnamed 48-year-old man who offered and downloaded digital versions of music on the Internet, according to Spanish press reports. He also sent selections of music recorded on CDs out to people in the post, prosecutors claimed.
The judge ruled that, under Spanish law, a person who downloaded music for personal use could not be punished or branded a criminal.
"That would imply criminalizing socially admitted and widely practiced behavior where the aim is not to gain wealth illegally but to obtain private copies," she said in her judgment.
"If the purpose of the copy is not to gain wealth there is no way that it can be considered illegal," Victor Domingo, head of Spanish Internet user's association Internautas, told the Abc newspaper.
"It would be a lot different if someone downloaded in order to sell on," Domingo said.
But Antonio Guisasola, from Spain's Promusicae recording industry federation, said the judge had got it wrong.
"We have already appealed against the decision," he said. "Peer-to-peer [P2P] sharing is not legal in Spain."
Guisasola, whose federation had backed a prosecution case that demanded a two-year prison sentence and 25,000 euros (US$31,900) in fines and compensation, explained it had tried to prove the man was selling the music he sent out on CDs, rather than just distributing it for free.
Even though it had failed to prove that the man had been selling the music CDs, Guisasola said that his federation was still convinced "private use" was not a legitimate legal excuse for downloading music for free.
"I have been with both the justice minister and the culture minister today and they are both quite clear that peer to peer-is-illegal," he said.
This was even more clearly so in a case where music was being shared by more than one person, he said.
"People should understand that we all have to respect people who create," Spanish Minister of Justice Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar said on Thursday.
"These are people who have the right to control the use of their literary or artistic creations in all media," he said.
But the judge insisted Spain's intellectual property law protected people against being prosecuted if they could prove private use. Spain is drawing up a new law that is likely to strike out the existing right to "private copies" of material.
The licensing of digital content has become a major issue for the entertainment industry.
The Financial Times on Friday reported that Google has been offering up to US$100 million to media companies including CBS, Viacom, Time Warner and News Corp to license their content to the video Web site YouTube, which it bought last month for US$1.65 billion.
Analysts have warned that YouTube could be targeted by lawsuits for carrying copyrighted material.
The domestic unit of the Chinese-owned, Dutch-headquartered chipmaker Nexperia BV will soon be able to produce semiconductors locally within China, according to two company sources. Nexperia is at the center of a global tug-of-war over critical semiconductor technology, with a Dutch court in February ordering a probe into alleged mismanagement at the company. The geopolitical tussle has disrupted supply chains, with some carmakers reportedly forced to cut production due to chip shortages. Local production would allow Nexperia’s domestic arm, Nexperia Semiconductors (China) Ltd (安世半導體中國), to bypass restrictions in place since October on the supply of silicon wafers — etched with tiny components to
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings Ltd has applied for regulatory approval to acquire the Taiwan operations of Germany-based Delivery Hero SE's Foodpanda in a deal valued at about US$600 million. Grab submitted the filing to the Fair Trade Commission on Friday last week, with the transaction subject to regulatory review and approval, the company said in a statement yesterday. Its independent governance structure would help foster a healthy and competitive market in Taiwan if the deal is approved, Grab said. Grab, which is listed on the NASDAQ, said in the filing that US-based Uber Technologies Inc holds about 13 percent of
Taiwan is open to joining a global liquefied natural gas (LNG) program if one is created, but on the condition that countries provide delivery even in a scenario where there is a conflict with China, an energy department official said yesterday. While Taiwan’s priority is to have enough LNG at home, the nation is open to exploring potential strategic reserves in other countries such as Japan or South Korea, Energy Administration Deputy Director-General Chen Chung-hsien (陳崇憲) said. While the LNG market does not have a global reserve for emergencies like that of oil, the concept has been raised a few times —
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday received government approval to deploy its advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process at its second fab currently under construction in Japan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a news release. The ministry green-lit the plan for the facility in Kumamoto, which is scheduled to start installing equipment and come online in 2028 with a monthly production capacity of 15,000 12-inch wafers, the ministry said. The Department of Investment Review in June 2024 authorized a US$5.26 billion investment for the facility, slated to manufacture 6- to 12nm chips, significantly less advanced than 3nm process. At a meeting with
RSS