In Spanien sollen 4000 Kazaa Nutzer angeklagt werden.
Das wäre die bisher größte Verfolgung von Tauschbörsennutzern in Europa.
Die Musikindustrie kämpft weiter ihren aussichtslosen und schädlichen Kampf.
Quelle: http://www.edri.org/cgi-bin/index?fu...d=000100000105
On 17 July, Landwell, a Spanish legal firm related to Price-Waterhouse-Coopers, issued a press release stating that they were planning to present a lawsuit against 4.000 Spanish Kazaa users for illegally downloading copyrighted material such as movies, songs or software. They announced they had identified a total of 95.000 Spanish file-sharers, and were going to start with the prosecution of the 4.000 most serious ones.
In fact, this would be the biggest prosecution of internet users yet in Europe, mimicking the recent hunt down of users in the United States. Before, only Danish users were brought to court, when in December 2002, APG (Antipiracygroup) registered the IP numbers of potential copyright violators (i.e. people that offered files on Kazaa and eDonkey) and subsequently used the IP numbers to get a court order. With the court order in place, APG got the users names and addresses from the ISPs, and subsequently sent out app. 150 requests for financial compensation.
The announcement of the Spanish lawsuit was accompanied by a request to use unspecified software able to emulate p2p protocols in order to identify the users. Several cyberrights organization acted very fast, stating that users have a perfect right to share files as long as there is no profit behind it. The Asociacion de Internautas (a large internet user association) compared Landwell to the Gestapo and freely offered their lawyers to any Spanish citizen that would be accused under the announced lawsuit.
The cyberrights e-zine Kriptópolis made a special issue, including a text by Xavier Ribas, the main lawyer behind the lawsuit from Landwell, and a reply from Carlos Sánchez Almeida, a well-known expert in legal internet issues. Analyzing and comparing the arguments, it becomes quite clear that the lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt to create fear amongst Spanish users, as there seems to be nothing solid behind the lawsuit. First of all, it is not clear that sharing files is a crime, if it is done non-profit. More importantly, the system Landwell used to track the users (the Kazaa protocols) does not offer enough information to track the real identities of the users.
In fact, in a recent radio interview, Ribas admitted that the lawsuit had not been presented yet, giving further rise to the suspicion that it never would.
Ribas: Compartir copias no autorizadas a través de P2P es delito (26.07.2003)
http://www.kriptopolis.com/more.php?id=94_0_1_0_M
Almeida: Compartir no es delito (23.07.2003)
http://www.kriptopolis.com/more.php?id=91_0_1_0_M
Wired News: Spanish firm target file traders (23.07.2003)
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,59720,00.html
(Contribution by David Casacuberta, CPSR Spain)
