Spanish man sentenced to 6 months in jail for operating filesharing site

While awaiting the Pirate Bay case ruling, the new Spanish minister of Culture, Ángeles Gónzalez-Sinde, and the Spanish content industry hope to have set a precedent in case law concerning file-sharing. A 22-year old man has been sentenced to 6 months in jail and a fine of nearly €5,000 for operating a file-sharing website, which contained links to copyrighted content.

This ruling changes the previous Spanish position, that linking to copyrighted material does not violate the law. Furthermore, a copyright violation could, until now, only qualify as a crime if a monetary exchange could be proven. In this case, the violator had an indirect financial incentive to operate the website, due to the advertising revenue the website generated. This was considered sufficient to prove a financial transaction.

With this ruling, the content industry and the new minister hope that an example has been made of how copyright violators will be treated. It remains to be seen if the Spanish, who are considered notorious file-sharers, will now refrain from sharing protected content under the real threat of financial penalties and imprisonment.