3 Count: Spanish Linking

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1: Spanish Court Rules That Linking to Potential Copyright Infringing Material Is Not Copyright Infringement

First off today, in Spain an Appeals Court has ruled that providing a link to a copyright infringing work is not an infringement itself. The case centers around indice-web, a site that links to various P2P files available for download. It was sued by the SGAE, a Spanish collection society, only to be ruled legal in a lower court. That decision has been upheld in the more influential Court of Appeals of Barcelona. Though the ruling only applies to Spain, it may draw more fire to the country, which many already see as having laws that enable infringement.

2: Broadcasters Get A Mixed Judgment Against TVCatchup

In the UK today, broadcasters won a mixed judgement against the TV streaming and virtual DVR site TVCatchup. A judge has ruled that at least certain elements of the site are illegal and is waiting for a related case to be resolved before ruling on other matters. On the subject of broadcasts, the judge ruled TVCatchup does not reproduce substantial parts of the station’s works, but ruled the opposite on the issue of movies. The judge also ruled that TVCatchup has the right to rebroadcast works over cable but also that its mobile service is unlawful. Finally, the judge is waiting for a ruling in a case involving the Premier League dealing with boxes that decode foreign broadcasts to weigh in on the above issue of broadcasts and a “temporary copying” loophole cited by TVCatchup.

3: 200,000 BitTorrent Users Sued In The United States

Finally today, according to Torrentfreak, the number of mass lawsuits filed agianst file sharers has reached 200,000 in the last year alone. Though many of those lawsuits have been dismissed or dropped, 145,417 are still in play at this time. The lawsuits, which find copyright holders filing suit agianst thousands of “John Doe” defendants in a bid to force ISPs to turn over subscriber information, primarily exist to send “settlement letters” that have the defendant end the case for a few thousand dollars and not go through the cost of a trial and risk a larger judgement.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

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