A Spanish state's prosecutor's office along with two music distribution associations accused a 48-year-old man of downloading music and offering them on CD via e-mail and chat room requests and aimed to have a two year sentence put against him. However, as there was no proof that this person made a profit from selling CDs and that the Spanish permits the downloading of music for personal use, the northern city of Santander Judge dismissed the case.
This ruling has made a major hit at the Spanish music industry, since it effectively allows Internet users in Spain to freely download and share music without being punished. As a result, the Spanish rerecording industry federation Promusicae plans on appealing the Judge's decision. Spain is also in the process of drafting new legislation to remove consumer's right to private copying.
Unfortunately, it is unclear at this time how much the new drafted legislation will affect Spanish consumers, as a certain level of private copying needs to be allowed in order to allow consumers to transfer CDs to their MP3 player, purchased downloads to CD and so on. Then again, even though consumers in the UK don't think twice of transferring music from CD to their iPod, Creative or other MP3 player, apparently this is actually against the law there.
Thanks to GristyMcFisty for letting us know about this news.
