Spanish News and its not good.

[..Ñøßߥ..]

http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=1150

The global campaign to stomp out BitTorrent and eDonkey2000 indexing sites continued today, this time in the P2P stronghold of Spain. In raids conducted this morning, Spanish Police arrested 15 administrators/owners related to 17 BitTorrent and eDonkey2000 indexing sites.   

The move is highly unusual, as Spain has long been known as tolerant of file-sharing and P2P activities. Among many other important P2P developments, it's the home of Pablo Soto, developer of Piolet and the Manolito P2P network. This lenient attitude towards file-sharing appears to be shifting, as these raids mark the first time such an event has occurred in Spain.

According to the police press release, today's raids were the culmination of a lengthy investigation that began in October 2005. The result of this investigation purports the closure of 17 indexing sites, however several are still operational. The remaining operational sites are pctracker.com, pctorrent.com, pctorrent.net, pctorrent.org and tododatos.com.

In an effort to avoid prosecution, the police state all of the 17 indexing sites were hosted outside of Spain. The administrators/owners however, continued to reside in Spain.

The "Asociacion de Internautas" (AI), a consumer organization similar to the EFF, scorned the raids, stating that indexing files is not illegal in Spain. Roughly translated, the AI likened the arrests today with holding the post office responsible for illegal mail shipments.

"The suppliers of services are not responsible for the [actions of their users], it is as if Post office were responsible for which their shipments contain."

This is quite a shock move for Spain, i think the last comment sums this up though, i just dont see how you can prosecute these folks for the alleged missuse by users, it will be interesting to see what these folks are actually charged with.......

[KM]

it will be interesting to see what these folks are actually charged with.......

my guess is "charged" is more accurate than you intended, who wants to bet that they are "convinced" to pay a civilian group money then conveniently the spanish government decide to "let them get away with it for now"...?

[..Ñøßߥ..]

yeah i think your probably spot in there, guess we will have to wait and see.

[QUEEN]

Dear Nobby ,as you say in spain p2p programs are not persecute till now, the fact you talk about was one operation fron the police against  some sites (the ones you talk about) cause they was using the site for other purposes , not specific psp or share programs.We have our own Riaa called Sgae ,who is in charge of that.and for the moment they dont act in p2p programs but they are studing to do it in the future,at this moments people can be safe using p2p programs if they dont use it for commercial purposes.The Sgae work its only  protect the artits rights  .Gouvernement (the police) only acts in some facts punished by law , like child porn, etc. You can read more about at http://www.sgae.es. You say news not good, well .............

[..Ñøßߥ..]

You say news not good, well .............

Thanks for the info Queen, the biggest reason i said it was not good news and still remains in my opinon bad news is that 17 indexing sites have been targeted and arrests made, yet its not illegal to run an indexing site in Spain? When the cops start arresting folks who have committed no crime, i would say thats bad news, lol

[WOMBAT]

Me Thinks Roughly Translated That Means :

The Pain In Spain Falls Mainly On The Sane

[..Ñøßߥ..]

Me Thinks Roughly Translated That Means :

The Pain In Spain Falls Mainly On The Sane

lmao