Offering P2P Download Links Is Legal, Says Spanish Court

Some legal issues with regard to how piracy is interpreted may change. This is due to a Spanish court that has decided that it’s not illegal for a site to offer links to P2P downloads provided that the files themselves are not actually offered and there’s no commercial purpose at stake.

Sharemula.com, a site that only indexed eDonkey links to movies, games and music, was favored by the Provincial Court of Madrid’s ruling. eDonkey links are very much like .torrent files ones, which do not include any copyrighted content themselves but only direct to them.

Sharemula was initially sued in 2006, by companies among which Disney, Fox, Warner, Universal, Paramount and Sony. Part of the action consisted in the arrest of 15 people in connection with the site.

After the administrators of the site were not found guilty of any illegal activity the media industry appealed the ruling but again unsuccessfully. The recent decision, however, is absolute and cannot be appealed.
“The hearing confirms the position of the defense that linking to P2P networks does not constitute a criminal offense,” said David Bravo, a lawyer for the defense.

This is good news also for the administrators of Mininova and the Pirate Bay who have ahead comparable cases.