P2P Developer Prosecuted in Spain for His Applications
While they’re at it why don’t they put on trial gun producers?
Lawsuits launched by record industry against file sharing websites and p2p developers and operators have multiplied and spread all over the world. The Spanish programmer Pablo Soto (photo), the man behind p2p file sharing clients Manolito, Blubster, and Piolet is currently on trial in a Madrid court.
Spanish programmer Pablo Soto has cashed in from his applications. Now the industry wants to cash in from the trial against Soto.
The (usual) plaintiffs are EMI, Sony, Universal, and Warner in tandem with IFPI affiliate Promusicae and they claim €13 million ($18 million) damage compensation from Soto.
However, things could be a bit more fortunate for the president of MP2P Technologies being Spanish since the law here says that downloading music doesn’t count as copyright infringement unless used for commercial purposes. Spain has also introduced a special tax which goes hand in hand with the aforementioned law – it comes from any USB stick, blank CD, and mobile phone sold and goes into the record industry’s pocket.
Soto maintains he’s innocent saying he cannot be accused of creating a software and that the real reason for being the target of such a trial is the industry’s failure to prosecute actual users of his p2p applications.
