In a neatly timed report it has been revealed that Spain is the European leader in illegal downloading.
The report from Spain's Culture And Entertainment Market Research Centre includes various stats from different sources. It reveals that Spain's music publishers' society SGAE reckons Spanish web users illegally downloaded 1.2 billion tracks in 2007, while The European Interactive Advertising Association has estimated that 58% of Spanish web users illegally download music, against a European average of 37%.
The report was launched at this week's MIDEM convention in Cannes, but was well-timed in that it followed a possibly landmark ruling in the Spanish courts this week when judges there ruled that neither Spanish nor European copyright regulations forced internet service provider Telefonica to reveal the identity of a suspected file-sharer to the record companies trying to sue that person.
Without that information from the ISP the record labels are more or less unable to take legal action against unlicensed file sharing. The Spanish industry is sure to use this new report as part of its efforts to lobby the country's politicians to change copyright laws so that a different ruling will be made in future cases like the Telefonica one.
Whether the failure of the Spanish courts to allow civil legal actions against suspected file sharers (such actions have been successful elsewhere in Europe) is directly linked to the high levels of file sharing in the country is not completely clear.