The Spanish courts have not been especially kind to the record companies in their fight against online piracy, often arguing that the country's copyright laws are too vague to do individuals who are involved in unlicensed file-sharing for infringement.
Past court cases in the jurisdiction have centred very much on whether users have profited by making unlicensed content available, with the logic being that if there is no profit being made then there is no case against a defendant, even if they are distributing content without a content owner's permission. However, that could all be about to change.
First, the country's new Culture Minister, Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde, previously headed up the country's Cinema Academy, and is therefore likely to be much more pro the content owners' interests in copyright debates. And now a Spanish court has jailed a man for operating a website that provided links to unlicensed sources of content.
It could be a landmark ruling. It's true that Adrian Gomez Llorente did make a profit from his website, though that profit was from advertising and SMS services and not direct pay-per-download fees, suggesting the Spanish courts, while still looking for profits when considering infringement claims, are willing to take a wide view with regards how a defendant may be profiting.
It's also interesting that Llorente's site seemingly provided links to rather than actually hosting unlicensed content. This is, of course, a big issue in many jurisdictions, and is at the heart of The Pirate Bay trial in Sweden - ie should the principle of authorising or contributory infringement be extended to websites who enable infringement by simply providing links. A previous Spanish case ruled that providing links did not in itself amount to infringement, though that was in relation to the non-profit making Sharemula website. In this case the judge ruled that, because a profit was being made, providing simple links to unlicensed content was sufficient to amount to infringement.
Llorente received six months in jail and a 4900 euro fine for operating his website, which is in itself pretty substantial, and all of which means that, while the profit-making test remains, music companies in Spain have reasons to be hopeful that both law makers and law enforcers could be working more in their favour in the future regarding online piracy issues.