On the supposed “first disconnection of a Spanish internet user” for copyright infringement

I was contacted by Spanish media El Confidencial and La Voz de Galicia yesterday to comment on a ruling by a Barcelona provincial court requiring R, a telecoms operator based in the northwestern region of Galicia to disconnect a user for exchanging copyrighted works on P2P sites.

Leaving aside the intriguing question of why a court in Barcelona would be telling a company based in another region what to do, R has replied to the ruling immediately, via its corporate blog:

“R was informed of the court’s ruling dismissing the plaintiffs’ case. Therefore, in the first instance, R was not obliged to do anything, and as a result it made no sense to attend the hearing.

Now the provincial court in Barcelona has modified the lower court’s ruling, obliging R to disconnect the internet service used by an individual known only as nito75. This will not be possible, given that we cannot identify customers via their nicknames.”

This farrago needs to seen in the context of a country where intellectual property right laws have largely been dictated by lobbies, and follow no logic. Anybody who thinks that it is acceptable for a company or a group of companies can take an entire industry hostage and use them as their own private police force, requiring them to spy on their customers and disconnect them from the internet at will, has some serious mental health issues. One can only imagine that the next step will be to require the owners of bars to eavesdrop on their clientele in case they say or do anything that might be considered against the law.

The ruling not only ignores the fact that an IP address is not sufficient basis to investigate its owner with having committed a crime, but also opens the door to any number of legal barbarities: investigating a customer on the basis of the nickname they use online implies that the said customer will not be called to testify, and therefore has no means or opportunity to defend him or herself. What’s more, it has already been established by the EU that disconnecting somebody’s internet connection for file sharing is clearly disproportionate. Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor, noted in February 2010 that disconnecting somebody

“would be an interference in an individual’s rights to freedom of expression, freedom of information, access to culture, access to government via the internet, to e-commerce, to email, and in some cases, work.”

In other words, the 21st century equivalent of society sending an individual to Coventry. Literally, an analog ostracism. What’s more the accused would be being punished indiscriminately, along with any family members or other residents in his or her household on the basis of an act that could equally have been committed by a third party with access to the connection in question. The ruling is, quite simply, a legal aberration and runs counter to common sense.

Let’s look at the plaintiff’s case: the entertainment industry seems to want carte blanche to be able to send telecom operators interminable lists of the nicknames of people who use P2P sites, requiring them to disconnect anybody they suspect of infringing copyright laws. The nightmare we find ourselves in, to which R has responded appropriately, is simply another of the many idiocies carried out supposedly to “protect creators” (HA HA HA) by governments around the world.

We are talking here about changes to the law introduced through the back door, dictated by the content industry, modifying legislation hastily, approved without any transparency, diplomatic pressure that are prompted by powerful lobbies, commissions appointed by politicians over the heads of the courts, or corrupt former US politicians welcomed with open arms by Spain’s prime minister as though they were national heroes.

The entertainment industry dedicates huge amount of time and spends vast amounts of money trying to get the courts to disconnect people, creating in the process a collective psychosis and taking us ever closer to a Big Brother society. But now you know: buy their products, or else.

(En español, aquí)