Spanish Man Gets Justice From Anti-Piracy Thugs

Here’s a prime example of the old glass is half full/empty saying.

Preliminary injunctions against two file-sharing portals have been overturned, paving the way for a re-opening. The sites’ lawyers have proven that hard drive evidence collected during a controversial raid against the sites’ admin is worthless, and the anti-piracy group involved has been fined by the court for acting in bad faith.

Earlier this year, TorrentFreak reported on computer science student, Juan Jose Carrasco Colonel. The 26 year-old resident of Bonar, Spain, ran two eD2K file-sharing link sites known as Elitelmula and Etmusica. Both were closed some months ago after action by music and anti-piracy group SGAE led to a court order being served on the sites’ host.

Then in May, Juan had a home visit from individuals who said they were from the court. Handing Juan documentation he didn’t understand, they gave the impression that they had a warrant to enter his home and make an inspection of his computers and hard drives.

In fact, it turned out one was a lawyer for SGAE, the second a SGAE computer expert and another a clerk, who had come looking for the stats from Elitemula and Etmusica, which supposedly reflected the downloads of music made via links on those sites between September and December 2007.

They searched the entire house, going through both Juan’s and family members’ possessions. Finally Juan managed to get lawyer David Bravo on the telephone who, along with Javier de la Cueva, were the legal team for P2P developer Pablo Soto. Bravo confirmed that the supposed warrant did not authorize the individuals to be in Juan’s house and ordered them to leave.

TorrentFreak has been in contact with Javier de la Cueva, who was able to give us an interesting update on the case.

A Spanish court, after initially submitting to requests by SGAE that both Etmusica and Elitemula should be closed and hard drives seized for evidence, has now revoked the decision after demands by Juan’s lawyers. The hard drive evidence was dismissed and both sites can now be reopened.

“The reason for reopening the websites is that a hyperlink, per se, does not violate intellectual property law,”…

Read the rest of the article as well as commentary on TorrentFreak

While the thugs from SGAE and PROMUSICAE got fined for an amount that’s a total joke,
personally, we prefer to focus on the glass being half full side of things:
The anti piracy thugs got smacked down and justice was served when the two cases were thrown out of court + the sites are both going to be up.

Related posts:

1. Second Win Today! (Lithuania)
2. Rape, Piracy, Pedos, Stealing etc and now SLAVERY! (UPDATED)
3. Anti-P2P Laws Working?? Not Really.
4. The Real Pirates Are The Anti-Pirate Organizations!
5. Brazil, Pakistan Criticize ‘Piracy Solution’
6. ‘Pirate’ reports Anti-Piracy Mob To the Police!
7. Self Confessed ‘Criminal’ Reports Himself To Anti-Piracy Group!