Spain rejects copyright case against filesharing website

A Spanish court has dismissed an appeal against a filesharing site with a ruling that may be one of the most severe legal defeats for the entertainment industry in its fight against copyright infringers. The website, cvcdgo.com, linked to content that had been posted on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks without permission of the copyright holders.

In May 2009 a Madrid court dismissed the case, which was brought by Egeda, an audiovisual collection society, along with Columbia Tristar. An appeal was dismissed by the court last week. The court found that the website did not store the content and that it linked to files that "are found in different computers around the world," according to the Spanish-language ruling.

The three-judge panel also found that "no one receives any type of economic benefit" from linking to the content, although the site did have advertising. In other countries such as the US, defendants can be found guilty of inducing infringement even if their sites only contain links that lead to content shared without proper permission.

An official reached at Egeda did not have an immediate comment on the ruling.

Leo King contributed to this report