/ Xeni Jardin / 10:30 am Tue Feb 8, 2011

Spanish author mocks Latin pop star copyright troll to benefit hungry kids in Africa

Via the BB Submitterator, reader GuidoDavid says, "Juan Gómez-Jurado, who wrote a great piece against criminalizing of downloads in Spain, was challenged by copyright troll, tax dodger and singer Alejandro Sanz to offer his novel for free. He did, and donated the resulting 4000 euros to the charity Save The Children."

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  3. Yeah, I’m a bit confused here, and the foreign-language source article doesn’t help either. Whose novel was offered for free? Where was it offered for free? And where did the charity money come from in all of this?

    1. there is a link in the article to a filedrop download. as for the money, color me imaginative but i figure he probably suggested donations be made as a part of this situation.

  4. The story behind this is funnier than this.
    this pop singer, as you said a tax dodger, wons millions €-$/yr and has been calling internet users as pirates, robbers, and so on while saying this from his own mansion in a tax free country.
    The spanish blogosphere doesn´t like him very much and this has been a general laugh in his face
    I´m very happy to see this history here (love you BB), hope you enjoy as much as here in Spain we do.

    From here my salutations to Alejandro, waiting to see you paying the taxes the same spanish honest people do :D

  5. If you offer something for free you can still make money.

    ‘In Rainbows’ by Radiohead comes to mind.

  6. The money was not channelled throught the author. The author tweet that started everything was this (http://twitter.com/#!/JuanGomezJurado/status/34231752583020544):

    “Mi novela Espía de Dios, GRATIS epub (http://bit.ly/f83Bma). Si t mola dale 1€ a @SaveTheChildren (http://bit.ly/dNlzi8) (cc @AlejandroSanz)”

    which roughly translates as:

    “Mi novel Espía de Dios [God’s Spy], FREE epub (http://bit.ly/f83Bma). If you like send 1€ to @SaveThe Children (http://bit.ly/dNlzi8) (cc @AlejandroSanz)”

    This is what happened:

    1. Jurado, book author, writes a post titled “Piracy does not exist”
    2. Alejandro Sanz, singer, critiques him and dares him to release his work for free
    3. Jurado upload his epub to MediaFire
    4. Jurado shared the mediaFire link via twitter and asked for those who liked the book, they could also donate to Save The Children some money

  7. OK, the whole story (more or less). Mr Sanz was flooded with mocking tweets after he tweeted this masterwork of logic and literacy: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/87d3hq (just Google-translate it, the result will probably match Alejandro’s original phrasing style).

    Spanish writer Juan Gómez-Jurado wrote an item against Spanish anti-“piracy” law, which can be read here: http://alt1040.com/2011/01/la-pirateria-no-existe.

    Alejandro Sanz countered with a challenge: give away one of your books, then. Which Gómez-Jurado did, only asking anyone who liked it to donate 1$ to Save the Children: http://twitter.com/#!/JuanGomezJurado/status/34366239891664896

  8. He was challenged to put the novel for free. He did so, and suggested to donate to that charity, which lots of people did.

    And the challenge came because of a brilliant article defending downloads and supporting alternative models, a pity it has not been properly translated.

  9. Gómez-Jurado didn’t directly donate money. He tweeted a link to his book and said “if you feel like it, give 1 e to Save the Children” – this resulted in 4000 e worth of donations in the first few hours.

  10. Today the Spanish Senate will pass a law to shut down sites without using the normal channels of the law, because until now have failed to shut down sites using the judges. President Chavez would not have done better

  11. Well. I lived the story closely, since I’m in the Spanish blogosphere. We’re having an anti-piracy law trying to be launched by the government, and there’s been more than controversy around it. Many artists, such as Alejandro Sanz, appeared publicly supporting the law, and when it didn’t past the first round (there will be a second), he got mad and tweeted that Spanish politicians were a bunch of cowards.
    Then the blogosphere answered back. They showed how he and other supporters of the law do not pay taxes in Spain, but have their accounts in fiscal paradises. The debate got hotter and hotter, until Alejandro Sanz said, coming out of nowhere, that hunger in Africa is really a problem, linking this hunger to downloading his music in quite a strange way.
    At the same time, and initially unrelated to this topic, Gómez-Jurado wrote an oppinion on his blog reducing the importance of piracy. Alejandro Sanz somehow rode it, and challenged him to give his work for free. To this Gómez-Jurado decided to upload his last novel, and posted that if people liked it, they could pay for it, but not to himself, but to charity. He did not retaliate Alejandro to do the same thing with any of his songs, but it’s not that hard to read between lines.
    So, you CAN read his novel for free. You don’t HAVE TO pay.

  12. Please notice that the copyrights of “Espía de Dios” have been already sold by the author to a small publisher several years ago, who edit, sold and paid Mr Gómez-Jurado for a book in usual copyright terms. So what is happening here is Mr. Gómez-Jurado selling the same book for a second time after six years, and probably cheating his former publisher.

    We can’t know exactly the terms of agreement of his last novel between the author and a biggest publishing house, but something is crystal clear:

    IT’S VERY EASY TO GIVE AWAY COPYRIGHTS WHEN YOU HAS BEEN ALREADY PAID FOR YOUR BOOK AND YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOOSE.

    (Now we want to see Mr. Gómez-Jurado giving away his futures copyrights payments of his latest work)

    1. Isn’t it the same for sing writers or movie makers? once you earn money from it, why don’t you offer it for free or for charity? why are they still forcing to pay even if you published the cd/movie/serie several years ago?

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