The former administrator of a BitTorrent indexing site has been hit hard by a Spanish court after one of the longest-running cases of its kind came to a close. Accused of infringing copyright on a site that shut down more than six years ago, the 32-year-old has been handed an 18 month jail sentence, fined 21,000 euros, and banned from creating or administering websites for three years.

For many years Spain has been referred to as somewhat of a safe haven for file-sharing websites, with courts around the country regularly dismissing copyright cases brought by the mainstream entertainment companies.

But under pressure from the United States in particular, Spain has been forced to introduce new legislation or face the consequences of being labeled a bad player and commercial partner. To that end the country has amended its copyright law and indicated that it is prepared to get tough on facilitators of copyright infringement.

This week there was another sign that when the circumstances are right, Spain is indeed prepared to take a tough line against operators of file-sharing websites.

The case dates back to 2006 when IFPI affiliate PROMUSICAE (Spanish Music Producers) and MPA affiliate the Federation for the Protection of Intellectual Property (FAP) teamed up to file complaints against local file-sharing sites.

What followed was police action in February and March 2007 which saw the closure of 21 websites including Bajatetodo (plus linked sites Bajateseries, Bajateanime and SoloDVDrip) and the arrest of 10 locals, none of whom had previous criminal records.

The case against Bajatetodo and associated sites has just concluded after more than six and a half years and it’s particularly bad news for the site’s former owner.

In a decision handed down October 30 but only just made public, the head of the Castellón criminal court sentenced David León Marín to 18 months in jail along with a fine of 21,000 euros.

The court said Marin had “..made available to Internet users content protected by intellectual property rights without authorization from the legal owner for profit and to the detriment of others.”

In addition to the jail sentence and fines the 32-year-old was handed a ban which forbids him from creating or administering any website for a total of three years.

“With his technical intervention and having indexed, classified and discussed the works, [Marin] made the works directly available for download. It was his direct work and acts as an intermediary which gave access to the work in question,” anti-piracy group FAP said in a statement.

FAP further adds that the verdict is in line with the decision in a case concluded earlier this year which found that the admin of three sites – Divxonline.info, Estrenosonline.es and Seriesonline.es – was guilty of “communicating a work to the public”. He was sentenced to one year and seven months in prison.

“The significance of this ruling is that it confirms what other Spanish judges have also estimated and what we have always maintained in our defense of intellectual property, which is that linking is an act of making available to the internet user and should be considered a continuing offense against intellectual property.”

The decision to jail Marin comes just a day after former Minister of Culture Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde, whose name was used to refer to Spain’s anti-piracy ‘Sinde Law’, said that the problem of unauthorized links appearing online would not be solved by putting citizens in jail.

David León Marín has 10 days to appeal.