The magazine had the exclusive on the wedding. Once the special issue covering the social event of the summer in Spain was published, however, to everyone’s surprise, a PDF version began to circulate via WhatsApp. Even though this might be common with magazines like ¡Hola!, in this case, it severely affected the magazine due to the million-dollar investment they made for this exclusive. According to statements by the magazine’s lawyers, they are contemplating various options to take legal action due to the leak, e.g., they are threatening to denounce those who have illegally distributed the magazine, as well as Meta.
From a legal point of view, this case has certain peculiarities that complicate prosecution. Although the unauthorised copying and dissemination of the magazine certainly constitutes an infringement of ¡Hola!’s intellectual property rights, it is practically impossible to find the original infringer. It is equally unthinkable to prosecute everyone who may have subsequently shared the PDF, since it is utterly unfeasible.
Moreover, it is hard to believe that Meta could be responsible for the infringement, as it merely offers a private communication channel and, for reasons of privacy, it cannot monitor the content shared via the channel. Moreover, it would be more than questionable whether the fact that a WhatsApp user has sent the special issue in PDF could be blamed on WhatsApp.
Finally, in terms of prosecuting those possibly responsible for this infringement, there is the problem of lack of intention of profiting in the dissemination of the PDF. In the world in which we live, thanks to social networks and messenger services, videos and documents circulate extremely rapidly. Accordingly, a private copy of an element with intellectual property rights spreads like wildfire, even though there is no intention to profit from copying or subsequently disseminating this copy and making it go viral.