Spain's Proposed Internet Law Sparks Protest, Change 103
[rvr] writes "Last Monday, the Spanish Government published the latest draft for the Sustainable Economy Act, which would enable a Commission dependent of the Ministry of Culture to take down websites without a court order, in cases of Intellectual Property piracy. On Wednesday, using Google Wave, a group of journalists, bloggers, professionals and creators composed and issued a Manifesto in Defense of Fundamental Rights on the Internet, stating that 'Copyright should not be placed above citizens' fundamental rights to privacy, security, presumption of innocence, effective judicial protection and freedom of expression.' Quickly, more than 50,000 blogs and sites re-published the manifesto. On Thursday morning, the Ministry of Culture Ángeles González Sinde (former president of the Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) organized a meeting with a group of Internet experts and signers of the Manifesto. The meeting was narrated in real time via Twitter and concluded without any agreement. On Thursday afternoon, the Prime Minister's staff had a private meeting with the Ministry of Culture and some party members (who also expressed their opposition to the draft). Finally, Spain Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announced in a press meeting that the text will be changed and a court order will continue to be a requirement, but [the government] still will search for ways to fight Internet piracy."
Duh. (Score:5, Informative)
A few notes for those not aware of how things have been going around here lately (I'm Spanish):
The SGAE is nothing new, they're the usual corrupt mafia-like organization that you'd expect. They're just trying to screw over both consumers and artists as much as they can. They'd love to have it both ways (making downloads illegal and keeping the levies).
Funny tidbit: the SGAE used to claim that Linux was a shareware version of UNIX on their glossary page. They later "fixed" it by lifting a paragraph from Wikipedia, in violation of the GFDL.
Re:Joer, tío! (Score:5, Informative)
They still are, generally (Rounding three years in Madrid quite soon) - Lately a judge decided that P2P sites are okay [torrentfreak.com] for private sharing. However, the government tries to slip in above kind of Internet law ruling for quite some time now, it is not the first time and sure it will be not the last time.
Re:Wellcome to China. (Score:5, Informative)
The point is (I'm also in Spain), that the proposal states that if a website hosts illegal contents...:
- If the server of that website is in Spain, it will be asked to remove the contents. If it refuses to do it, it will be taken down without a court or a judge involved
- If the server is abroad (here comes the fun part), the Anti-Piracy comission will ask THE SPANISH ISPs (Telefonica, Ono, etc) to BLOCK ACCESS to that website
This easily means that people from spain would not be able to access sites such as megaupload or rapidshare. This means that the Internet seen from Spain would be different when seen from another country.
And this definitely smells like China's firewall.
(sorry for poor english)
Update: President Rodriguez Zapatero reactions (Score:2, Informative)
Everything in the timeline is correct, but there's an important update [muycomputer.com].
Spain's President, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, has guaranteed that "nothing is going to be closed" in Internet. "No webpage, no blog", in a recent press conference in the Palacio de la Moncloa. "If (the draft for the Sustainable Economy Act) has been interpreted as if there is a chance to close the sites on the Internet, I say from now on: under no circumstances will be this possible".
The report in english, translated by Google [google.com].
removing judges... (Score:4, Informative)
The sad thing is.. some journalists are now saying internet users are basically zealots because we are still angry when the government has already said that the law isn't intended for harming users or bloggers, only those who make profit in their pages with p2p links...
Of course, they have said that, but the text in the law doesn't specify that, and that's the only thing that matters. The law explicitly allows for a comission to shut down any page they consider violating copyright.. isn't that the main argument of the scientology church in the USA for their censorship? and in this case is even worse, because at least the Scientology needs a judge for that. It doesn't matter what they say, it's what is written in the law that matters.
Also, the SGAE has been suing users and webmasters for years and at the moment they have lost all p2p cases, because the judges consider sharing links is completely legal. There has been just one case where the acussed admitted guilty as an agreement with SGAE, because they told him they just wanted something like a win for the press, and asked him for about 100 euros. He could have won, but he was just a student and didn't want to mess with the shitty legal system.
Few weeks ago SGAE ordered to close a site that shared music e-links. The judge closed it without even tell anything to the webmaster, who was notified only when he saw his page blocked. The webmaster protested and now the judge has ordered to re-open the page and to fine SGAE for all processal costs and an aditional fine for "bad faith".
So, they want to make a committee for closing sites the judges don't want to close...
(sorry if my english is pretty bad... in spain we are pretty bad learning other languages)
Re:Duh. (Score:3, Informative)
If something isn't illegal then it's legal. Some people call it the "right to a private copy", but this is questionable - there's no such "right" spelled out. Instead, the law simply sets up the illegality of copies sold for a profit. So it's not a right or guaranteed to be legal by the law, but it's legal.
Re:US POLITICAL PRESSURE FOR THIS LAW (Score:3, Informative)
It is not so strange
Sorry, I'm British. That was an example of British sarcasm.
Could you imagine the political backlash if Spanish government decided to be the first country in the first world not to levy the tax?
I hope there would be an even greater backlash in the UK, because they'd have to introduce one before this could happen.