[pp.int.general] WikiLeaks Proves U.S. Forced Spain to Adopt SOPA-Style Law

[Daniel Riaño]

Ok, thanks for the clarification, Choms.

Just to make our non-Spanish comrades aware of the general issue, my
comments were directed towards the first paragraph of the piece of news
referred to by Giulio "WikiLeaks Proves U.S. Forced Spain to Adopt
SOPA-Style Law"
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikileaks_proves_us_forced_spain_to_adopt_sopa-sty.php

Last week, the Spanish government enacted a
law<http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/spain_sopa_law_shut_down_websites.php>containing
provisions that allows copyright holders to have
allegedly-infringing websites shut down within days of a complaint. The
legislation, which sounds like a more extreme version of the controversial
Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) being debating in the U.S., had actually
already been passed, but wasn't implemented until Spain's new, notably more
conservative government took control.

The legislation referred to, usually known as "Ley Sinde"  is a piece of
legislative crap, but it can't fairly be termed "a extreme version" of the
SOPA (it would be somewhat fairer to call SOPA a extreme version of Sinde's
law, but it would be equally misleading since the approach of both laws are
so different). There is a wealth of evidence (praised be Wikileaks) of the
unabating pressure upon a weak Spanish executive coming form the American
Embassy to pass this, or a similar law (the Americans are not particularly
fond of this law, which they see as too timid against piracy). "Sinde", by
the way, is the family name of the socialist minister who promoted it, and
this is a real success story in terms of pirate branding, considering how
hard it's been for the government to carry on with this piece of
legislation.

In short, the Ley Sinde will try to put down the Spanish-located servers
devoted to pirate downloads (but not P2P pages, which are legal in Spain)
at the simple request of the copy holders, in a very fast non-judicial
procedure without proper judicial intervention. The judge is consulted in
two non essential points of the close-down procedure which doesn't imply
their assessment of the real value of the claimings made by the parts about
their legal rights of the downloadable data. The prosecution doesn't even
need to prove that there is a *real* economic loss, or danger thereof, as a
result of the site's activities, neither it is necessary that the site's
owner is drawing any kind of economic profit from the downloading of the
litigious data. The process can be interrupted if the owner of the site
removes the offending links in due time ("due" here means extremely fast).

Did I say legislative crap? Now you can judge by yourselves. It remains to
be seen if the judiciary allows the crap to be used as their promoters
might want it. It remains to be seen, too, if the law promoters (now
Spanish conservative party PP) will try to push the limits of the owner's
claims further than the letter of the law suggests, but some of us are
confident that the application of the law will be much restrained by the
judiciary.

While this law is certainly another step in the wrong direction from our
authorities' side, the server's owners are again in the sunny side of the
law just by moving their servers abroad. There is no re-naming of DNSs-
scheme, no barring of online advertising, SOPA style, neither are the
users, for the time being, threatened by this law. P2P is unaffected by the
law (apparently). So, while we are, as you can imagine, not exactly happy
with the new legislation (which will be in effect come March) we are not as
concerned about the sanity of the whole system as the American citizens
should be.

The law was passed by the socialist, now defunct, government, but the
necessary legislative development was only approved two weeks ago by the
newly elected conservative Cabinet, after several failed attempts from
Sinde herself to gain the support of her fellow ministers to approve it,
thus culminating an extremely embarrasing term at the Ministery of Culture.

2012/1/7 Choms <choms at botmania.net>

> Sorry if I misunderstood your message, it wasn't personal. It just looked
> like you were justifying or satisfied with Ley Sinde in some way.
>
> No harsh feelings!
> Choms
>
> 2012/1/7 Daniel Riaño <danielrr2 at gmail.com>
>
>> It would be nice too, if you (Sergio González, AKA Choms) could read
>> texts in context, and you don't send personal mesages to a PPI list.
>>
>> Nobody in the Pirate Party in Spain think Sinde's Law it's ok, but some
>> people can't refrain to make their personal issues public.
>>
>> Sorry about that, folks.
>>
>>
>> 2012/1/7 Choms <choms at botmania.net>
>>
>>> It would be nice if you don't tell at the rest of the PPI community
>>> things like "Hey, It cuts our freedoms, but its OK!". Please don't speak in
>>> my name. We strongly reject that law, and the Spanish Pirate Party would
>>> never agree to its provisions, or think it's ok to pass such a law.
>>>
>>> 2012/1/6 Daniel Riaño <danielrr2 at gmail.com>
>>>
>>>> To tell the truth, the infamous Ley Sinde is waaay softer than SOPA,
>>>> and much easier to circumvent
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2012/1/6 Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com>
>>>>
>>>>> WikiLeaks Proves U.S. Forced Spain to Adopt SOPA-Style Law
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikileaks_proves_us_forced_spain_to_adopt_sopa-sty.php
>>>>> ____________________________________________________
>>>>> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
>>>>> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>>>>> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ____________________________________________________
>>>> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
>>>> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>>>> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> ____________________________________________________
>>> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
>>> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>>> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
>>>
>>>
>>
>> ____________________________________________________
>> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
>> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
>>
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>
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