After much coming and going, some bickering, with opposition from Internet users and other groups, which have been massively protesting on the Internet, the so-called Sinde law , which in fact is no way a law, was approved by the Spanish Parliament and was published on the Spanish Official Gazette. Precisely on last Sunday, March 6th, it came into force. I say the “so-called Sinde law” because it is not a law sensu stricto designed and presented by the Minister of culture, Angeles González Sinde, and her team, but the “2nd Final Provision” included in the Sustainable Economy Law and was aproved within this regulation.
The Sinde law amends the Law of Services of the Information Society (LSSI), the Intelelctual propperty Act and Law of the Administrative Procedure currently in force in Spain.
The new regulation does not meet the needs and demands neither of the “Tyrians” nor of “Trojans”.
For some people this is a sort of legal botch that, among other things, would not pay the respect owed to the freedom of speech of the Internet users. And, ultimately, the procedure designed to close websites that “might infringe an intellectual property right” would leave the decission to close them to the discretion of a Committee on Intellectual Property, which at the end would require the autorization of a judge.
The fact that the judicial criterium at the time to close a web page comes at the end but not from the very begining of the procedure, poses some doubts on the fairness of the closure decission.
But, moreover, the shut down may be ordered not only in the case that legitimate intellectual property rights are effectively infringed but even if the website is able to do it.
Some other complaints tell about of blacklisting and even about a potential digital wall to the Chinese style.
I wonder if one can fence the cyber-space. And the only answer I can find is that nobody can, at least without risking in some way the freedom and even the human rights.
Francis Gurry, Director General of WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), who in no way can be suspected to be any hacker supporter said recently at a conference he gave in Australia, that shouldn’t the copyright system adapt to the digital age, the system would die. Gurry focuses on how the policy on management and protection of the intellectual property rights could find a balance between the availability of cultural works at affordable prices and ensuring the economic remuneration owed to creators, actors and players.
The digital technology is having a brutal impact on that balance and “…Rather than resist it, we need to accept the inevitability of technological change and to seek an intelligent engagement with it,” Gurry said.
It is difficult for me not to agree with the Director General of WIPO. There are no waste at all in the ideas included in his conference.
Among other things, Gurry proposes the creation of an “international database of music creations (a global repertoire) which would be the first step to establish the infrastructure of a global licensing system, “that makes the task of licensing cultural works legally on the Internet as easy as it is to obtain such works there illegally,” Gurry pointed.
And here I include just some of the clever ideas shared by WIPO Director General on his conference. Chapeau!, Mr. Gurry.
Image over the headline.- Ángeles González Sinde (Minister of Culture during the Socialist Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero). Image by Irekia [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Related Eastwind links:
WIPO Director General: Shouldn’t the copyright system adapt to the digital age, it will perish
