And Here Comes The Media Campaign About How Spain Needs To Change Its Copyright Laws

from the pressure-coming dept

Mon, May 17th 2010 11:55pm — Mike Masnick

We figured that the pressure on the Spanish gov't to change copyright laws would be ratcheting up, so it should be no surprise to see a NY Times article suggesting that there's "growing pressure" on Spain to change its copyright law. As you may recall, Spain actually has quite reasonable copyright laws. It recognizes that non-commercial copyright infringement isn't the same thing as commercial scale infringement. It recognizes that creating a search engine for files is not the same as actually distributing those files. It also recognizes that people have a right to privacy. These are all reasonable findings... unless you happen to have an increasingly obsolete business model and you don't want to adapt. So when Spain finds that a file sharing network doesn't violate copyright laws because it only points to infringing files, but doesn't do any of the distribution, the industry spins it as Spain being weak on copyright, rather than just accurate in applying liability.

Of course, childish threats from Hollywood to leave the market (yeah, that'll stop file sharing...) has convinced some to put forth new copyright laws that mirror those elsewhere. This, despite the fact that an economic analysis of the new law suggests it would do more harm than good.

The NY Times piece is pretty one-sided, never expressing any skepticism about the industry-provided numbers. It quotes three people in favor of changing the laws, and only one against it. And the one against it focuses on the privacy and consumer rights issues, but doesn't mention the basic liability issue. Either way, I'm sure we'll start seeing more articles like this until Spain feels it has no choice but to capitulate, and one more set of copyright laws will be adjusted in favor of the entertainment industry, and against net progress yet again.

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Filed Under: copyright, spain

9 Comments

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trench0r (profile), 18 May 2010 @ 12:05am

sad..
I swear mike, your tone really is getting more defeated.. then again, I guess I feel the same way.. they control the justice dept, they control the world, how can consumers fight back? especially when most of them don't care?
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Yogi, 18 May 2010 @ 1:12am

Lucky Us
Lucky for us we have excellent, main stream media that will get the facts straight and present readers with all sides of the argument in an unbiased manner so the public and government officials can conduct a rational debate on the issue.

Of course, this is the New York Times so none of the above applies.
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The eejit (profile), 18 May 2010 @ 1:33am

To be fair, the NY Times is owned by the single biggest producer of copyrighted works outside of Hollywood. Also, he's a shitty asshat who wouldn't know if it was arsehole or breakfast-time.
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Yogi, 18 May 2010 @ 3:46am

To be fair?
To be fair, the NYT should inform its readers of such bias and direct them to other, more informative sources.

But the truth is I don't think this is bias - it's just the same journalistic laziness and incompetence that has been the hallmark of mainstream media for the past decade (at least).

I wish there was a blog where I could get the facts about these issues.I wonder where it could be...?
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Anonymous Coward, 18 May 2010 @ 4:55am

I do not read the NYT behind that wall.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 May 2010 @ 6:53am

Why should/would Spain care what people in the US are writing about them behind closed paywalls? :P
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- Joel (profile), 18 May 2010 @ 7:50am
  
  Re:
  I was going to say the same thing...Who gives a flying bag of poop?? Spain and all the other countries could do whatever they want!
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Hephaestus (profile), 18 May 2010 @ 7:17am

"Of course, childish threats from Hollywood to leave the market"

They already have left the market. That is the problem. Hollywood doesnt seem to understand their stuff has a very short shelf life, waiting 6 months for something to be available in spain doesnt work in a connected world. They are in a industry that refuses to provide service, or listen to it customers, it just dictates terms.

Spain is already lost to them, its societal now and no amount of laws will change that.
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NAMELESS ONE, 18 May 2010 @ 2:08pm

according to a cbc article
the police in Sweden said that catching real criminals becomes to hard so if hollywood were really thinking of children and the govts they'd make p2p legal so that the cops can go after sicko pedophiles.

When you have everyone being a criminal they cant go after everyone....
SO the MPAA is not thinking of children they aer helping pedophiles and terrorists
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