Spanish Government Adopts Its Own Version Of SOPA: Sinde Law Approved
from the there-goes-a-reasonable-one dept
Well, this is unfortunate. Spain has been one of the few remaining countries that had fairly reasonable copyright laws. It was clear that liability is on the actual party doing the infringing, rather than third party service providers, which is why time and time again, Spanish courts found various tool providers to be legal when sued by the entertainment industry. Of course, this has driven the entertainment industry absolutely crazy. We've been hearing stories for years about how the entertainment industry was dead in Spain because of the widespread infringement. Just last month, MPAA boss Chris Dodd insisted that the film industry in Spain was "gone" because of infringement. As we pointed out, Dodd was making this up. The Spanish film industry is doing quite well and producing more movies than in the past.However, the entertainment industry has been pushing this message about how infringement has killed the entire industry in Spain to US politicians and diplomats, leading the US State Department to go ballistic in Spain, demanding that the country change its copyright laws to please Hollywood. While this had been assumed ever since the new legislation was introduced, some of the State Department cables leaked via Wikileaks confirmed the US's deep involvement in pressuring the Spanish government to change its laws.
The revelation that this was really a Hollywood-driven law ramped up public opposition to the bill, and actually delayed it for about a year. The whole situation so pissed off people all around Spain, that even the head of the Spanish Film Academy quit that position to protest how bad the new law was, and how it was anti-consumer.
A month ago, a bunch of press reports suggested that the law, called the Sinde Law, after Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde, had been killed. However, many others pointed out that the issue had really just been punted to the incoming government, which appears to have wasted almost no time in approving the Sinde Law and putting in place a totally backwards and unnecessary law that was pushed by Hollywood by misleading people about the state of the Spanish film market. This, despite the fact that analysis from some economists determined that the bill would be very bad for consumers and artists alike (though it might help big studios in Hollywood).
All in all this is a pretty shameful sell out by the Spanish government to Hollywood. Even worse, Spanish Deputy PM Soraya Saenz de Santamaria is either naive or clueless in suggesting that this will "boost our cultural industries." It won't. It's actually about getting money away from Spanish cultural industries (which, again, are making more movies than ever) and sending it to Hollywood instead. Shameful.
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No wonder other countries hate the US
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Re: No wonder other countries hate the US
And then, bam, they pass the law first. One wonders if the arrogant U.S.-haters really understand what's going on around them, or if they'd rather just everything be us-vs-them.
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Re: Re: No wonder other countries hate the US
Just like the U.S. government doesn't represent the opinions of the U.S. public, or just like the Hollywood Unions don't represent the opinions of the Hollywood Union Members...
The Spanish government doesn't represent the opinions of the Spanish citizens. Besides, this is a separate, new party that's passing the law.
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Re: Re: Re: No wonder other countries hate the US
No, it represents the needs of the US copyright lobby, apparently:
http://torrentfreak.com/us-threatened-to-blacklist-spain-for-not-implementing-site-bl ocking-law-120105/
Yes. So much easier than actually giving people the option to legally access content in a country that's woefully underserved by any legal option. For fuck's sake...
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Re: Re: No wonder other countries hate the US
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Re: Re: Re: No wonder other countries hate the US
If they have corrupt government just like we do, then they're just as stupid as the U.S. is.
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Re: No wonder other countries hate the US
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Our bad
We have tried to fix things but the common people have their beer and circuses and as long as things don't affect them they don't seem to care.
I'm not sure what's going to happen next but as income disparities increase along with social injustices, people are eventually going to realize what is going on.
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb."
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Backroom Legislation
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Correction on "Spanish film industry doing well"
If the goverment stopped those subsidies, the Spanish film industry would not exist ... and we would not be missing much
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Re: Correction on "Spanish film industry doing well"
Data according to IMDB, 2 fairly recent titles off the top of my head:
Cell 211
Budget: $5,700,000 (approx €4.4 million)
Gross (Spain only): €12,694,426
US remake optioned for 2013
[REC]
Budget: €1,500,000
Gross: $32,492,948 (Worldwide)
2 sequels so far with one more in production
Remade as Quarantine in the US, which also has its own sequel.
Yeah, nobody's interested at all.
OK, there's been a lack of really good mainstream Spanish releases this year, but Torrente's popularity is hardly a comment on the industry as a whole. After all, if it wasn't for Harry Potter, the #1 US box office hit of the year would have been Transformers 3 - hardly highbrow entertainment.
As for Almodovar, etc., it's possible for the Spanish movie industry to be successful even if domestic sales are low. The fact that The Skin I Live In didn't make its money back in Spain alone does not mean the film is not financially successful.
As ever the real problem is how you get to see the movies. No Netflix, no Redbox, no Hulu, no Amazon streaming, few options for either rental or purchase on DVD in many areas, and priced way too high for a country where most people have no disposable income, some people need to travel over 50km to get to their nearest cinema. These are the problems, not "piracy".
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Tainted
Sweet corruption at its finest. Congratulations to all those involved. Good job. Sic.
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