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Spain Tries To End Piracy, File-Sharing
Doug Caverly
Staff Writer
2006-06-30
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
The Spanish government is attempting to end piracy with two drastic new laws. The first measure will ban peer-to-peer file-sharing; the second introduces a tax on all blank media, including memory chips, CDs, and DVDs.
Under the new act, ISPs will be held criminally liable for file-sharing activity. It is, of course, the users, and not the ISPs, who actually engage in file-sharing, but the law will nonetheless punish ISPs that "facilitate file-sharing."
This has already generated a fair amount of criticism. The tax on blank media is proving highly unpopular, too. The European Commission has spoken about it, according to an article on Webuser (a UK Internet magazine), out of concern "that such levies will damage consumers and create resentment."
"The logic of levies would also have to be applied to broadband and infrastructure service providers including telecommunications providers that carry content," the Comission said. "If this were to happen, levies would proliferate and there would be a serious risk of a backlash against the rights holder community and consumer welfare."
Techdirt points out that these two laws will probably fail miserably, and thereby discourage others from following Spain's example. Let's hope so, because as the blurb points out, it's "either that or the entertainment industry will just call for even stiffer penalties." Piracy is a real problem, but this does not seem to be an effective way to end it.
ZeroPaid concluded their article with a plea: "Please prevent this from happening in your country."
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About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for SecurityProNews, InternetFinancialNews, SearchNewz, and WebProNews.
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