Slashdot Mirror
Spanish Congress Rejects Internet Censorship Law
TuringTest writes "A commission of the Spanish Congress has rejected a law that allowed the closure of web sites that provide unauthorized downloads. The government couldn't reach enough support from its allies, not because they opposed the law in principle, but because of the way it was redacted and the lack of negotiation. Recently the Spanish Senate rejected a law on net neutrality. Also the Wikileaks cables disclosed pressure from the USA on the Spanish government to pass a law to reduce Internet sharing of music and media, which is legal in Spain."
and moving to spain
...Is lower the bar for "copyright infringement" or the enforcement thereof.
It's already happening in the US. Homeland Security to fourth amendment: "Fuck you."
its sad that this is not normal but abnormal for the government to work
to pass a law to reduce Internet sharing of music and media, which is legal in Spain
see how that filth works ? this is precisely why they are trying to take down wikileaks. because it exposes what filth they are doing.
Read radical news here
... then I realized that the reason they rejected it had nothing to do with the fact that this sort of thing is bad =(
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
This makes it very obvious why all government communication should be accessible to all it's citizens. People behave very different when they know what they are doing is secret.
How can you pass something in to law if it has been redacted and is thus not fully disclosed. You could have something in there like "we'll also need everyone to wear pink on Fridays or face the death penalty". How can we follow a law, let alone pass it if it has been redacted?
To give you an idea of the authoritarianism of Spain's government, around three weeks ago it issued a State of Alert because of striking ATCers which came down to, "If you refuse to work, you will be sent to jail." (Conversely, work sets you free.) Note that Spanish ATC was civilian, but an argument was formed that by striking you are denying people freedom of movement. This is probably one of the most Orwellian interpretations of "freedom" Western Europe has seen in recent years, and is the first time quasi-martial law has been enforced in Spain since the fall of Franco.
This is not the sort of government that is about to sympathise with filesharing arguments. It is, like all authoritarian governments, a stickler for procedure, and that's the only real reason this law didn't pass.
the Spanish to reject inquisition.
(But now they've gone and done it).
They can try and stop a few, but they will not succeed in stopping all of them. Bancuri poze filmulete
Spanish people's concept of intellectual copyright laws, is almost non-existent, due to the cannibalistic sharky behaivour of those agencies. And last wikileaks proved the commissioning of american companies. The EU did not accept many of the Spanish government laws related to extra taxes on any kind of device which may be recordable, a tax on benefit of intellectual copyright agencies, around 10 € per Hard disk, even if you were an IT company. Spain is always a pain.
What has particularly pissed off Spanish internet community is that the copyright laws the US is blackmailing through in Spain (via 301/trade sanctions) go way beyond what has ever been proposed here in the US - i.e. 3 strikes.
In a move that has only thrown more fuel on the fire, the US ambassador to Spain took an active role in discouraging democratic debate about the new laws - agreeing by Spanish request to "influence" elected representatives so that they did not to meet or discuss the new laws with their constituents:
"[Sebastian] I was particularly concerned that the regional government of Madrid had been organizing meetings with Internet users. (...) He said that would be helpful if the ambassador could encourage regional president [Esperanza Aguirre] to stop.'s Ambassador agreed to raise the issue when meeting with the regional president."
"Spreading Democracy" in action, anyone.
thenks mr...
Homeland Security to fourth amendment: "Fuck you."
Sorry, that is a copy infringement. See Cheney vs US People for prior art.
Sometimes two different 'freedoms' may clash. It looks like Spanish people feel that it is better to be free of the fear of huge amounts of guns on their streets than the freedom for the majority of citizens to carry guns on their streets.
I've lived in Europe for 40 years and never once have I thought "I'd feel safer walking to the shops if I had a gun on me or knowing that lots of these other people walking around on the streets had guns on them".
today. there has to be a reason, out of the blue.
Read radical news here
France has passed a law "Loppsi 2" which allows the Interior Minister to ban any web site without any legal process. The Ministry for the Interior sends a blacklist to ISPs which they have to enforce. Though ostensibly to cut down "child porn" and malware sites, there aren't any actual restrictions on what kind of site can be blacklisted and could be used to black out a site such as Wikileaks.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
I'll copy+paste myself from Osnews:
File sharing is not "legal" in Spain. It is something called, in the law world, "alegal" which means something is not regulated nor prohibited. To give a weird example: it is legal to say something because you have the right of free speech but... would it be legal to kill an e.t.? Right now, with the law in hands, that would be "alegal".
IANAL but i think the summary, like lately on /. stories, says things that are not enterely true. I quote from Ars what really happens
"Spanish prosecutors have also suggested that, while P2P remains illegal, it is essentially decriminalized"
Ars article
PS: I don't agree with the analisys made in Ars article.
I know the 4channers launched a DDoS against congreso.es over this issue. I wonder if that swayed the debate at all.
Clicking on the link in the summary brought me to the google translated version. Here's a fragment of the headache inducing result:
The arguments put forward by all parliamentary groups except the PSOE, passed from the doubts about the constitutionality of the text, in the case of CC, PP and ERC-IU-ICV, to consider the provision "a Pepe own fudge and Otilio Leak "as said ERC spokesman Joan Ridao, or" the law of the kick to the modem ", as stated by the deputy of ICV Nuria Buenaventura.
Yeah... most of my email spam makes more sense these days.
I can share all my files, and it is legal.
I guess you mean copyrighted file sharing. It is legal too as long as it is made between individuals and there is no money swap. It is even a right (derecho de copia privada, something like private copy right), and we pay a canon to the SGAE (the Spanish RIAA) to compensate for it. Yes, we pay to compensate for a right, and we pay to the SGAE even if the copyrightholder isn't member of the SGAE but these are another stories.
I'd say we're dejected and despairing rather than happy about all this.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
"un chapuza propia de Pepe Gotera y Otilio" -> "a botch made by Pepe Gotera and Otilio"
Pepe Gotera and Otilio are two comic characters.
http://usuarios.multimania.es/personajesdetebeo/hpbimg/pepego.jpg
http://www.motorspain.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/pepe-gotera-comic-4-480x362.jpg
The ATCs weren't striking using a well-known procedure. I suspect there would be a bit more sympathy from the public if they'd been dragged off the picket line rather than examined by doctors when they falsely claimed to be sick.
"Estado de alarma" (State of Alarm) != State of Alert != State of Exception. State of alarm merely meant that the ATCs and the ATCs only were considered military personnel and subject to military discipline (i.e. Refuse to work? -> Insubordination). There was no removal of any constitutional rights for the public. Even in the case of the ATCs, you can argue that their constitutional rights were not affected, it's just that, suddenly, their employer/supervisor became the military and they had to act accordingly. Nobody put pistols in nobody's heads. The procedure is mostly bureaucratic.
Also, the State of Alarm is part of the Spanish constitution. In extreme cases (such as 600000 passengers affected), the government can declare it for an initial 15 days, then Congress decides if it's continued or not.
The ATCs suddenly and massively got ill and left. They stated that they were under severe stress and other pisspoor excuses. What is remarkable is that they had booked in advance a room at a nearby hotel to meet. Was this a strike? Yes, a covert one, not a legal one.
When the ATCs were notified of their new status under the State of Alarm, they suddenly got cured of all their ailments and went back to work. No guns needed nor involved.
Maybe it's worth mentioning that Spanish ATCs earn ridiculously huge salaries but have the poorest productivity record in Europe. They also have a very reduced ammount of standard work hours, so most of their pay is in overtime hours, even though a big chunk of said "overtime" corresponds to a normal 40 hr/week. Oh, and they also count their sick days, vacations and union meetings as worked hours, and are paid for them.
In the end, it doesn't matter much that Spanish ATCs are so well paid, what mattered this time was that they massively abandoned their work posts. Not any random post, but posts that affect a whole country. Did you know that the Spanish transplant system was affected by this shenanigans? Yep, some people didn't get their transplant on time because this guys "got ill" and walked out of the control towers.
2019 is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop.
Children in Africa are dying right now by the thousand because you are posting on /. when you could be working extra hours and donating your income to feed and house them. I am declaring a State of Alarm and you are required to work through all free hours until either you die or poverty is eradicated.
This is not slavery, it's just me setting your employer to me and you having to respond accordingly. No pistols, but I will lock you up (escorted by guys with pistols) if you disagree. The procedure is mostly bureaucratic. Thanks!
Somebody mod parent up, since s/he speaks the truth, something which, these days, has become a revolutionary act. My symbolic +1. And yes, you read right when parent said that **File sharing of copyrighted material IS LEGAL in Spain**. Then, why do we always hear/read that it's i-legal/alegal? That's what the pro-Copyright outits want you to believe and keep spouting all the time, blatantly ignoring what the law says.
2019 is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop.
I read Ars article and noticed the "illegal but decriminalized". File-sharing, even of copyrighted material is pefectly legal in Spain as long as no money is charged in exchange for the file. Perhaps that's what sharing means, as opposed to selling/purchasing. And no, carrying publicity in a website != charging for money in exchange for a file. And yes, copyright outfits always spin and re-spin the "ilegal/crime" mantra. An yes, the copyright overlords are mighty pissed and lobbying non-stop to have the law changed to their liking.
2019 is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop.
Strawman, is that you? I post on Slashdot -> Children in Africa die because of my action/inaction? Compare to: ATCs leave their work posts suddenly and en-masse -> Planes can't fly -> Organs and transplant personnel can't travel -> The Spanish transplant system grinds to a halt.
2019 is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop.
The world is turning against military expansion of empire so now it is necessary to do it financially. That is all.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You end your day's duties in a safe manner [no-one's left without a route to Internet porn, or whatever it is you do] -> you choose not to work -> people die.
They end their day's duties in a safe manner [no planes fall out of the sky] -> they choose not to work -> people die.
Please explain what about the ATC staff makes them criminally liable and you not. Try not to argue like an Officer in a Royal Navy press gang while doing so.
Stop, dude. Stop. You keep piling one logical fallacy after another. Do I have to explain why my posting on Slashdot does not make me liable for the deaths of children in Africa? Do you want me to answer that? I mentioned the transplant issue as an illustration of some of the damage the ATCs caused. Let's forget about any collateral damage the ATCs may have caused. These guys "got ill" and walked out of their posts. I don't think that's acceptable for any worker.
2019 is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop.
That's the title of the BBC article you linked, versus your
"it issued a State of Alert because of striking..."
Do I have to explain why my posting on Slashdot does not make me liable for the deaths of children in Africa? Do you want me to answer that?
If the ATCs "caused" (in the sense of being criminally liable) transplants not to occur because they decided not to give their work, then you "caused" (in the sense of being criminally liable) African children to die because you decide not to give your money.
If you disagree, you need to explain precisely and clearly why this is not true. You can't keep crying "strawman!" "logical fallacy!" without explaining why, unless you're trolling. But you have just argued that there's nothing unreasonable about having your employer unilaterally changed to the military and denied that guns are involved when workers are threatened with imprisonment if they do not comply, so I'm fairly certian you're trolling.
I'm posting of Slashdot. From that fact, where follows that I'm responsible for the deaths of African children? From my posting on Slashdot, where follows that I'm not donating to African children. From your twisted logic. My posting on Slashdot does not kill more or less children. Posting on Slashdot is not related to my donation/lack of donation to African children. I mentioned the transplant problem as an example of some collateral damage only. I never said they were criminally liable for that. Where did I say that? They might or might not be. But it seems you thought I had said they were, which I didn't say. You keep twisting my words. In response to an earlier post, I said "Nobody put pistols in nobody's heads. The procedure is mostly bureaucratic." I didn't say that no guns were involved. If you claim that pistols were pointed at ATCs' heads you'll have to provide evidence for that.
2019 is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop.
Bravo argues that downloading files is undoubtedly legal and uploading, although more controversial, is surely not a crime, within the current Spanish legislation[1]. His views are grounded mainly on the Intellectual Propierty Law (1996), Article 31, 2nd Chapter, "Reproduction without authorization" and the Penal Code, Article 270[2]
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/David_Bravo_Bueno
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
I thought they had a parliamentary system in Spain.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
The Spanish Govt. spokesman has announced that they'll keep trying to pass this "law" (a provision/amendment to a law, actually). If they don't succeed with their current plan (the Sinde Act), they'll try to append a similar provision to some other random law. If that fails, they'll try with some other law, and so on until they eventually somehow sneak the preemptive closing of file-sharing sites without a judge order in some random law, bill, decree, etc. The lobbying by Spanish & American pro-Copyright outfits is huge.
In Portugal, the place i am from, it is similar. The lobbying doesn't go on to become law because courts have more important things to do than just trial minor damages, and even politicians know better. Also the public backlash would be significant if normal people started to go bankrupt, like already happened in the States. I don't think it should be criminalized but people should be educated that it's good to support what you like, as part of good citizenship. The carrying of publicity is not ilegal but on the other hand making profit from it should, at least in my opinion.