Slashdot Mirror
Spanish Website Blocking Law Implemented
Sir Mal Fet writes "In a very polemic move by the Spanish parliament, the infamous 'Sinde' law, already discussed here, was implemented on December 31st. Albeit modified from their original version, the law will allow the Spanish government to request ISPs to summarily close a website due to copyright infringement (English translation). If the ISP refuses, then it's passed to court where a judge can order the website closed. It seems it's one good, one bad over there. The law is in public consult until March, and No Les Votes, a Spanish organization that opposes the law, has already started a campaign to boycott it (English translation)."
Website Blocking Law !
Anything other than a judge decreting a site to be closed is likely unconstitutional, and the first ISP to drag a case to the court will void the law, because the law itself voids the principle of "innocent until guilty". I'm not spanish (I'm from a neighour country), but it seems if one of these cases reaches an european court it will stand no chance, so this seems to be a "pleaser" law - it's written and whatnot (and given that Spain recently changed powers, it's not difficult to guess why now), but if you try to enforce it on the wong people, a shitstorm will rise. Considering that Spain is one of the countries that signed the Lisbon Treaty (and one of the few countries to referend it), the ones actually approving this law will have no interest whatsoever in enforcing it, specially considering the precarious finance state of the country.
It's funny how a (somewhat)developed country with one of the highest unemployment rates (>20%), with an estimate of 40% of its finantial sector completely deregulated (through an interesting concept of "non profit" or "associative" banks), with a recently elected government, and the likely candidate for rescue in 2012 by the IMF and the european fund, has "time" to vote and pass this kind of legislation, that probably will be voided when disputed on an european court.
It should have been polemical (polemic is the noun) but it is English. From Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/polemical) :
polemical adj 1: of, relating to, or being a polemic : controversial 2: engaged in or addicted to polemics : disputatious
Unfortunately there's no mod for ignoramous so I had to.... oh right, simple English. So I guess that's just "dumb-ass" then (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dumb-ass).
You don't have to be so xenophobic. It was in the quote of the article. /. shouldn't have to simplify/edit a quote every time there's a big scary looking word in it.
The even funnier thing is that copyright violation for non profit/personal use isn't against the law in Spain.
This law is supposed to be used to take down link-farm sites which have advertising alongside their pages of links. Those pages make money for the owners so they violate the 'non profit' part of the copyright exception.
At least, that's the story they used to sell it to the politicians.
How it will actually be used is anybody's guess, but it could be used for almost anything given the general level of corruption in Spanish politics and the 'nightmare' economic crisis (ie. there's no money left to steal - every politician's worst nightmare!)
No sig today...
I'm spanish. I'm truly sick of the fearmongering this sorry excuse for a technology website keeps spewing. In this particular case the summary is wrong and retarded, the 'articles' it cites are retarded and there's nothing to see here. The Sinde law will not be 'implemented', there is no such thing as 'implementing' a law. This is only ridiculous. Maybe it makes some sense to information-deprived shit-overloaded US-centric morons who read this website and go ZOMG the sky, it is fellings, it's the end I tell ya!
There has been a change of government in Spain. The incoming idiots want to make a statement. That is all. There have been tens of lawsuits where the only websites closed where the ones who profited, if only by having google ads, from their pages. And the closed sprout again with same content under a different name, with no ads, in a couple of hours, case closed. If there are no ads the page is considered not for profit and spanish courts have never considered P2P any more illegal than lending a magazine. I wish the fucking stupidity about this would go away. But I digress.
In Spain there is still due process for everything. We don't have a MAFIAA, we have a smallish group of whiny artsy retards who get 50% of the budget of any 'spanish' (read ingrown, incestuous, embarrasing shit that should never cross our borders) movie from our taxes. One of the linked articles say that Spain has 'emerged' as a 'safe-haven' for 'piracy'. It didn't emerge, the legal standing of lending things you own has always been the same and it was legal to copy a Phillips Cassette in the 50s and it's legal to make a torrent of a movie today if you own it. What was punishable by death was to use Fe-grade cassettes. But still. Spain is also not a 'safe-haven' for piracy, but same story: we have rights across Europe and we like it that way. Where is The Pirate Bay hosted? Several places now. Has it been closed? Not that I know, just as not one of the small pages in Spain will not be closed as long as they steer clear of making any profit off sharing.
The natural state of the art industry (an oxymoron in itself) is small, very small. Prices are too high for the crap that's selling and it's okay, only kids (or underdeveloped adults) with too much money on their hands buy said crap. I myself stick to music that was written some centuries ago. Yesterday I had some silly fun out of IBNIZ, give it a try, with a week of practice anyone capable of understanding some assembler concepts like stacks and basic bit wrangling can churn a trance track every 4 hours.
Implemented two days ago? Public consults until March? Boycott the law?
Nobody Expects The Spanish InConfusion!
I agree, TFS is immensely confusing, at least for non-Spanish citizens, and lacks any contextual clues. It's like a very bad translation of an article meant only for Spanish domestic consumption where many assumptions are made about the target audience's previous knowledge of the subject and the Spanish domestic political/legal landscape and legal/legislative procedures.
It reads a lot like Japanese instruction manuals from years back that had almost completely indecipherable English translations, many of which were quite humorous, but unfortunately very unhelpful.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.