Obama and Zapatero recently enjoyed a warm meeting where they found plenty of common, but the two leaders have already found a point of friction: the internet. Obama’s White house is more critical with Spanish policies against piracy on Internet.
The USTR (United States Trade Representative) produces every year a report to encourage countries to respect laws that cover intellectual property rights –in particular with regard to internet downloads. Countries in the special 301 Report must enter into negotiations with the United States to leave the list and will face trade sanctions if they do nothing to fight piracy and illegal downloading. Countries are classified in this report in different categories, according to the level of piracy present here. Spain doesn’t appear in the “priority watch list”, but for the second year appears in the Watch List. Countries like Italy and Norway are also include in this list but is Spain the country that received more rebukes.
Futhermore, last year Spain appears on a blacklist edit by the US congress as one of the countries where internet piracy was most frequent.
301 Report appeals the Spanish government to ban commonly used peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing programs such as eMule or Ares.
Finally, this report has some severe words for Spanish judges and prosecutors for having systematically absolved the owners of WebPages that shows link for downloads, given that there has only been one case that ended in prosecution.
Do you agree with the content of this report? Are the law so permissive with regard to piracy on Internet in Spain?
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1 comment:
What a pity! Where is the border?, I wonder! User's responsibility? What was promised in an old Chomsky article at the beginnings of the internet makes no longer sense.
Well done! Thanks for your views!
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