Sinde: The Spanish SOPA

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While the SOPA and ProtectIP bills are still sitting in the US Congress, Spain has passed the Sinde Anti-Piracy Law. Similar to the American bills, Sinde gives rights holders the power to request legal action against an allegedly pirating website. There are some differences between the bills though. Sinde creates the government commission for the rights holders to turn to while SOPA and ProtectIP use the already established Attorney General’s office. Also the power to take down a site rests with Spanish courts, whereas the US bills give that power to the Attorney General.

There has been great opposition to this bill which has existed for years, it appears. It has been passed now because the ruling party, which just came to power in November, chose to implement it. It is worth mentioning that Spain has a great pirating problem, with as much as 97.8% of music consumption in the country being illegally driven, for just the first six months of 2010. Movie and game pirating were at 77% and 60.7%, respectively, for the same time period.

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ComputerEd on January 4, 2012 01:05PM You know I am not opposed to taking down a proven pirate site but the issues here are that the police force in this case is a private organization which is not in any way under some kind of oversight. In addition they do not have to bring real proof of the infraction just an allegation and there is no way for the site to dispute the charges before punishment is implemented. reply to this

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