Freedom for a Sustainable Internet, Madrid

The new Statute of Sustainable Economy (Ley de Economía Sostenible) in Spain gave the government executive powers to shut down internet sites which might be considered illegal, especially the copying of intellectual property. As a consequence the coalition of citizens and internet users and organisations, Red S@S, are stepping up their campaign against this law. 01/12/2010

The details of the coalition’s main arguments against the law, which includes an open letter to governments, multinationals and institutions, were explained this morning during a press conference at the Ateneo de Madrid.

Full details of the arguments put forward by Red S@S can be found at http://red-sostenible.net/ and the Open Letter can be found at http://fcforum.net/es/charter_extended .

Legally, the new law violates such constitutional rights as presumption of innocence and freedom of expression. Moreover, the government are applying a mechanism, i.e. the use of executive powers to shut down websites, which the legislature have in the past reserved to fight drug trafficking and terrorism.

The new powers go so far that enable the government to shut down a web site even if the owner of the web site has a link to other third parties who might themselves be linked to a site that might be engaged in illegally activities. The representatives of the coalition pointed out that for example P2P software is also used by people to legitimately exchange personal documents and not only for illegal downloads.

Members of the coalition made it clear that they are not politically motivate nor have they got any political ambitions and that they are certainly not advocating acting illegally. They consider themselves citizens first who see their rights being infringed by the government.

However, during the press conference the internet was described as a huge copying machine and that companies must adapt themselves and their business model to the realities of the internet.

In fact one of the problems, according to the coalition, is that all political parties do not understand the internet. For political parties, the internet is just another place to collect votes.

In any case, the coalition claim that present legislation is adequate enough to deal with any illegal activities on the internet especially activities against business interests.

Not only, according to the delegates, does this new law serve no purpose, other than to create a conflict, especially during the Spanish presidency of the European Union, but that the reference to judicial oversight is just cosmetic.

Regarding the economic aspects of the issue, we were asked to consider this question: Who is benefitting from this law? And according to the representatives it is the intermediaries who are benefitting and not the authors of any artistic works. Artists and authors need users to access their work.

On their website, Red S@S claim that intellectual property is not a fundamental right, contrary to what the Minister for Justice, Francisco Caamaño, believes. What is a fundamental right is the right to literary and artistic production.

The coalition are in no doubt that this law which gives the government so much executive power to shut down websites will eventually fail.

They want to achieve this with dialogue and consultation with all concerned free of any political bias. However, they are in no doubt of the difficulties ahead of them. Even still, the coalition’s battle ground would first and foremost be the internet and not necessarily an all campaign of legitimate protest in the streets of the country.

However, the coalition are prepared to take their campaign at an European level should the situation in Spain does not change.

The representatives did pointed out that similar legislation is being introduced in other European countries, such as the UK and France. This might imply that a similar initiative as that of the Red S@S might have to be started in other countries.

(nb: Red in Spanish means network and in this context the Internet)

Members of the panel during this morning’s press conference:

Montserrat Boix, periodista y bloguera (Mujeres en Red) [Journalist and Blogger: first photo]
Alberto Barrionuevo, de la FFII {wearing Firefox badge}
Javier Sáez, emprendedor en la Red [Internet entrepreneur]
Simona Levi, de la eXgae
Javier Maestre, abogado [Lawyer]
Fernando Berlín, periodista [Journalist]
M. Navarro, músico [Musician; wearing purple tinted spectacles]
Daniel Vázquez, activista [Activist]
Emilio Domingo, presidente de la Asociación de Internautas [President of the association of internet users; holding grey bag]
Pepe Cervera, periodista [Journalist]

(Thank you Soraya for sending me the list)