ID

22617

Etiquetas

ETRD, KIPR, SP, Trade Issues

Fecha

2004-11-08 16:41:00

RefID

04MADRID4299

Origen

Embassy Madrid

Clasificación

UNCLASSIFIED

Destino

04MADRID736

Encabezado

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

Contenido

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 MADRID 004299

SIPDIS

@ELIMINADO@

E.O. 12958: N/A

TAGS: ETRD, KIPR, SP, Trade Issues

SUBJECT: SPECIAL 301 MID-TERM REVIEW WITH COPYRIGHT

INDUSTRIES

REF: MADRID 00736

1. This is an action cable. See para. 6.1.

2. Summary: Spanish copyright industry representatives said

at a 10/29/04 DCM-hosted lunch that it was too soon to tell

where the Zapatero government was going with respect to IP

protection. The majority said they had no view at this time

whether Spain should be put on the Special 301 list next

year. The Business Software Alliance (BSA) representative

said, however, that the U.S. should strongly consider putting

Spain on the list because IP internet protection was very

weak, i.e. internet providers (principally Telefonica) were

not being made sufficiently responsible for protecting

content from unauthorized downloading. The participants

agreed Spanish Customs should crack down on imports of blank

CDs; that the GOS needed to make a combined public effort

with internet providers and content companies to deal with

internet piracy along the lines of a recent French government

initiative; and, that Spain needed to pass implementing

legislation for the internet treaties soon. End Summary

3. The DCM-hosted lunch included Asociacion Fonografica y

Videografica President Antonio Guisasolo, Pedro Farre Lopez

(SGAE), Federacion para la Proteccion de la Propriedad

Intelectual de la Obra Audiovisual (FAP) Legal Coordinator

Salvador Esteban, Business Software Alliance Director of

Institutional Relations Carlos Manuel Fernandez, and FEDICINE

Secretary General Estela Artacho. EconCouns, Trade Policy

SIPDIS

Officer, and Econ FSN also participated.

PROBLEMS IDENTIFIED

-------------------

4. Participants agreed that Spanish police continued to

conduct an impressive number of raids against IPR pirates,

and that local police forces especially in Madrid, Catalonia,

and the Basque region were becoming particularly active in

this regard. The new penal code establishing stiffer

penalties entered into force on October 1, 2004 so industry

needed to wait to see what effect the new code would have.

All five IP representatives complained about the lack of IPR

knowledge among judges and a sense among many members of the

judiciary that IPR offenses were trivial. They said they did

not see a big shift in policy with the Zapatero government.

However, the SGAE representative said that he thought the new

government would probably be reluctant to engage forcefully

in this area because the "social cost" would be too high,

meaning the political cost incurred by cracking down further

on the largely immigrant "manteros" (street pirates), and the

growing generation of younger people who believed downloading

movies and music and the internet for free was appropriate.

5. Although street piracy remains a problem, internet piracy

is fast becoming a more significant issue. Although Spain

has signed the WIPO internet treaties, it has not passed

implementing legislation because the EU Copyright Directive

(this Directive provides the legal framework for implementing

the WIPO internet treaties) has not been implemented yet.

According to a Ministry of Culture contact, the Ministry is

poised to send to parliament implementing legislation, but he

would not say when this would happen. The BSA representative

complained that the "killer applications" sold by Telefonica

(by far and away the most important internet provider in

Spain) allowed subscribers to download movies and music from

the internet with ease. He claimed that although Telefonica

recently, for instance, started offering Apple's iTunes music

for fee service, it remained unreceptive to discussions on

how to prevent unauthorized downloading from the internet.

Separately, a Spanish lawyer told EconOff that the

fundamental problem was that without appropriate implementing

legislation, peer to peer operation cannot be effectively

prosecuted.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

-----------------

6. There was consensus on the desirability of working on the

following issues.

1) Get Spanish Customs to track and in certain cases prevent

the unauthorized importation of blank CDs. Embassy in

coordination with industry will encourage the GOS to do so.

Embassy requests information from Customs and Border

Protection (CPB) regarding whether it has experiences that

might be worth sharing in this regard with Spanish Customs.

Such information sharing/training could conceivably be done

in partnership under the auspices of the USG's recently

announced Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy.

2. Encourage GOS Ministries of Finance, Commerce, Justice,

and Interior to announce together with internet service

providers and content providers a commitment and strategy to

prevent unauthorized downloading from the internet. The

copyright industry representatives agreed that the French

initiative in this regard announced last July was a "model".

3. Stress the importance to the GOS of passing implementing

legislation for the internet treaties.

4. Do more to train and sensitize Spanish judges to the

importance of IPR. Embassy will explore what can be done

additionally in terms of speakers and IVs. In July this

year, through the Joint Vistor Program (JVP): "U.S.-Spanish

Judicial Cooperation", the Embassy nominated and sent two

Barcelona-based judges to the U.S. for exposure to the

American IPR system. Our understanding is that the judges

had a succesful trip to the U.S. Unlike in some other

countries, many Spanish judges are receptive to participating

in U.S. exchange programs so we will work to identify other

judges we might potentially nominate for similar trips.

5. Encourage the GOS to launch a public campaign on the

importance of respecting intellectual property. All

copyright industry representatives said this was important

because such campaigns have until now largely been conducted

by industry.

ARGYROS;"