Hitting Pirates In The Pocket

The Spanish government may try hitting entertainment pirates in the pocket with new legislation aimed at deterring their advertisers.

The new law may require advertisers to stop advertising on pirate sites or face serious fines.

The crackdown on advertising would also include payment processing companies, which are generally the lifeblood of sites that offer unauthorized content.

Education and culture minister Jose Ignacio Wert is spearheading the initiative to “economically strangle” the pirates.
“This is about a philosophy of going after large-scale distributors of infringing content,” he explained.

His bill will now need to make its way through the public and private debates and lobbying that precede any change in the country’s legislation.

Spain’s record of fighting piracy isn’t good, leading to threats of trade sanctions from the International Intellectual Property Alliance.

The proposed fines would fall between euro 30,000 and euro 300,000 ($389,000), according to the bill’s initial draft.
It would also force infringing sites to erase entire catalogues of infringing content, instead of trudging through piles of one-off takedown demands.

Other aspects of the bill include the overhaul of collection societies and a re-examination of the country’s file-sharing laws. 

Currently, rightsholders are compensated for rampant file-swapping through levies on physical, blank media formats, while Wert’s proposals would seek to completely outlaw the swapping of unauthorized content.