The last century of copyright law has basically been one story after another about how the "deal" between content creators and the public has been shifted further and further away from benefiting the public in any way. The worst of the worst is the idea of retroactive copyright term extension. This simply makes no sense whatsoever. The point of copyright law is to provide incentives to someone to create new content in exchange for a limited monopoly, after which the work goes to the public. If the term of copyright protection was enough at the time of creation, then the incentive "worked." Changing it retroactively makes no sense, and appears to be a pure violation of the principles of unilateral contract changes. Copyright is a contract with the public, but under retroactive copyright term extension the public gets the terms of its deal changed without any compensation or recourse.

So it's sad to see that it looks like Spain may be the latest country Europe is the latest to take up retroactive copyright term extension (Google translation from the original found via Copycense). Given that Spain has generally been pretty reasonable on copyright laws (though, under pressure from US special interests, some have been trying to change that), it's sad to see them look to seize the public domain right out from under its citizens like this. Update: Sorry for the confusion. The Copycense piece said Spain, but as is noted in the comments, this is actually across the EU and not specific to Spain. Which doesn't make it any better. It actually makes it worse.

For a few years now, we've been pointing out that various Spanish courts have reasonably ruled that merely linking to infringing works hosted elsewhere is not infringement. It seems that Spanish courts have to keep repeating this, and now there's yet another ruling, this time from an appeals court, once again pointing out that linking is not infringement. It's nice to see the courts keep saying this, though it only seems to give fodder to the entertainment industry to whine about how Spain's copyright laws need to be fixed. Let's try this on for size instead: it actually seems to show that Spain knows how to properly apply liability and to not blame an intermediary service provider for actions of its users.

Late last week, we wrote about the corruption-driven raids on the Spanish music collection society SGAE, and the arrest of its boss, Teddy Bautista. Over the weekend, more details have come out. Jose Luis Campanello points us to the news that officials believe that SGAE execs may have diverted approximately $550 million (US) to their own (or others) profits, at the expense of the actual musicians who should have received that money (Google translation of the original Spanish).

TorrentFreak has additional details as well, about the scheme that seems extremely questionable. Basically, the accusations are that SGAE hired some "consultants" to set up a supposedly independent subsidiary. The thing is, some of those consultants were relatives of SGAE execs:

The complaint alleges that SGAE operatives set up companies and used revenue destined for artists to generate profit for themselves and their families, and that money bound for artists living abroad was diverted to personal Swiss bank accounts.

At the center of the storm is SDAE, the digital rights arm of SGAE. Although a notionally separate entity, SDAE is fully operated by SGAE. It appears that when SDAE was being set up, SGAE hired a for-profit company called Microgenesis as consultants.

Microgenesis describe themselves as “a team of specialists in engineering, consultancy and development, managed by individuals with established experience in the fields of intellectual property, as well as the culture and entertainment industries.”

Microgenesis operated a number of companies which provided various services for SGAE and SDAE, some of them suspiciously registered at SGAE/SDAE’s own office address. The problems only deepen when one learns who is behind Microgenesis.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Neri is Director General of SDAE and ex-director of SGAE. His wife, Maria Antonia Garcia Pombo, is the ex-president of Microgenesis. Partner-Chief Legal Officer of Microgenesis is Eva Garcia Pombo. She is Neri’s sister-in-law.

This all sheds additional light on SGAE's rather fanatical approach to increasing who it could collect the digital levy from. It sounds like they weren't necessarily looking for more money from artists, but potentially for themselves...

Spain is one of a few countries that actually has had pretty sane copyright laws lately. Unlike other places, it has generally felt that private, non-commercial copying of content is legal, and has also rejected the idea of placing liability on third parties. And, despite claims to the contrary from the legacy entertainment industry, there's still great content coming out of Spain (I keep getting great, new music from Spanish bands which, yes, I do pay for). However, it's been interesting to watch the big Spanish music collection agency SGAE, flail around in this environment. In its effort to go after some file sharing sites, it actually pretended two of its employees worked for the courts, and "raided" the homes of people who worked on file sharing programs. As you can imagine, that's a big no-no, and SGAE was fined. It also tried to take legal action against a competing upstart group, that was pushing for more open/copyleft/Creative Commons licensing of music.

And now comes the news that the head of SGAE, Teddy Bautista, is being sought on corruption charges (Google translation from the original Spanish), as a part of a massive investigation into corruption (original Spanish) in the very setup of SGAE.

Maybe, instead of trying to use questionable legal means to attack everyone else, SGAE should have been focusing on getting its own house in order.

I'm on record as saying that I think the activist hacking by groups like Anonymous, designed to take down websites in protest, are not particularly smart or useful. I will admit, however, that I'm surprised at how effective they've been in drawing additional media attention to certain stories, and how they really have helped drive two particular stories forward (the ACS:Law situation in the UK, and the HBGary Federal story in the US). And while I still don't think it's a particularly effective overall strategy, I must say that I find the whole effort (and similar efforts from "groups" like Lulz Security) fascinating. I've also pointed out that what may be even more interesting is how traditional law enforcement and governments can't really grasp what they're dealing with.

I think that point may be driven home with two separate governments claiming success in "arresting" Anonymous members. Spain got some attention for supposedly arresting three "Anonymous" members late last week, and then Turkey also got some attention for arresting "32 members."

If these individuals were involved in actual criminal activities, then the arrests are perfectly reasonable. But if these governments actually understood what was going on, and actually understood what they were dealing with, they wouldn't have said they were arresting members of "Anonymous," which is hardly a group anyway, and the word "member" is misleading. Taking a traditional top down approach, these governments think that by announcing that they've "arrested Anonymous members," they're likely to scare people off from being a part of Anonymous. It's very much speculation on my part, but knowing the sort of people involved, my guess is that it's having exactly the opposite response. By presenting the people arrested as being a part of Anonymous, these governments are glorifying Anonymous, and adding to the allure. And the arrests are unlikely to scare off too many actual participants, since they quite likely think that they are better at covering their tracks... and as things move along, that will likely be true.

These governments could have easily arrested people and charged them with hacking without making the connection back to Anonymous. Making such statements is like responding to trolls on internet forums. It's tough to resist sometimes, but it only encourages more such activity. And, of course, just as with trolls, this sort of thing really only plays into exactly what Anonymous wants. It builds up the group's own profile, increases the very necessary mythology, and likely improves the efforts to do more such activities (while protecting participants even more).

In a world with increasingly distributed power, Anonymous and others are really a precursor to what's coming down the road, demonstrating how certain forms of activism really don't work the way people in power expect them to. I don't agree with their specific tactics, but I'm fascinated by their ability (intended or not) to get companies and governments to play right into their strategy.

Last month, we covered the controversy in Spain, where the head of the Spanish Film Academy, Alex de la Iglesia, had announced that he was stepping down from that position immediately following the Goya awards (the equivalent of the Oscars) in protest over the decision by politicians to reinstate the controversial new copyright law, that was written to appease the US.

While there was some talk of forcing him to step down before the awards (Spanish Academy members claimed it was improper of him to actually talk to people on Twitter), it appears they let him go through with it, and he gave a speech where he reminded the attendees of the need to respect consumers and not treat them as criminals. Among the attendees was Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde, who isn't just a supporter of the new copyright law, but for whom it's named after. The translated condensed version of his speech is well worth reading.

"The Internet isn't the future; it's the present and the way for hundreds of thousands of people to enjoy movies and culture. The Internet is the salvation of our cinema."

As for treating people like criminals?

"Web surfers don't like to be called that; they're actually people, the public. The public that we have lost because they don't go to the movies anymore because they spend their time sitting in front of a computer screen. Change is needed to come up with a new model for the film business. We have a moral responsibility to the public. We make movies because citizens allow us to make them and we owe them respect and our thank you."

And further on the subject of respecting the fans:

"We must be up to this privilege that society offers us. If we want them to respect us, we must respect them first."

Here's a little thought exercise. We've written about the recent domain name seizures by Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) group -- including the domains of a Spanish company (which had already been found to be legal in Spain). The defense of why this is okay seems to be that since this company was using .com or .org domain names, which are both run by US companies, that it suddenly makes those domains US property, and thus subject to seizure under US laws. There are some serious questions to ask concerning whether or not these URLs really are "US" based. I mean, if you are hosting all of the content for a domain on a server in Spain, and the vast majority of the traffic is in Spain, it seems like a stretch to call the domain American.

That said, in the comments Nick Dynice suggests that Spain should retaliate by seizing the Spanish (.es) domain names of various big American companies. And, of course, that raises a related question. How do you think US politicians would react if that's what had happened? If the Spanish government suddenly seized the domain names of some big American companies because Spain decided (unilaterally, with no notice or trial) that the company had violated the law, you would see American politicians screaming bloody murder about how Spain was intruding on American sovereignty, and discussing just how ridiculous it is that the Spanish government felt comfortable seizing a domain off the "open" internet.

So will any American politicians speak up about Americans seizing a Spanish domain?

It appears that Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division, and their incredibly sloppy domain seizure operations, have moved on to the next phase -- as was promised by both ICE boss, John Morton, and IP Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel. The timing on this one is particularly bizarre -- and politically stupid.

That's because the the domain seizure is for the Spanish streaming site Rojadirecta. Yes, ICE seized the domain name of a foreign company. And it gets worse. Rojadirecta is not just some fly-by-night operation run out of someone's basement or something. It's run by a legitimate company in Spain, and the site's legality has been tested in the Spanish courts... and the site was declared legal. The court noted that since Rojadirecta does not host any material itself, it does not infringe.

So, a full-on trial and legal process that took three years in a foreign country, and involved a series of appeals leading to a final judgment.... all totally ignored by a bunch of US customs agents.

You might think some folks in Spain would have a pretty serious issue with this move.

And the timing is especially ridiculous, given that the US has been pushing very, very hard for Spain to implement a new copyright law, driven in large part by Hollywood. With many in Spain already furious about US meddling in their own copyright laws, I can't imagine that having US customs agents reaching across the Atlantic to just out and out seize a Spanish company's domain name is going to go over very well.

Imagine if a Spanish law enforcement agency did that to a US company? How quickly would we see American politicians screaming about this "international incident." Yet, here we have Homeland Security reaching out to seize the domain name of a foreign company that has been explicitly declared legal, after going through a lengthy trial and appeals process in its native country. And, in typical Homeland Security fashion, no one bothered to contact the company and let them know or express its concerns. Instead, it just seized the domain.

I would imagine that doing so may upset Spanish citizenry even more than the attempt to rewrite copyright laws in Hollywood's favor.

And of course, it appears that, despite the serious questions raised about the last domain seizures, in particular of blogs with substantial non-infringing uses, ICE has also seized another blog, called StrikeGently, which appears to have included lots of other content. Yes, it did also include some links to downloads hosted on other sites, but did not host any content directly itself, and appears to have included plenty of other content beyond the links to downloads. Once again, no one is saying that the site is clearly legal. It may, in fact, be liable for inducement. However, that's something that's supposed to be determined at trial, and not after the government steps in with no notice whatsoever and takes the domain name away.

Apparently, Homeland Security and ICE have decided that the mistakes it made last time are so minor that it will repeat them again and again, even if it involves shutting down protected speech and interfering in international relations.

We were just talking about how some Spanish politicians simply ignored the fact that the legislature rejected the plan for a new US-driven copyright law, leading to widespread outrage among Spanish citizens. Reader Dodo points us to an astounding bit of followup. Apparently, the president of the Spanish Film Academy, Alex de la Iglesia announced his plans to resign as president of the Academy in a couple weeks (after the Goya awards -- the equivalent of the Oscars) in protest of the new law. He initially supported it, but was convinced otherwise after talking to people on Twitter about it (Google translation of the original Spanish). While he claims his decision is because he believes that "pitting creators against the web is a mistake," and noting that politicans have refused to listen to the people, his critics are claiming that "his compulsive passion for Twitter has played a dirty trick" on him. Not only that, but the Advisory Board of the Film Academy is threatening to oust him before his resignation, because of his being "tricked" by the internet. Apparently just talking the consumers and film fans and getting their opinion is prohibido in the Spanish Film Academy.

We've talked at length about the copyright situation in Spain, where the law has a rather reasonable take on things: noting that personal, non-commercial copying is not particularly harmful and that it makes no sense to impose secondary liability on software companies that make file sharing tools/search engines with legitimate uses. This is actually a pretty reasonable stance, but of course Hollywood freaked out and demanded changes -- and with the help of US diplomatic pressure demanding that Spain rewrite its copyright laws to make Hollywood happy -- those new laws were introduced (even as economists noted that it would be "useless and ineffective."

However, after one of the State Department cable leaks revealed how much US pressure was behind this law, even Spanish politicians started running for cover, and rejected the part of a larger bill that included these copyright changes. Of course, we immediately heard rumors that it would be coming back pretty quickly, and indeed, it's only been a few weeks, and it appears that Spanish politicians just did an end-run around the legislature's rejection of the amendment. Rather than drop the matter, the Spanish Senate just "revised" the legislation to include the amendment.

Perhaps someone familiar with Spanish law (and politics) can chime in to explain how this works. In the US, even if something like that happened it would have to go back to the legislature to approve down the road. Is that not the case in Spain? Either way, apparently a lot of people are not at all happy with this, and are protesting the efforts. In the meantime, of course, all this is doing is teaching yet another generation that copyright laws are simply tools of big companies and powerful countries to push around others. It certainly doesn't create any greater respect for the law.