Dave Horvath
29 Jun 2006 6:12
Spanish Congress announced a new legislation that outlaws all P2P file sharing on personal computers owned and operated in the country of Spain. Congress unanimously approved this legislation as a civil offense where users caught downloading anything via P2P for personal or commercial use will be fined the amount lost by the licensee due to the download.
The government has also stated that they will single out the ISPs who facilitate the use of P2P file sharing. They believe they have the technology to block P2P traffic and will fine ISPs who allow this traffic to go through.
Spain has also suggested a tax levy in which most forms of digital media will receive a higher tax. CDs, DVDs, flash drives and even mobile phones will get hit with a tax penalty merely for the ability to load illegal content. They have said that the money collected by these taxes will go towards paying back owners of copyrighted materials. This begs the question, if you tax media prior to copyright material being loaded on it, who determines where the tax goes? Appears to be a situation of putting the cart before the horse, so to speak.
Source:
TMCnet