VZCZCXRO7441
RR RUEHAG RUEHDF RUEHIK RUEHLZ RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHMD #1318/01 3511309
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 161309Z DEC 08
FM AMEMBASSY MADRID
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5780
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE
RUEHLA/AMCONSUL BARCELONA 3714
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 MADRID 001318 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EUR/WE, EEB/TPP/IPE, EEB/CIP 
STATE PASS USTR DWEINER 
USDOC FOR 4212 D.CALVERT 
USDOC ALSO FOR PTO 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ETRD KCRM KIPR SP
SUBJECT: SPAIN: GOVERNMENT HOSTS IPR CONFERENCE, LAUNCHES 
ANTI-PIRACY PUBLIC AWARENESS CAMPAIGN 
 
REF: A. MADRID 1194 
     ¶B. MADRID 1150 
 
MADRID 00001318  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
SUMMARY 
 
¶1.  In late November, the GOS hosted its second annual 
International Conference on Digital Content (FICOD), 
which included as a separate event an International 
Conference on Intellectual Property in the Digital 
Environment.  The IPR Conference brought Spanish 
government officials together with counterparts from 
other EU countries and the U.S., the EC, OECD, WIPO, 
and other international bodies, along with a broad 
range of private sector representatives from the 
community of copyright holders and the telecommunications 
and internet service provider (ISP) industries.  The IPR 
conference also featured a presentation by businessman/ 
lobbyist Aldo Olcese, newly appointed president of the 
Anti-Piracy Coalition.  Concurrent with the two 
conferences, the Ministry of Culture launched a new 
anti-piracy public awareness and education campaign 
targeting young people with a variety of messages to 
discourage illegal downloads of copyrighted material 
and other forms of digital infringement.  These 
relatively high-profile events represent a sign that 
the GOS is keenly aware of the serious problem posed 
by increasing online piracy in Spain.  The government 
continues to urge ISPs and rights-holders to negotiate 
an agreement on measures to combat piracy, but continues 
to defer action until the private stakeholders agree 
on what measures they want the government to take. 
End Summary. 
 
FICOD AND IPR CONFERENCE: TECHNOLOGY AND COPYRIGHT 
 
¶2.  Sponsored by the Ministry of Industry, Tourism 
and Trade (MITyC) and the Spanish public entity red.es, 
which implements programs for the development of the 
information society, the International Conference on 
Digital Content (FICOD) also received significant 
support from telecommunications giant Telefonica 
and mega-bank BBVA, as well as the Ministry of Culture, 
the City of Madrid, and the Foreign Trade Institute. 
Secretary of State for Telecommunications Francisco 
Ros Peran, Colombian Communications Minister Maria 
del Rosario Guerra, and the Crown Prince delivered 
opening remarks.  Secretary Ros hailed the growing 
penetration of the internet in Spanish society, 
which he said now boasts 24 million "internauts;" he 
noted that 83 percent of Spanish youth belong 
to online social networks.  According to Ros, 95 percent 
of Spanish companies and 50 percent of households are 
connected to the internet and Spanish digital content 
is valued at 16 billion euros.  Spanish is the second 
language in use on the internet, after English, and 
has the third highest number of native speaker users, 
after English and Japanese.  Ros highlighted 
the importance of protecting intellectual property 
online, noting that FICOD organizers had opted to give 
the issue "its own space" by addressing IPR issues in 
a separate conference.  Many of the high-profile FICOD 
speakers also emphasized in their separate presentations 
the importance of protecting intellectual property 
rights.  In presenting FICOD,s annual awards, Minister 
of Industry, Tourism, and Trade Miguel Sebastian stated 
that the digital content sector cannot advance without 
IPR protection, and that freedom on the internet is 
entirely compatible with such protection. 
 
¶3.  The IPR Conference consisted of several speeches 
and a series of roundtables under such rubrics as 
"Policies and Legislative Measures to Protect 
Intellectual Property in the Digital Environment;" 
"The Fight Against IPR-Infringing Activities on the 
Internet;" "The Value of Intellectual Property and 
Means of Heightening Social Awareness;" "The 
Viewpoint of IPR Rights-holders;" and "New Content 
Distribution Platforms, Their Impact on IPR, and 
Consumers' Vision."  The first panel featured a 
presentation by Dr. Michael Shapiro, attorney-advisor 
at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, who described 
the U.S. experience in dealing with repeat offenders, 
referring to provisions of the Digital Millennium 
Copyright Act and several illustrative court cases 
highlighting ISPs' obligations under "safe harbor" 
 
MADRID 00001318  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
provisions.  Another presenter, David Baervoets 
of the EC's Directorate General for the Internal 
Market and Services, outlined the green paper on 
copyright in a knowledge society, which highlighted 
the need to strike a balance among the various 
stakeholders - users, service providers, and 
rights-holders - and competing rights and 
responsibilities (freedom of expression, privacy 
and data protection, and IPR protection).  This 
same panel also included a presentation by French 
Ministry of Culture official Olivier Henard on 
legislation currently under consideration in France. 
The GOS and private stakeholders continue to express 
considerable interest in the French and British 
experiences in combating internet piracy, hoping to 
learn lessons that can be applied to their own 
situation. 
 
ISP AND RIGHTS-HOLDERS' VIEWS ELABORATED 
 
¶4.  In the roudtable on combating IPR-infringing 
activity on the internet, Jose Manuel Tourne of the 
Federation for the Protection of Intellectual 
Property in Audio-Visual Works (FAP) provided 
statistics indicating that the number of 
illegal peer-to-peer video downloads had almost 
trebled in the past three years and that pirated 
works (including both street and digital piracy) 
now constituted 75 percent of the Spanish market. 
For her part, Maria Teresa Arcos, Director 
General of the Internet Service Providers' 
association, Redtel, argued that the ISPs are more 
intensely aware than anyone else of the need for 
strong IPR protection because their industry 
depends so heavily on creativity and innovation. 
She noted, however, that not all P2P downloads 
are illegal, as many rights-holders claim, and 
stressed the importance of making more content 
legally available on the internet as a disincentive 
to piracy.  Arcos warned that there is no panacea 
or magic bullet to make piracy go away.  Tourne 
and Arcos are key players in the negotiations 
between ISPs and the Anti-Piracy Coalition; at 
a November 24 lunch hosted by DCM in honor of the 
PTO's Michael Shapiro, both agreed that negotiations 
are going well; the two sides now know each other 
much better than before and have a deeper 
understanding of each other's issues and concerns. 
However, Arcos downplayed the likelihood of 
reaching an agreement any time soon, noting that 
"you can't put a clock" on the negotiations. 
 
¶5.  In the same roundtable, Kiaron Whitehead of 
the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and Adrian 
Brazier of the UK Department for Business, 
Enterprise, and Regulatory Reform (BERR) offered 
perspectives on the situation in the UK, 
where in late July the government, major 
rights-holders, and the six leading ISPs signed 
an MOU providing for public education, attractive 
legal content availability, and dissuasive measures. 
Brazier noted that negotiations were painful and 
involved "unprecedented Ministerial input," and that 
the resulting MOU is being "co-regulated" by the 
private stakeholders and the government. 
 
NEW PRESIDENT OF ANTI-PIRACY COALITION 
 
¶6.  The November 26 panel on the viewpoint of 
rights-holders featured the first public appearance 
of Aldo Olcese since being named President of the 
Anti-Piracy Coalition earlier the same week.  Olcese 
is a member of the Royal Academy of Economic and 
Financial Sciences who serves on the Board of 
Directors of several major European companies and 
is widely recognized as a leading expert on 
corporate governance and corporate social 
responsibility.  The Coalition brought him on board 
to give its members a more authoritative voice in 
negotiating with the major telecommunications companies 
and the government.  Olcese noted that one important 
consequence of unrestrained internet piracy is that 
the audio-visual sector, as a percentage of GDP, 
has less weight in Spain than in other EU member 
countries, and that Spain is not ranked as highly 
 
MADRID 00001318  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
as an information society as its economic strength 
would suggest it should be.  Spaniards, he noted, 
pay higher rates for digital consumption than their 
European counterparts, and even so, content is not 
being paid for as a result of piracy.  Olcese stated 
that Redtel and the Coalition should not be adversaries, 
but were in fact complementary industries that should 
be working together in their common interest.  He 
added that he hopes soon to be able to present to the 
Minister of Industry, Tourism, and Trade the elements of 
an agreement between Redtel and the Coalition. 
Auto-regulation by industry, he said, presents a serious 
challenge, and the ISPs and rights-holders need to 
learn to govern themselves with some "minimal 
legislative support" provided by the government. 
 
MINISTRY OF CULTURE PUBLIC AWARENESS CAMPAIGN 
 
¶7.  On November 25, while the IPR conference was 
proceeding, Minister of Culture Cesar Antonio Molina 
formally launched Spain's third Anti-Piracy Public 
Awareness Campaign.  Noting Spain's place in the 
international community as a "cultural power" with 
"one of the world's most important cultural patrimonies," 
the Minister expressed concern that Spanish cultural 
production would decline without strong IPR protection. 
He noted that cultural industries comprise five percent 
of Spain's GDP, directly employ almost a million people, 
and generate prosperity.  The anti-piracy campaign, 
with an estimated budget of 1.95 million euros, will 
disseminate public-services messages, aimed largely at 
young people, on radio, television, the internet, 
and other media, with the slogan "si eres legal, eres 
legal" (roughly, "if you're legal, you're all right"). 
The campaign has come under some criticism for being 
overly simplistic and lacking subtlety, and as unlikely 
to be heeded by its target audience.  At the same time, 
Luis Frutos of the Spanish committee of the Business 
Software Alliance was appreciative that the campaign 
included references to business software alongside 
such cultural materials as films, music recordings, 
and video games.  Another prominent rights-holder, 
Antonio Guisasola of the Music Producers of Spain 
(PROMUSICAE), opined that the slogan was a bit 
hackneyed but commented that "every little bit helps." 
 
COMMENT 
 
¶8.  Ministry of Industry, Tourism, and Trade 
officials estimated that 800 people had registered 
for the IPR conference; however, while the convention 
hall was often full of people, most participated in 
the digital content conference,  while the IPR 
conference was more sparsely attended.  That said, 
the quality of the speakers and panelists was very 
high, and the presentations without exception timely 
and relevant.  The phenomenon of internet piracy in 
Europe and the U.S. was broadly explored, as were such 
possible solutions as graduated response mechanisms. 
The GOS continues to push ISPs and rights-holders to 
reach agreement, and views the UK and French experiences 
as possibly useful models.  The Ministry of Culture 
in particular recognizes the seriousness of Spain's 
problem and is a committed ally in pushing for stronger 
IPR protection, but lacks the clout and enforcement 
authority to exercise its will.  For its part, the 
telecoms part of the Ministry of Industry, Tourism, and 
Trade, which has the lead on the issue, remains reluctant 
to push the telecommunications companies too hard and 
is also concerned about a possible backlash from internet 
users' associations if restrictions or sanctions are 
introduced; this appears to be behind its insistence 
that the ISPs and content providers reach agreement 
on what GOS measures are needed.  While Spain is moving 
in the direction of developing a comprehensive, 
industry-supported approach to combating internet piracy, 
it is likely to take more time.  End Comment. 
AGUIRRE