VZCZCXRO7669
RR RUEHIK
DE RUEHMD #1096/01 3171609
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 131609Z NOV 09
FM AMEMBASSY MADRID
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1440
INFO RUCPDOC/USDOC WASHDC
RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEHLA/AMCONSUL BARCELONA 4203

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 MADRID 001096 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EUR/WE, EEB/TPP/IPE, EEB/CIP 
STATE PASS USTR FOR D.WEINER AND J.GROVES 
STATE PASS U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE FOR M.WOODS AND M.PALLANTE 
COMMERCE FOR 4212/D.CALVERT AND 6990/R.LAYTON 
COMMERCE ALSO FOR USPTO 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KIPR ETRD ECPS SP
SUBJECT: SPAIN/INTERNET PIRACY:  ANOTHER VIEW OF INTER-MINISTERIAL 
COMMISSION 
 
REFS: A) MADRID 1075; B) MADRID 1052; C) MADRID 982 
 
MADRID 00001096  001.3 OF 002 
 
 
SUMMARY 
 
¶1. (SBU) Visiting U.S. Commerce Department official Robin Layton met 
November 5 with GOS Information Society policy official Salvador 
Soriano.  They discussed electronic commerce and intellectual 
property rights issues.  Soriano outlined the recently formed 
Inter-Ministerial Commission and its approaches to combating 
copyright piracy on websites.  His description of the Commission's 
approach differed significantly from that of the Culture Ministry 
official reported in ref A.  While we are encouraged by the activity 
and the GOS' desire to address the problem, we believe it 
increasingly unlikely that the Commission will be able to produce 
much more than preliminary recommendations by the December 31 
deadline.  End Summary. 
 
¶2. (U) Robin Layton, Director of ITA's Office of Technology and 
Electronic Commerce, met with Salvador Soriano, Deputy Director 
General for Information Society Services at the Ministry of 
Industry, Tourism, and Trade (MITYC), on the margins of the 31st 
International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy 
Commissioners.  Soriano confirmed that the recently formed 
Inter-Ministerial Commission (see ref B) is comprised of, in 
addition to MITYC, the Ministries of Culture, Interior, Justice, 
Education, Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, and Economy and Finance, 
as well as the Presidency, are represented.  He believes the most 
productive first step the Commission can take is to identify actions 
to dissuade websites and their operators from making illicit content 
available. 
 
A THREE-PRONGED APPROACH 
 
¶3. (U) Soriano outlined a three-pronged approach.  The first step, 
he said, will be to make more content legally available at 
affordable prices as an alternative to illicit downloading and 
file-sharing.  The Secretariat of State for Telecommunications and 
the Information Society, where Soriano works, is funding various 
"legal offer" initiatives under Plan Avanza, its 5-year program for 
investment in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) 
sector.  The second piece is awareness and public education: Soriano 
discussed the pilot program "Educate to Create," in which MITYC 
works in partnership with Microsoft and others to expose the public, 
especially students, to the excitement of creation and the feeling 
of ownership it offers.  He also noted that MITYC has been working 
with the Business Software Alliance (BSA) on programs to combat 
software piracy, which have helped reduce piracy levels.  Layton 
commented that her office also works collaboratively with BSA. 
 
¶4. (U) As the third element of the Commission's approach, Soriano 
mentioned legal reform.  As he phrased the question, what can the 
government do to improve the action of courts in IPR and especially 
Internet piracy cases?  He speculated that perhaps Spain does not 
require substantial changes to its legal framework for IPR, but can 
provide better enforcement and make the courts work faster within 
the existing framework.  He noted that the Commission is mandated to 
present its recommendations by December 31, a tight deadline.  The 
issue is complicated, he averred, as it involves finding ways to 
protect the rights of creators without disadvantaging service 
providers.  A session at the Data Protection and Privacy 
Commissioners' Conference on how to reconcile IPR with privacy 
rights contained a lot of analysis but not much in the way of 
solutions, he said. 
 
¶5. (U) In response to Layton's question about the timeline for 
implementation, Soriano was not certain how long it would take to 
put the changes in place.  Asked by Econoff whether the legal reform 
element would require legislation, Soriano said that the Ministry of 
Justice was responsible for determining what aspects, if any, of the 
Commission's recommendations would require amending existing 
legislation or proposing new laws.  He clearly hoped that 
significant changes could be implemented under the government's 
existing authority, without requiring Congressional approval. 
 
ICT AND ELECTRONIC COMMERCE 
 
¶6. (U) Layton noted that she had read with interest the GOS draft 
ICT agenda for its EU Presidency.  She suggested that Soriano visit 
the United States in the near future.  She would be happy to arrange 
meetings with the appropriate officials in the Commerce Department. 
The U.S., she said, is also working to see how well its regime for 
intellectual property protection fits with current modes of 
 
MADRID 00001096  002.3 OF 002 
 
 
transmission.  Soriano noted that he hopes to accompany his boss, 
Secretary of State for Telecommunications and the Information 
Society Francisco Ros, to Washington o/a January 20. 
 
¶7. (U) Soriano also provided Layton with a collection of electronic 
commerce statistics for Spain.  He noted that e-commerce is a mature 
market in Spain, but that consumers remain a challenge.  Spaniards, 
he said, are not used to purchasing via long distance and remain 
reluctant to buy over the Internet. 
 
COMMENT 
 
¶8. (SBU) Soriano's exposition of the work of the Inter-Ministerial 
Commission is very different than the one provided in a recent 
meeting by Carlos Guervos of the Ministry of Culture (see ref A). 
The two Ministries that share the lead on Internet piracy issues - 
Culture and MITYC - have different institutional equities.  Culture 
wants to do all it can for content providers and cultural 
industries, but is often hampered by a lack of resources and clout. 
MITYC is closer to the technology sector and Internet Service 
Providers (ISPs). 
 
¶9. (SBU) Comment continued: Soriano did not even mention a possible 
administrative solution - creating a competent authority that could 
instruct ISPs to take down or block websites that make illicit 
content available - that was central to Guervos' outline of the 
Commission's likely proposals.  Unlike Guervos, Soriano thought it 
might be possible to improve enforcement within the existing legal 
framework, without passing new legislation.  State Secretary Ros has 
expressed the view that Spain's legal regime for IPR protection is 
no better or worse than that of other European countries, an opinion 
emphatically not shared by the rights-holder community.  It remains 
to be seen how ambitious a proposal the Inter-Ministerial Commission 
will make.  Even acknowledging that several Ministries - MITYC, 
Culture, Justice, and Interior - have been working informally on 
this problem for several months, it is hard to imagine a detailed, 
well thought-out proposal emerging by December 31.  It seems 
increasingly likely that the Commission will make preliminary 
recommendations by then and follow up with a more detailed proposal 
sometime thereafter.  End Comment. 
 
¶10. (U) Director Layton has cleared a draft of this cable. 
 
Chacon