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On 8 February 2011, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) released its latest reports on Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Monaco, Spain and Turkey, adopted in the fourth round of its monitoring of the laws, policies and practices to combat racism in the Member States of the Council of Europe (for commentary on earlier reports, see IRIS 2010-9/2, IRIS 2010-4/3, IRIS 2009-10/109, IRIS 2009-8/4, IRIS 2009-5/3, IRIS 2008-4/5, IRIS 2006-6/4 and IRIS 2005-7/2). In respect of Armenia, ECRI recommends that the national authorities promote: (i) “without encroaching on the independence...

On 15 February 2011, the Spanish Parliament finally adopted the Sustainable Economy Act. The new act includes a series of controversial measures against the illegal downloading of protected works (the so-called Ley Sinde), which the Parliament had initially removed from the bill prepared by the Government and which were later reintroduced with slight modifications (see IRIS 2011-2/23). These measures amend three further acts, namely the Act on Information Society Services, the Intellectual Property Act and the Act on Administrative Jurisdiction. The Ley Sinde aims at blocking or closing down in...

On 21 December 2010 the Spanish Congress rejected a controversial bill aimed at protecting intellectual property rightsholders from Internet downloaders. All of the main Spanish parties, except for Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's Socialist Party rejected the so-called Sinde Bill, named after Culture Minister Ángeles González-Sinde. The draft legislation would have set up a government commission which would have then provided courts with details of websites offering access to copyright-protected material, such as music, movies, video games or software. A judge could then have ordered...

At its meeting on 28 October 2010, the Spanish National Competition Commission (CNC) approved the merger between TV channels Telecinco and Cuatro subject to the commitments given by Mediaset’s channel last 19 October 2010 by stating that they have addressed the competition concerns identified. On 28 April 2010 Telecinco had reported to the CNC its planned acquisition of Cuatro. This concentration had been previously subject to a referral by the European Commission, which considered that the CNC was the authority best placed to carry out the analysis. The CNC Council decided on 30 June 2010 to move...

In June 2008, the private Spanish television broadcaster, Telecinco, filed a lawsuit before the courts in Madrid against YouTube for illegally and without authorisation communicating to the public content produced by Telecinco. YouTube retorted that it merely acts as an intermediary between users uploading videos and users receiving them and does not control the content. On 20 September 2010, Madrid’s Mercantile Court number 7 rejected the lawsuit filed by Telecinco against the Internet video service provider YouTube, in which it was held that the content included on the latter’s website did not...