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Last Thursday, 18 March 2010, the Spanish Parliament approved the New General Law of Audiovisual Communications. This new Law has been demanded by the audiovisual sector and consumers associations and has been discussed on various occasions in the last six years in the Spanish Parliament before finally being approved. The Law sets out several rules on content and mode of operation for the players in the sector (these rules are already currently applied by broadcasters to a certain extent as, although they were not included in a general law before, they could already be found in several rules and...

The Spanish Supreme Court has delivered an opinion of unconstitutionality against the law that obliges Spanish television broadcasters to earmark part of their gross revenue for the financing of Spanish and European cinematographic productions. The Unión de Televisiones Comerciales Asociadas (Associated Commercial Televisions Union - UTECA), an entity formed by the six private Spanish television broadcasters, has been claiming the unconstitutionality of this regulation, which, however, has been obeyed by its members for the past ten years. The regulation was introduced in Spain in 1999 and was...

The current Spanish Intellectual Property Law is the Royal Legislative Decree 1/1996 of 12 April (as amended) approving the Consolidated Act on Intellectual Property, which regularises, clarifies and harmonises the applicable statutory provisions. This Legislative Decree is a consolidation of all previous regulations on copyright which were standing at the time of its adoption and aims at their regularisation, clarification and harmonisation. The Legislative Decree was adopted on the basis of the Second Final Provision of Act 27/1995 of 11 October on the incorporation in Spanish legislation of...

The proposal for a Spanish Audiovisual Act was approved on 16 October 2009 by the Spanish government. If signed into law, the bill will revoke fourteen standards and regulations related to the radio, television and telecommunications industries. Among others, these include the acts that have regulated private commercial channels and the local television channels of the Spanish autonomous communities from 1988 and 1983 respectively. Composed of sixty articles, the most important aspects of this bill are the following: - The new law tries to provide added protection for minors. It forbids the broadcasting...

The draft law reforming the funding of the national public service broadcaster, the RTVE Corporation, presented to the Parliament in May 2009, was passed in August, after amendments were debated and considered during the summer (see IRIS 2009-8: 11). Law 8/2009 on the funding of the Spanish Radio and Television Corporation eliminates advertising as a source of income, instead proposing a new financial equilibrium to be achieved mainly through State subsidy and three different types of taxes. It also imposes additional public service obligations on RTVE. The corporation will continue to derive revenue...