The Supreme Court of Spain has pointed out a possible challenge for the new Spanish Intellectual Property Law, also known as the “Lasalle Law”, approved last July. This is due to the fact that it has been considered incompatible with the European Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society.
Therefore, the Intellectual Property Law could end up voided half way through its creation procedure, before reaching the Senate. The European Courts has declared illegal the removal placed by the Lasalle Law of the digital fee applied to the purchase of different computer peripherals, from printers to pen drives and CDs.
The administrative appeal placed by three rights management entities, VEGAP (Artist’s Rights Society), EGEDA (Audiovisual Producers Rights Management Organization) and DAMA (Copyright Organization in Audiovisual Media Administration) before the Court of Justice of the European Union raised two questions:
1 – “Is the compensation system for the private copies, which estimation is based on the damages caused and borne by public funds, without the possibility to guarantee that the cost of the compensation be borne by the users of private copies, in conformity with the article 5.2.b) of the Directive 2001/29?”.
2 – “If the prior question has an affirmative answer, is it in conformity with the article 5.2.b) of the Directive 2001/29 that the total quantity committed by the Spanish Budget Act to the equitative compensation of private copy, calculated based on the damage caused, be determined within the budgetary limits established each financial year?”.
Until these questions are answered, the Spanish Supreme Court has decided to cease the creation procedure of the Lassalle Law.
Written by: Athena Poysky
Image: CALI – CENTER FOR Computer – Assisted Legal Instruction. Under creative commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
