How Spain’s version of SOPA is setting the web on fire

While American technology companies battle against the SOPA antipiracy bill, on the other side of the Atlantic the game is changing fast. It’s been a long time coming, but Spanish legislators have finally signed the country’s so-called “Sinde Law,” which targets online file sharers. And like any action in the controversial area of intellectual property, it is drawing both support and plenty of jeers, depending on where you look.

The law is named after its sponsor, former Culture Minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde, and it creates a new government body that can take action against websites it deems to be trading in pirated content. Like SOPA, the Sinde Law can force ISPs to block sites, although the extent of the enforcement will only be seen once it comes into effect in March. The law has been a hot political topic for the past two years, causing much anger among the public and consternation across the political spectrum. But José Ignacio Wert, the current culture minister and the man who was in charge of pushing the law through, has remained defiant and likened the action against piracy to the war on drugs, since the government only intends to target traffickers and not consumers.