For each digital book sold in Spain circulate three copies illegal; that is to say, in the Network were hacked in 2018 some 425 million of books, with a loss of 215 million euros for the publishing sector. On paper, the thing doesn’t go much better: it has been photocopied illegally the equivalent of two million books. The figures are enormous, requiring, therefore, an urgent intervention. Daniel Fernandez, editor of Edhasa and president from June of Cedro (Spanish reproduction Rights Center), entity management and defense of intellectual property rights, refers to the Greek goddess of the arts and the military strategy to describe the position that has been adopted by the entity against piracy: “Up to now, like Athena, we have shown over the shield, but now it is time to wield the spear.”
The tip of that spear is a remarkable investment in technology, which automatically tracks daily on the Internet and in the social networks, piracy of content from news publishers, newspapers, magazines and sheet music. “It is not an it department itself, but we are developing it as if it were; not only will we increase our social work but also to pursue violations of the law,” says the editor, eighth president of Cedar & partner since its foundation, in 1988.
In five months, since in June pulled out it measures up to October, have been detected and requested to block 338.533 links to websites, while have been removed 113.907 files (storage pages). To achieve this, Cedar asks the lock-manager of the web or go to the second section of the Intellectual Property Commission of the Ministry of Culture to promote the judicial authorization required. “We have adopted the strategy of follow the money: we seek partnerships with brands and advertising agencies that fund those pages and be advised that the advertised in places that are home to content intellectual illegal”, she explains.
But piracy is like the Hydra of Lerna, and on each head cut off is another, especially in social networks: “The text files weigh little in the Network, and there are social groups, such as Telegram without limits members,” says Fernandez. The action here has resulted in 11.084 deleted files and the deletion of 153 active groups in networks and telephone messaging.
CEDAR is working on the expansion of this computer-based tool against illicit uses in the Network to allow, during the first quarter of 2020, crawling against the plagiarism and the other one against the fake news. “The system will detect the percentage of piracy, with what we know, for example, if the source of the news is reliable or not”, says Fernandez, which calculates at a million works, including newspapers and books, which can be checked. And this will help to enhance the links that CEDAR already has with 38 institutions from 36 countries. One of the that could come out strengthened with the new tool against plagiarism is the CRUE, the association of Spanish universities. “We can help you to detect them and also in the return of money”.
the phenomenon of piracy in Spain is huge, says Fernandez, who notes that, by not disappear, not disappear, nor the illicit photocopies of books. “There is greater awareness than before, that’s why we have 2,400 of the license copyshops granted. But every year we invest more than 250,000 euros only in inspectors and lawyers to prosecute illegal reprography”.
The slight decrease that would have been perceived in the audiovisual piracy following the consolidation of the format in streaming, it would not have been the case in other areas, according to Fernandez. “In the video games or the books we like”. And partly attributed this situation to the fact that “we do not have a new Law of Intellectual Property, go with a patch whose development and application is manifestly room for improvement”. Since Cedar is confident that the new coalition Government “have the ideas more clear” and that to accelerate with the implementation of the european directive on copyright: “we Expect a transcription solid, that favors the more important cultural industry Spanish, living in Latin America and for Spanish”.
From the entity’s management expect that this transposition “make it together”, among other issues in order to “soften edges”, in particular the responsibility of the digital platforms (Youtube and similar); other tassel pendant is in the field of education (“the exception education can not imply that everything should be free”). They also want to intervene in future reading plans, fine-tune the regulation of the status of the artist in connection with the pension (which today lost if fees charged) and the equalization of VAT in the digital book with the paper (“does not affect us directly, but yes to the sector,” says an informed Fernandez, editor of Edhasa).
indoors, Fernandez admits that his work will be a continuation of the in relation to that of its predecessor, the writer Carme Riera, which remains in CEDAR as vice president. “Riera resituó to the entity in the public sphere; now we must grow in order to give greater social support to our members”, today 26.568 (24.330 authors and 2.238 publishers). “70% of what we hand out”, fixed Fernández. “From there our offense: we need to raise more to hand out more”. The battle of Athena seems fair.
