Spain finally has its anti-piracy law. After quite some resistance in government, this week, congress approved the now famous as Sinde-Law anti piracy regulations.
Since one of the detractors, Alex de la Iglesia, Director and producer of quite some important films in Spain the last 20 years, even decided to resign from being the president of the Spanish Film Academy after the failed negotiations with movie industry-representatives, the government and internet users’ associations.
Alex de la Iglesia, who did his last speech as director was very critical and can be found in English here: http://www.altfg.com/blog/movie/alex-de-la-iglesia-speech-goyas-2011/
The Goya awards, the Spanish version of the Academy awards, have been surrounded by polemics generated by this new law, there was quite a numerous protests, even though this was kept out of the mainstream news very well.
Aside from the expected egg-throwing (which the minister-with-umbrella was obviously prepared for), one of the protests consisted in a leaflet that was spread around the Goya award premises containing the direct download links to nominated movies: (which, with the new law, I am not allowed to show you;) )http://sinasterisco.imgur.com/acerca_del_folleto
I’d like to share the last part of his speech with you:
“…I want to say goodbye in my last ceremony as president by reminding those present and the nominees that there’s nothing better than to be free to create. We must be up to this privilege that society offers us. If we want them to respect us, we must respect them first. I want to say something to the next president of the Academy — and I don’t know yet who that is: these have been the happiest two years of my life. I’ve looked at problems through other points of view and what’s more important, my friends: twenty-five very good years have passed; but many more await us and I’m sure that they’ll be the best…."
Twenty-five years ago, no one in our industry could have imagined that something like the Internet would have revolutionized our industry. The Internet isn’t the future; it’s the present and the way for hundreds of thousands of people to enjoy movies and culture. The Internet is the salvation of our cinema."
"Web surfers don’t like to be called that; they’re actually people, the public. The public that we have lost because they don’t go to the movies anymore because they spend their time sitting in front of a computer screen. Change is needed to come up with a new model for the film business. We have a moral responsibility to the public. We make movies because citizens allow us to make them and we owe them respect and our thank you."
"I want to say goodbye in my last ceremony as president by reminding those present and the nominees that there’s nothing better than to be free to create. We must be up to this privilege that society offers us. If we want them to respect us, we must respect them first. I want to say something to the next president of the Academy — and I don’t know yet who that is: these have been the happiest two years of my life. I’ve looked at problems through other points of view and what’s more important, my friends: twenty-five very good years have passed; but many more await us and I’m sure that they’ll be the best.”
Source: Altfg.com Thanks for the translation!