31-01-2011
SENSITIVE
SUBJECT: U.S. & GOS, REGARDING BIDEN-SINDE'S BILL
REF: MADRID 100131
TAGS: KIPR, SP, SS
PASS TO: SECSTATE,WASHDC
Sensitive But Unclassified. Please Protect Accordingly.


Dear Mr. Alan D. Solomont,

1.we would like to sincerely thank you for the Biden-Sinde's Bill.

Up to now, we were surprised that GOS never answered our complaints regarding the users' right to enjoy a free and open Internet.

Then Wikileaks released the diplomatic cables between the Madrid Embassy and the State Department and we started to suspect the motives; it seemed that the country you represent so honorably was in command, influencing to pass censorship laws that would benefit your great nation to the detriment of ours.

But due to the recent events regarding Internet regulation we have verified that these leaks were true. Hence, you opened our eyes up; and that is why we want to thank you.

Because, thanks to you, we have discovered that the GOS was not our valid interlocutor; thanks to you and to Wikileaks we have discovered that Mr. Zapatero was not our president, but another employee in your embassy. And thanks to the recent pact to pass the Biden-Sinde's Bill, we have also discovered that Mr. Rajoy will not be our president (if he happens to reach power) since he has also resulted to be another of your employees. Thanks to you and your country we have discovered that we must actually address the U.S.A. every time we want to demand the rights of Internet users; so, we understand we should address to you in the future, in your capacity as High Representative of the U.S. for the region of Spain, because is your government the one leading Spanish politics.

Otherwise, nobody would understand that "our" politicians are so eager to lose thousands of votes in the coming elections only to fulfill the desires of your country.

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NOTE
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As you will surely be aware of, Internet users in Spain already made clear that they will not give their votes to any party that supports the Biden-Sinde's Bill and, up to now, three of them already did.
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END NOTE
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2.We also hope that your country will adequately reward the three representatives of these parties, namely Mr. Zapatero, Mr. Rajoy and Mr. Mas for a very well done job. Do not forget to also reward Ángeles González-Sinde and Jose María Lassalle.

We would like to make the most of this letter to let you know some facts that you might not be aware of:

3.Biden-Sinde's Bill is technically useless to persecute the kind of downloads that you label as "illegal": do you remember the Napster case? do you remember how many new websites were opened as a consequence of the Napster closing?

4.Biden-Sinde's Bill is, however, very useful to bring back Franco's censorship: you only need somebody angry with a website (remember, every website has links, that's the very same essence of the Internet) to be able to shut it down, not needing these "annoying judges" that declare time and again that not-for-a-profit file sharing (or any other not-for-a-profit content sharing, links too) is not illegal. At that precise moment, Spain will not be very different from countries like China or Iran; or even Tunisia, Egypt & others.

5.But Biden-Sinde's Bill will only be useful at the very beginning, only until skipping the censorship controls becomes usual practice, as it happens in the above mentioned countries. Unless you decide to shut the whole Internet down (like Egypt recently did) you will not be able to avoid it, no matter how many times you try it. But, just in case you find it amusing, you can follow that path and keep trying.

6.The problem of entertainment industry in your country is not that people "illegally" downloads content; in fact, in the hypothetical case you were able to completely get rid of downloads (an impossible mission,anyway) the problem of entertainment industry in your country would still be there.

7.You, Americans, know a lot about business, or so they say; like you will surely know, there is no viable enterprise whose "business model" consist in openly confronting with its clients base (and that attacks them, insults them, and criminalizes them) instead of pampering them.

Any successful entrepreneur in your country knows that he or she must pamper their clients and give them what they want, for these clients to buy their products. Have you ever wondered why is Steve Jobs a successful entrepreneur? Couldn't it be because he offers people what people want? Well, then, entertainment industry should do the same and offer people what people is demanding.

And, above all, entertainment industry should start by apologizing before Internet users (their clients too) for having branded them as "criminals", "pirates", "terrorists", "pimps", ,"drug traffickers", "pendejos" and a myriad of other serious and diverse insults that all of the Internet users have been suffering. This is the big, very big, problem of your entertainment industry, Mr. Solomont.

And while you are not able to solve it, your industry will sink more and more. Because the feeling in the Internet is that, if not-for-a-profit file sharing is attacked, Internet users will boycott the industry. And the most simple boycott is to avoid consuming the products that you intend to sell. In fact, hundreds -if not thousands- of Spaniards are already doing it.

Tell the entertainment industry in your country that they should treat their clients well, and probably these clients will come back. Though, given the point we have reached in Spain, we are afraid that it will take a huge effort to recover their confidence in your industry.

8.Finally, we would also like to know when will you add Spain as the 51st. State of the Union that you represent so honorably; that way, we will also share all of the advantages of "being an American" and not only the inconveniences; that way we will also avoid that you try to harm our country to please and favour the interests of yours. And, also that way, we will be able to decide in the elections whether we want to have Joe Biden as our VP, or we prefer somebody else who really respects all of the freedoms we had in Spain, since 1978.

Given that democracy (from the Greek, "the government of the people") has "de facto" disappeared in our country, we would like to join a country that is known as "democratic", though we must confess you that we haven't really checked that point thoroughly. We, spaniards, have the bad habit that we love democracy.

Yours sincerely,
Asociación de Internautas (a.k.a. "internautas", or "the vocal association")

//COMMENT//

We have tried our best to write in English, in order to Secretary of State (Hillary Rodham Clinton) and VP (Joe Biden) can easily read our letter without the need to send a diplomatic cable to them, with a attached text in Spanish, that they should translate. As you will be aware of, Google contains thousands of million links that point to copyrighted material and should, according to Biden-Sinde's Bill, be closed. Hence, SS & VP might not be able to use the Google Translation tool any time soon.

//END COMMENT//
INauts.


traducción

Fuente: internautas