Today the Spanish Government released details on amendments to its copyright law (so-called Sinde Law, which was instituted in 2012) that will provide more protections to rights holders and offer stricter rules against infringers. At a press conference this week, Spain's Culture Minister José Ignacio Wert said that the new reforms have three objectives.

Every year rights holders get to offer their input in the U.S. Trade Representative’s Special 301 report, identifying piracy sites and offering recommendations on how best to combat piracy both online and offline. In a special letter, Wii, Wii U and 3DS maker Nintendo offers its two cents on the issue. First, Nintendo points out that it is suffering major losses at the hands of online piracy:

Spain passed the anti-piracy "Sinde Law" late last year, and with it going into effect this week opponents of the law (that allows for the government to block allegedly infringing sites based on complaints from copyright holders), are mobilized to cause confusion to its enforcers. The group Hackivistas and artist Eme Navarro (a staunch critic of the law and a member of the music rights group SGAE) have come up with a unique way of protesting that will test how the new law is used.

According to more than 100 leaked diplomatic cables, the reason that Spain passed such a strict anti-piracy law was because the United States government made strong threats against the country. The cables were part of a recent WikiLeaks release. Many have long suspected that the United States government has been interfering in other countries' copyright legislation, and these new cables certainly prove critics' points.

While U.S. politicians get ready to return to fight over SOPA, new legislation to combat file-sharing in Spain has been approved. The legislation, called the "Sustainable Economy Law" (LES), was specifically designed to stop Spanish Internet users from accessing file-sharing sites either by blocking them at the ISP level or by shutting them down completely.

You may recall that late last week Spanish Police arrested three men that they claimed were connected to hacktivist group Anonymous. The police alleged that the trio were responsible for  hacking various web sites associated with Sony, BBVA and Bankia, ENEL, and the governments of Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia, and New Zealand.

At the time the group's official Twitter account offered an ominous message to law enforcement: "expect us." And so they came and went. The hackers managed to keep www.policia.es offline for about an hour from 2130 GMT on 12 June.

According to a New York Times report, Spanish police have arrested three men they claim were involved in hacking Sony's PlayStation Network and the PlayStation Store. Police also claim that the trio are part of the hacktivist group Anonymous. The three men were released on their own recognizance pending formal charges but are expected to be charged with "forming an illegal association to attack public and corporate Web sites," which carries a maximum sentence of up to three years.

The official Twitter feed for the hacktivist group does provide some confirmation that the three are somehow connected to the group:

The Recording Industry Association of America and its partners at the International Intellectual Property Alliance recently submitted their ‘piracy watchlist’ recommendations to the Office of the US Trade Representative. The RIAA pointed to two countries as being the worst of the worst when it comes to intellectual property theft: Spain and our comrades to the north - Canada.

This is particularly interesting because this week Spain passed a tough new law to combat piracy. The Sinde law (nicknamed for its sponsor) is aimed at shutting down file-sharing sites that traffic in illegal downloads. Even though the public and some in the Spanish movie industry opposed the law, it will become the rule of the land by summer, says TorrentFreak. But the RIAA claims this is just a baby step and that even more needs to be done to combat theft.

TorrentFreak reports that the Spanish House of Representatives has rejected new legislation that would have shut down hundreds of legal file-sharing sites. The rejection is a major victory for the tens of thousands of Internet users who launched many protests in recent months.

As TorrentFreak points out, Spain is one of the few countries in the world where its courts have affirmed that P2P-sites operate legally. The Spanish government wanted to change this, and attempted to accomplish this by proposing new legislation. That legislation would have punished sites offering links to copyrighted works without the need for a judicial order.

The Sinde Act was an amendment to the Sustainable Economy Law (LES) drafted by Minister of Culture Ángeles González-Sinde, with input from the United States Government.

TorrentFreak reports that a coalition of file-sharing sites will go offline to protest a new law in Spain. The sites, TorrentFreak says generate 70 percent of Spain’s Internet traffic, will display a black page warning if the "Sinde Act" is approved. Some site owners say that their sites could disappear forever if the law is passed. Earlier this month, leaked diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks showed that Spain had bowed to US pressure to introduce the new law.

According to Boing Boing, 115 leaked diplomatic cables from the latest Wikileaks document dump were related to the upcoming intellectual property law in Spain.

El Pais, a Spanish newspaper that has all of the 115 documents from the US Embassy in Madrid, has released 35 of them. The first batch of documents confirms what has been widely believed to be true: that the U.S. trade representative (working in conjunction with U.S. trade groups) wrote the country's upcoming copyright/Internet law.

Spain's new copyright law is being put to a vote this month. Boing Boing has some text in Spanish released from El Pais. Admittedly, trying to translate it via various online services (I’m looking at you Google), doesn't do the text justice.

A game appearing on the website of a Spanish political party, in which players shot down illegal immigrants, was quickly yanked from the Internet after objections to its content.

The game, entitled Rescue, appeared on the website of the Catalan branch of the conservative Partido Popular (or People’s Party). Further describing the game, the Telegraph indicated that the goal was to “shoot down targets including ‘illegal immigrants’ parachuting from a plane and donkeys intended to represent Catalan separatists."

Once culminated, the game urged players to vote for the PP in the November 28 elections.