The Spanish businessman Carlos Vasallo has plunged into the most difficult battle.
Owner of more than 3,000 Mexican films, he has opened a legal front against Google and YouTube - owned by the former - for reproducing his titles without paying royalties.
After six years of attempts to resolve the conflict with the company, Vasallo filed the lawsuit three weeks ago in a court in Miami.
"I've done everything I could to not have to go to trial," he says, but has moved on to prevent America's tech giants from "taking it all."
The businessman now seeks to incite debate to modify the law that regulates content on digital platforms so that copyright is respected.
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Vasallo is a successful businessman.
President and CEO of the América CV Network chain, he has hundreds of employees in offices spread over several countries, and he owns five casinos in the Riviera Maya and one construction company in Spain.
It arrived in Mexico in the early 70s, and since then it has accumulated the rights to half of the national cinema.
"I don't have Mexican films, I have the history of Mexican cinema," he says in an interview with EL PAÍS.
Maclovia
,
La ley del monte
,
El día del compadre
or
Kill Chinto the Violent
are some of the titles in his extensive collection.
A library of more than 3,000 films that is now in the eye of the legal dispute.
Vasallo's battle with Google and YouTube began six years ago, when the businessman noticed that the video platform not only allowed users to upload their pirated movies, but also advertised the content.
In October 2014, he hired a New York law firm to open a conversation with the American giant.
The fight was predicted difficult, the company was protected by the Copyright Law of the Digital Age, known as
Millennium
, passed in 1998. Under this legislation, YouTube's policy is to remove videos found to be copyright infringement and terminate the account after the infringement is repeated three times.
A mechanism that, according to the businessman, was designed when these platforms did not sell the product.
The first time they sat down at the table, the US company offered to officially upload all their films to the platform to be compared "as a negative" with the pirated ones and thus be able to automatically eliminate the false ones.
But that deal meant leaving behind all the copyright violations his library had already suffered.
"I asked them for a contract, but they said 'from the past, past', and I said 'I do not agree, I want us to make a monetary agreement for the 300 million illegal reproductions that were before this," he says.
After several negotiation attempts, Vasallo hired a team to monitor whether 700 titles from his collection were illegally appearing on the platform.
Personal photograph courtesy of Carlos Vasallo.Album Carlos Vasallo / EFE
The idea was to notify Google when they found a pirated movie and have it removed by YouTube. "In six years, I have downloaded more than 3,500 channels, and we have given 10,000 notifications." The mechanism, however, did not work. Every time content was removed, it was uploaded again after a while, and every time an account was deleted, it was reopened under another name, he says. "I talk to them and tell them: 'This mechanic doesn't work.' And they don't pay any attention to me ”. Six years after the first conversation with the US company and without a solution in sight, he decided to prepare a lawsuit "to stop showing the films and quantify the damage." The legislation establishes that the first violation of copyright receives a penalty of $ 30,000. The second is considered malicious, and is penalized with $ 150,000.This newspaper consulted Google on the matter and the company said that it has no comment "on this matter," according to a spokeswoman.
Google generally tries to avoid court with settlements, and Vasallo understands the challenge of bringing a giant to trial.
“I am aware that it is an unequal fight, but I am also totally convinced that being small in proportion, it is my obligation to defend what is mine.
I do the fight, ”he says.
His effort also intends to go further.
“It is an issue that can modify the protection for the exchange of files, we must discuss the regulations, as is happening in Europe right now.
I will try to fight in Washington to be heard ”, he concludes.
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