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"The government has backed down and decided to scrap the digital tax," revealsLa Vanguardia. Brought in in 2008, this tax on cultural products stored on digital media was intended to compensate authors affected by the increase in illegal downloads. According to La Vanguardia, the government is awaiting "the outcome of the SGAE case [the General Society of Authors and Publishers]," to officially announce the abolition. On July 4, Teddy Bautista, president of this powerful institution, which represents "a true lobby of cultural creatives faced with (largely illegal) digital downloads" and two other officers were placed on probation. They are accused of embezzlement. La Vanguardia reports that the EU Court of Justice had declared the tax illegal in 2010, ruling that it could be applied only to digital copies for private use.
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