Enrique Dans is a professor at Spain's IE Business School and a well-known blogger who has been a fierce critic of the entertainment industry. Last summer, Prof Dans wrote a blog post, Siete motivos por los que el caso SGAE es mucho más que la propia SGAE, which set out his view that Promusicae, the Spanish record industry consortium, had formed an illegal cartel to distribute music for radio broadcast, which shut out non-members and independents.
Now Promusicae is suing Dans for EUR20,000, accusing him of libel and "threatening their honor," and they are demanding a retraction. As Ernesto writes on TorrentFreak, Dans is standing his ground.
The professor, on the other hand, says his claim was well researched and that he consulted experts in competition law before he wrote it up. And even if that's not the case, Dans believes he has the right to make such claims in an open and free society.
"In short, what I said in the article was my opinion, protected by the right to freedom of expression and, as I documented it properly and professionally, the right to freedom of information."
" I stand by my opinion," he writes in a new blog post. "Of course it may be debatable, but even if it were not well founded and I was wrong, I can not think how it can be an attack against the honor of a society such as Promusicae… The reality? Promusicae are using the 'honor' argument to restrict the right to freedom of expression and information. After many years of direct confrontations and repeatedly being humiliated in numerous public forums, now they want to shut me up through a lawsuit."
