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These new images look more like what kids would make when they first discover what happens if you toss pigment on your hand. Not a lot of art going on but it's fun.

The cave paintings in France are definitely art and were created around the same time.

The Sulawesi art is very definitely representational art not just "tossing pigments" around. The cave paintings in France have those same hand print patterns you try to dismiss as "not art". Your bias against this artwork seem unsupported by facts.

Ah, France. You’re so dynamic and quick to embrace change From the Toubon Law to propping up Minitel to the stoic way you embraced labor regulations aimed at easing ridiculously high unemployment by making the first two years of employment somewhat more flexible with your non à la précarité movement... (Does make for decent wine, though, and likely will for centuries.)

By the time the Great War had started, European aviation was greatly ahead of the USA's efforts.

Thanks to a Santos Dumont's invention, the Demoiselle (Google translation), which was released to the public domain by the author.

Nice. I'm visualizing something like this suit.

And what about those undersea-cave paintings?

What is the problem with them?

It's pretty uncontroversial (i.e., you have to go out to the extremes where young-earth creationist lunatics cross-breed with gas-guzzlers to find claims of controversy, which is more due to some people's religious delusions than there actually being a controversy) that during the ice-age, global sea levels were relatively low for the good and sufficient reason that the ice which was on land used to be water that was in the ocean basins.
BTW, I take it that you're referring to La Grotte Cosquer. As the link image indicates, the paintings themselves are above sea-level (they'd have been pretty unlikely to survive and remain recognisable if they were below sea-level!) ; it's the cave entrance which is below sea-level. As my fellow troglodytes (spelunkers, if you're a transpozzian) say, "the cave imposes it's own entrance restrictions". While the surveying isn't readily available (I bet I could get hold of a survey, through cave-diving contacts, but I'd have to use my influence as a well-established caver, as an ex-cave diver, and as a professional geologist with a long-standing interest in archaeology. But as a responsible geologist, I won't even seek the data ; what I don't have, I can't leak.), I bet that there is an upper entrance. Hydrologically, there's pretty-much got to be an upper entrance - though it could well be presently plugged with debris, or collapsed and hydrologically inactive. While finding such an entrance has obvious interest, I'd be very hard put to justify even looking such an entrance because of the risk of damage to the paintings if a non-diving entrance were discovered.

Oh dear, I found more survey data than I really wanted. That was depressingly easy.

Reason is the only way we make progress. With all the art in the world and no reason, we would never have left those caves in Lascaux.

Before you eviscerate me, consider that the arts really don't make any progress. No painting has fed a hungry child, discovered a new molecule, built a bridge, or cured a disease. Dance doesn't solve real-world problems, and music isn't played in congress to make policy.

Encouraging the arts is worthwhile for other reasons, but the whole subject has nothing to do with what we're talking about here, which is the use of disinterested reason instead of inflamed passion when making policy decisions.

English text of the law: http://www.dglflf.culture.gouv.fr/droit/loi-gb.htm Article on business meetings: Article 6. - Any participant in an event, seminar or convention organised in France by natural persons or corporate bodies of French nationality has the right to express himself in French. Documents distributed to participants before and during the meeting for the presentation of the programme must be drafted in French and may include translations in one or more foreign languages. Where an event, seminar or convention involves the distribution of preparatory documents or work documents to participants, or the publication of proceedings or minutes of work sessions, the texts or papers presented in the foreign language must be accompanied by at least a summary in French. These provisions apply neither to events, seminars and conventions exclusively organised for foreigners, nor to events designed to promote France's foreign trade. Provision must be made for translation services when the events herein referred to are organised at the initiative of a public corporate body or private corporate body carrying out a public service assignment. No obligation to hold meetings in French.

While I left the country a long time ago, I'm originally from France, so I browsed through the actual report (which you can find here - in frog of course).

First it is worth noting that there was no representative of the entertainment industry in the commission, hence the lack of inquisition-style measures.

It's fairly obvious that the commission chairman (CEO of a music retailer) put in whatever was good for him:
- lower taxes on "cultural goods" (how do I lower my prices without cutting into my margins, lessee...)
- more DRM free music (how do I prop up my online music store when Apple won't let me sell DRM'd stuff that'll work on iPods)
- reduce lag for DVD releases.

What I found most interesting is that they actually went through the whole range of possible technological measures looking for the least bad. URL/IP blocking, protocol blocking, fingerprinting, watermarking, you name it. And, believe it or not, they actually rejected most of these for the reasons you mention and others: not all P2P traffic is illegal, URL can change easily and so on. They're looking for a way for right holders to specify what exactly can't be downloaded, a watermarking of some kind. They even acknowledged problems with IP identification: WiFi of course, but also company networks and IP spoofing (which you missed ;-)

Although I don't really care, for the obvious reason, I can't say I'm pleased with it (for one thing, how you can build the web as a cornerstone of life as a citizen and a consumer and then just cut it off?), but I have to say I was impressed. This is definitely a step in, well, not quite the right direction, but at least the right direction derivative (if you will). This thing is a far cry from the DMCA/EUCD "kill them all, god will recognise his own" approach.

I've also heard that modern artists don't know how to mix their own paints from animal dung, blood and dirt.

Well, I am french.

There is not tax on hard drive or flash media. There is a tax on Blank CD, blank DVD, min disc, etc. and it is somewhat related to the amount of audio data you can put on.

Here is the list:
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/actualites/comm uniq/tasca-2001/copie-supports-num.htm

The list is in francs, and you have 6.5F = 1EUR

Since you haven't been modded Flamebait or Troll yet...

The French government is considering a law which gives those organizations what they are asking for.

So... not the French Government. Fuckwit submitter, fuckwit eds.

Your love of the fuck-word doesn't make you correct.

The article summary, on the other hand, is quite correct.

Perhaps you missed the part which said, "It appears that publishing Free Software giving access to culture is about to become a counterfeiting criminal offence."

Or the part which said, "Department of Culture is telling free (as in speech) software providers that..." which is referring to the Sirinelli Commission which is linked to: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/cspla/oeuvrinte rnet.htm in the article's footnotes.

I'll leave it up to you to decipher the meanings of the words "culture", "gouv" and "fr" in the domain name.

By the way, here is a translation of that law in English: Law No. 94-665 of 4 August 1994 relative to the use of the French language.

Also related, and a bit more on-topic for this story, is the law passed two years later requiring all of the country's 1,300 FM radio stations to play at least 40 percent French songs.

It's my understanding that the Neanderthals lived in caves located below sea level. A big storm came and wiped them all out.
        You're apparently referring to the paintings in the Grotte Cosquer http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/archeosm/en/fr- cosqu1.htm , which I think are actually dated to the Palaeolithic, and produced most likely by AMHs (Anatomically Modern Humans).
        This site, and no doubt many others, had an entrance considerably below present day sea level - 40-odd metres for Cosquer - but the cave passages followed by the ancients led up to passages that have not (yet) been flooded. But at the time that the paintings were made, the sea level was below the cave entrance, as has been documented by fossils of land animals , drowned plants etc. Plus the fairly obvious issue of how the painters got their light sources into the cave. (The abundance of soot marks in the cave testifies that burning organic matter was used for illumination during the production of the paintings.) It's just about conceivable that an ancient could have carried illumination which he could have lit after doing a lung-powered cave dive (Norbert Casteret could do it, so why not Uggh the Caveman?)

The french ministry of culture has been commissioning works of "multimedia" art for years. Several are available on their website.
This one is a little old (1999), but was the first significant one.
And here is a collection of government sponsored screensavers.

The french ministry of culture has been commissioning works of "multimedia" art for years. Several are available on their website.
This one is a little old (1999), but was the first significant one.
And here is a collection of government sponsored screensavers.

I've visited a few CAVE's in my time as well, and I find absolutely nothing wrong with the concept that the primary function of a CAVE is for the expression of art.

The link was to complex to be included here? They look pretty regular to me. You've maybe heard of the A tag? Was it Great Archaeological Sites, Exploring Mars, Earth As Art, or Archimedes' Lab; _OR_ did you just want some traffic to your site? ;)

Megaceros Gallery Panel of vulvas, the earliest TGP known to man.

Please stay polite, and don't spam it, it will be much more effective that way.

Madame la minstre Tasca can be joined via http://www.culture.fr/culture/comment-ministre.htm

Le premier ministre Jospin can be reached at mailto:premier-ministre@premier-ministre.gouv.fr . As there are 3 elections in the next 18 month, telling him the opinion you have on the issue and how it will impact you vote can be pretty effective.

Resistance (which is not futile) is at www.vachealait.com

If you know other resources, please reply. I don't want SONY/EMI/VIVENDI etc, getting money each time I burn a FreeBSD CD

Thanks.

Cheers,

--fred

Quand j'entend le mot "culture" je sort mon portefeuille.