Slashdot Mirror
P2P (More) Legal in France
A reader writes:"A french appeal court ruled yesterday in favour of somebody who downloaded about 500 movies, on the ground that those were private copies, and that he didn't redistributed them, and that a tax was payed on blank media. This sets the huge precedent that P2P is legal over there. For the details, apparently no distinction was made on the method used to download the movies (upload issues) and the famous EUCD directive was even used by the defending lawyer." You'll want the fish for this one, unless you speak French.
That's a seriously cool word. Better than "web surfer" or "'netter". I say we port it to English immediately.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
What happened to the person from whom the movies were downloaded? He/she most certainly WAS distributing them in violation of copyright law.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Well, not really : we have a strong code already defined (Code Penal). But for new usages or not already defined cases, we uses precedent.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Although in this I can see (see me not judging, merely observing) the trend of French trying systematically to piss off America, there is one interesting point - the blank media tax. If people who pay for it are not allowed to download movies and burn them on taxed media, then what is its point?
Well, this makes sense, right, because it's not French music anymore, it's freedom music.
---------The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
I go back and forth on whether a precedent like this is a good thing. For one, yeah, I download things in a hypothetical manner on various peer to peer services. It certainly would be nice to be fully exonerated. It would also force the RIAA and MPAA to rexamine there business models and I think myself and most /.'ers would like the libertarian-anarchist paradise of self distribution and fair prices.
Still, it seems like an exceptionally harsh judgement against the MPAA and RIAA to say that anyone who wants any of their wares can aquire them for free. But, I guess issuing a huge judgement such as this in the USA would be the only way to move us away from record company monopoly and towards fair internet distribution paradise.
Very brief:
An IT student was sued by 17 movie companies including all the big names and their French distributors for downloading 488 movies over a period of years. He admitted watching them privately, with one or two friends, and sharing a few copies.
The first court, and the appeal court, rejected a claim by the prosecutor for EUR 5.000 in damages (and 10,000 Euro interests and costs) against the defendant, accepting the defense's argument that under European Union law, all surfers (internaughts!) already pay a tax on blank media, PCs and blank CDs that covers their use of these material as consumers.
The main point was that the student's use of the downloaded movies was personal - the small amount of sharing he did was not enough to classify it as "collective use". I assume that if he had shared the movies further, or shown them to a public audience, he would be liable for damages for those actions.
The charge of "piracy" was essentially thrown out.
Further this ruling would appear to affect all EU countries, though the French case will affect only French law initially - defendants in other countries will be able to refer to the same EU conventions.
(Note that the EU conventions are not law per-se, but all countries agree to implement them in national law, so it comes to the same thing.)
Lastly, this would appear to being EU into line with Canada as regards the legality of downloading media for personal use.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
Private use is Fair Use.
Copyright has been designed to protect the publishing and distribution rights so to make a copy for private use is "fair dealing"(UK) or "fair use"(US), the court clearly understood that this enhances the cultural richness of France.
What is illegal is making counterfeit copies for gain or public distribution then you hurt the copyright holder.
Now people listen to music and everyone listens to more music than they own, this encourages them to make more music and buy more music.
Copyright was always intended to enhance the cultural richness of the Public Domain by encouraging publication and creation.
It was never intended to create or support monopolistic cartels Practices.
Well, from the way my anti-Frenchbashing comments got similarly modded down, I'd say the mods are mostly of the opinion that antifrancism as well as antiantifrancism are both offtopic. I can kinda see their point, but had to take the side nobody ever takes - plus I just like the French, they aren't afraid to think for themselves.
And I think the French judge was right on in this decision. The tax having already been paid, the *AA's were just trying to make more money and scare normal downloaders. There, I said something on topic.
The flamebait mod was probably because there's considerably more in the military history of the French than that bigoted post made out. I mean, you could say almost the exact same thing about Poland, but you won't see anywhere near the amount of anti-Polish prejudice in America that you will of the anti-French variety. Any country that's in Europe has been invaded a shitton of times, Germany and England included. That answer your question?
They will never stop until somebody makes the
He must have downloaded a few movies from the wrong sharer (i.e. copyright enforcer). But if those files were offered for public download (to trap the unwary), how can they be illegal. Hey, you offered them. Why am I in trouble for taking what you freely offered?
Something is missing in this story so far, and I really would be interested in hearing what it is.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This makes no sense at all. Not everything that anyone does on this planet is done to either please or piss off America.
You just strengthened me in my idea that the majority of Americans have no idea about what is going on in the rest of the world. It scares me.
I'm guilty. But tell me, why do you think it is that so many people are more anti-French than anti-other EU countries?
I'll tell you that. An active campaign during the latter half of the 20th century.
Historically, the USA has not been anti-french. The French were allies in the War of Independence. The founding fathers were very much inspired by the Enlightenment, which was to a large part a French movement. The French peacefully sold Louisiana to the US. The French gave the US the Statue of Liberty. And so on.
But there is an old Anglo-Saxon grudge against the French which dates back forever. That much is true.
What happened, happened during and after WWII. The USA and UK didn't want De Gaulle to lead France, since he was a rather proud/arrogant guy, strongly independent, and would not let himself be convinced to do something unless it was what he considered to be best for France. In other words, he acted a lot like America does.
So France went off on their own, unilaterally leaving NATO, for instance. America responded by calling them arrogant, ungrateful, and playing on existing anglo-saxon stereotypes of 'snooty' French. The french, to an extent, do consider the Americans to be arrogant as well. Whereas both nations have really done nothing other than support their own self-interest.
There is also a general anti-European sentiment in the USA (and vice versa, of course, but the forms are different). There has been a very deliberate effort from the American republicans in the last half-century to paint a bad picture of Europe.
Because Europe is more to the left than the USA, giving the Democrats the argument of a Good Example would be a dangerous thing. So Europe (and France in particular) has been badmouthed at every opportunity. High taxes. Strikes. Inefficiency. Listening to American media reports, you'd think Europe is part of the third world.
And the strategy worked: I'll give them that. You cannot refer to Europe in American politics. It's political suicide. Taboo. Tell Americans something is European and they'll vote against it on sheer principle.
(European anti-americanism is different. Referring to the USA in European politics happens all the time.)
As for the 'french surrender' crap. It's a lie and a prejudice. An uncommonly stupid and hurtful one, at that.