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France Hostile To Open Source Software?
AdamWeeden writes "According to the Free Software Foundation of France the French Department of Culture is telling free (as in speech) software providers that 'You will be required to change your licenses ... You shall stop publishing free software,' and warn they are ready 'to sue free software authors who will keep on publishing source code.'" From the post: "It appears that publishing Free Software giving access to culture is about to become a counterfeiting criminal offence. Will SACEM sue France Télécom R&D research labs for having published Maay and Solipsis (P2P pieces of software used to exchange data)? Up to this point, the rather technical debate surrounding the issues addressed by DADVSI bill (copyright and neighbouring rights in the information society) makes one ask: Just how much control do the Big Players in the field of culture want to seize? It now looks like years of quibbling have put an end to compromises." More information on the DADVSI bill is available at Infos-du-net.com. They've come a long way since last year.
There goes VLC.
French programmers could just develop their software under assumed pen-names and publish their free software on servers overseas outside of the French government's jurisdiction. It's a sucky law if it passes, but if it does pass, I'm eager as hell to see it broken en masse to the point of it being unenforceable. Stereotypes about surrendering notwithstanding, of course...
Slashdot requires you to wait longer between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.
What is "access to culture"? The article specifically uses two P2P file-sharing programs as examples. Is this about pirating media (music, movies), or about publishing source code?
The proposed prohibition is specifically against open source software that allows you to defeat drm, not open source software in general.
Still a bad trend in any event
During the night of 22nd to 23rd December 2005, while everybody is preparing for Christmas, the French Parliament will rule about the "DADVSI" law. This vote will be made with minimal discussion, as an "emergency" has been declared on this law.
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/ 21/180220&from=rss
Would this mean they would be using illegal software?
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Let me tell you that the editorial's title ("France Hostile To Open Source Software?") is very misleading for a very simple reason: the anti Free Software statements have been made by the SNEP and SCPP, which are --guest what-- 2 lobbying groups created by various music companies. Here is a small list of companies belonging to those groups: Sony BMG, EMI, Universal, Warner Music France, Walt Disney Company, etc. Complete lists can be found on their websites:
Those 2 lobbying groups are obviously anti-P2P (and they say it clearly on their respective websites) and that explains totally why they are so anti Free Software, knowing that BitTorrent as well as other popular P2P tools are Free Softwares. But in no way whatsoever have the French in general, or the France Government, made any anti Free Software statements. We all remember those various stories that prove quite the contrary !
As a supporter of Free Software, and french citizen, I am quite sad to see this story posted on Slashdot. It just makes people have a bad opinion about us :(
My French is really rusty (but better than Babelfish?), but a bit of digging online found another source saying this: "L'amendement "VU / SACEM / BSA / FT Division Contenus" au projet de loi DADVSI cherche à assimiler à un délit de contrefaçon l'édition, la diffusion et la promotion de tout logiciel susceptible d'être utilisé pour mettre à disposition des informations protégées par le droit d'auteur et n'intégrant pas un dispositif de contrôle et de traçage de l'usage privé."
Which I translate vaguely as: "The "VU / SACEM / BSA / FT Division Contenus" of the DADVSI legal project hopes to gather under the offense of counterfeiting the spread or promotion of all software susceptible to being used to disseminate information protected by copyright, and which does not incorporate DRM." source
I could be wrong, though...rusty, as I said. In any case, it doesn't seem that different from other laws passed elsewhere, and the firefox/OpenOffice people could relax? Someone else can confirm/refute.
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My own translations.
D VSI.html :
e ls-libres.html :
from http://www.infos-du-net.com/actualite/5760-loi-DA
The law covers "the act of circumventing technical measures (of protection) or making available methods permitting such circumvention, understood that these methods have a limited commercial purpose or a limited use for purposes other than circumvention."
So, the law, if passed, will make it illegal to circumvent these protections, to make software that is capable of circumventing or that makes it easier to circumvent, its possession, promotion of such a system, communication for the same purpose, all with a penalty of 300 000 euros and 3 years in prison.
from http://www.infos-du-net.com/actualite/5837-logici
"You will stop the publication of software [...] [We are ready to] pursue the authors of Free software who continue to divulge their source code [...]". On 18 nov 2005, at the Culture ministry, the SACEM took the world to court.
SACEM is attacking Free software? This is not a fantasy, it's a reality supported by SNEP and SCPP, two other powerful defenders of music and the rights of authors in France. But where is the connection between these different guardians of culture and software? The answer is simply the vote on the amendment "VU/SACEM/BSA/FT Division Contenus" of the DADVSI law that we've talked so much about these last few weeks.
[...]
Pressure on the government:
The last meeting of the Commission Sirinelli of the CSPLA (superior advisors on intellectual property) finally ended in an agitated debate with three powerful organizations opposed against the advocates for Free software.
For Christophe Espern, the representative of Creative Commons France and co-founder of EUCD.INFO, the debate was nonsensical. "How can people pretend to defend culture and at the same time seek to stop the only software that allows everyone to access it? In my opinion, the contradiction is obvious: their intention is to control the public; culture is just a pretext."
But for SNEP and SCPP the objective is simple and clear: "You will change your licenses".
For whatever reason, the government is maintaining that the adoption of this bill is "urgent", which brings it to the forefront of debate and gives it priority treatment. As far as why it's so urgent - some people are asking why it's so urgent to pass a plan on intellectual property when the social issues related to the riots requires a national debate - nothing seems to justify this sudden interest in a subject unless it's the economic pressure of these powerful groups.
The amendment didn't have to be proposed immediately, but a special meeting was held on Nov 25, and the decision now rests in the hands of the Parliament.
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This isn't the first time I've seen someone submit something that is a gross misrepresentation of the truth.
The French government is NOT attacking free software. Rather groups within the entertainment industry are attacking P2P software that is distributed for free. This is a copyright infringement case. The fact that the industry goons are attacking free software is incidental. What is particularly telling is the way that this article is written. The author talks about "access to culture" when what he's really talking about is the ability to freely violate copyright law. Someone who wasn't paying close attention might mistakenly assume that the "culture" in question is in fact the free software that is under attack. I'm sure that this confusion is quite intentional.
The slashdot editors seem to be vulnerable to propaganda that plays upon their own fears. I could probably create a fake site with a story declaring that the RIAA had begun hiring contract killers to execute the defendants in their copyright suits and slashdot would publish a link to it.
Forget the slashdot effect, cases like this deserve a name all their own, the SlashDUPE effect.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
And I can understand French. The French article this is based on though is cryptic. It seems *they* are trying to lobby parliament to have some control over p2p programs. They want to have some form of control over all p2p programs (checking who downloads what, who makes what available) and would like to make it so that p2p programs cannot be open sourced so as to circumvent methods of stopping IP theft.
The original poster is extremely confused, at best.
What the story really is:
- Content industry pressures Europe into having their own version of the american DMCA, the EUCD. It passes.
- The EUCD, as a European directive, needs to be transcribed into every EU member state law.
- France is late transcribing the EUCD into national law and gets fined several times about it.
- The French government starts transcribing EUCD requirements into national law, and gets "friendly advice" about how to do it from (basically) Vivendi Universal and the (influential) french movie & arts industry, and none from the (non vocal and lower influence ) french tech & net industry.
- The EUCD has mostly the same provisions as the DMCA (don't break DRMs, etc) , but the French content industry (backed by US DRM solutions vendors) wants to go further : make DRM support mandatory for basically all software that enables peer-to-peer file swapping, including audio streaming software (to plug the Stationripper hole)
It is that step further (making DRM mandatory) which is inherently incompatible with Open Source software, and threatens to make things like Icecast illegal, that has brought up a stir.
The bill is scheduled for parliament vote on December 22th. More info at http://eucd.info/
Just so you know, France's government isn't liberal. Google "Jean-Marie Le Pen" for the historical details, but they basically had to choose between doppelgangern of Gee-Dub or Pat Buchannon, and chose Bush's counterpart.
As for this legislation, it seems to outlaw free software using the internet, under the notion that free software can be modified to remove restrictions on what you do with copyrighted material.
I feel disdain even saying these things to you. I doubt anyone here is familiar with the French Constitution, which requires laws to be reviewed by the Constitutional Committee before they can be enforced. The CC includes former Presidents and legal minds NOT involved in politics. It's kind of like a pre-emptive Supreme Court, and it would almost certainly not approve.
Of course, the likelihood of this amendment passing is low. There was a fuss about this in the U.S., too, when DRM first started being a big issue.
Trust me, the Ministry of Culture is laughed at by most of the government. Considering that the French government is encouraging open-source software (trust me, I know, I have worked with IT professionals in France on database conversions), and that OSS contributes to France's economy significantly, I very very seriously doubt this will be an issue.
I guess maybe I should go on an America-bashing tirade because of your proposed amendments to variously ban gay marriage and rename yourselves "The United States of Earth."
- The french Parliament will soon vote on DADVSI, the national version of the european EUCD, which is a copy of the american DMCA. The vote is scheduled to take place at night just before Christmas, under an emergency procedure, while nobody is paying attention. This, in itself, is making people angry.
- SACEM/SNEP/SCPP (the french equivalent of the RIAA) is lobbying for an amendment which reads very much like the american SSSCA/CBDTPA. This amendment can be understood as making DRM mandatory in any software which is ever used to violate copyright laws. That means FTP servers, web servers, etc. Since DRM in source code is easily circumvented, our RIAA could claim that any publisher of an open-source media player or file server is not doing their best to comply with this law.
- SSSCA/CBDTPA was rejected in the USA. Hopefully the FSF's press release will help defeat the french version as well.
AC
That's really a wild guess (and a wrong one ;)). I have hesitated to submit the story myself a few days ago and I should have because this summary is (once again) very misleading (but I'm getting accustomed).
The DADVSI law project is really the adaptation of the EUCD European directive, which is itself the european DMCA. Yeah, we can thank our european leaders who enjoy copying stupid american laws like DMCA and SW patents... Anyway..
While keeping all the badness of DMCA (forbidden reverse engineering, etc.), there's something more: if your software allows DRMs to be circumvented, then it is illegal. The problem with Free Software is that, by nature, you can change it, so DRMs could always be circumvented. So the "obvious" solution to those RIAA-like (SACEM & co) fuckers is to make them illegal.
There's nothing about "french culture" here, really, and please, French people don't have much in common with Quebeckers (I'm seeing many analogies that are totally out of place). When they (i.e: SACEM & co) talk about culture, they talk about Hollywood movies and the latest Madonna hit just as much as french movies & music. It's just an anti-piracy measure.
The problem is that their lobby is strong. They just are the same RIAA-like bastards... they should shoot themselves, the world would be better off.
Not much to add, as a french free software developper, you can imagine I'm quite angry at them (and at our government) right now (and I've been for some time... if only it could be avoided like software patents, but I have very little faith here).
This whole article is a misunderstanding. The French's press release in English was just poorly worded. When the original text is looked at it is obvious that the French are only instituting a DMCA of their own (sucks!). They are also banning open source software that is used to pirate. This is what we should really be complaining about. See article on techdirt for details. http://techdirt.com/articles/20051202/1451240_F.sh tml
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French readers take note:
There is a petition against the French EUCD implementation attempt at
http://eucd.info/petitions/index.php?petition=2