France to Legalize File Sharing

quenting writes "In the debate around the anti-piracy bill, the French Parliament voted yesterday into law an amendment to the DADVSI bill that allows free sharing of music and movies over the internet, considering the downloaded files as a private copy. This decision goes against the French government and the music industry's recommendations, who argue the deputies only wanted to show their independence from the government. The initial bill's detractors who pushed for this amendment want a tax for author rights to be paid by everyone on the ISP fees." The French government has vowed to fight this decision (babelfish link).

Comments

I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours!

[PenguinBoyDave]

About time that someone gives the recording industry the middle finger.

Serves them right for pushing their luck.

[Sockatume]

The French Parliment over-reacted here, but it's good to see that the kind of ridiculous measures requested by record companies and their ilk are resulting in equally ridiculous responses from those who disagree. Given the way politics seems to work these days (argue for a few years then go for a 50/50 compromise) then France might wind up with sensible legislation taken from the middle-ground.

Re:Serves them right for pushing their luck.

[EzInKy]

The French Parliment over-reacted here, but it's good to see that the kind of ridiculous measures requested by record companies and their ilk are resulting in equally ridiculous responses from those who disagree.


I like to think of it more as glimpse of the future the music and movie industries will face if they keep treating all thier customers as potential theives. Eventually they'll piss off so many people that no amount of money will protect them.

Re:Serves them right for pushing their luck.

[Thomas Miconi]

A short summary of events:

1) The (gaullist, center-right) government proposes a bill which implements the EU directive on copyright. The proposed bill is essentially a DMCA-light: circumvention of copy-protection devices is forbidden, but the copy-protection systems must allow for legally recognised exceptions to copyright (such as private copies for personal of family use). Note that making a small number of private copies is explicitly legal in France, and we already pay a tax on blank media for this.

2) Two "députés" (representatives), from the main centre-left and centre-right parties, introduce amendments to the effect of mandating "global licensing": introduce a tax on broadband internet access (about 5 to 9 euros per month), in exchange for making unlimited, not-for-profit filesharing legal. The product of this tax is then redistribute to artists (how ? nobody knows). The government voices its opposition to the amendments.

3) The amendments are adopted. This is a very rare event: many members of the gaullist party voted against the wishes of the gaullist government. All parties were divided on the issue, but in the end a majority of lawmakers present at the time supported the amendments. This unexpected rebellion indicates widespread discontent from lawmakers about the bill.

4) The government makes it clear that it wants the amendments rescinded. As the Minister for Culture said, "with the global license system, no one has found an acceptable system of redistribution (for the money collected through the tax)". Media publishers in general oppose the amendments. Artists and rights-collecting societies (French equivalents for the RIAA) are divided, with a majority against them. Consumer associations, however, express clear support.

5) Although the amendments were adopted, the law itself will only be voted on in a few days. In the meantime, the government is expected to exert pressure on the lawmakers (at least on those of the center-right party) to make them reject the amendments. So no, sharing copyrighted material is not yet definitely legal in .fr, and there will probably be some changes in the law before the definitive version is passed. I wouldn't want to bet money on the final outcome.

Thomas-

Who would have guessed it?

[CodeHog]

France didn't actually surrender to something (not yet at least)!

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[ThaFooz]

France didn't actually surrender to something (not yet at least)!

Yes, but a couple weeks ago we learned that all it takes to capture Paris these days is sticks and rocks. One sufficently angry record exec with a 2'x4' with a nail through it should be enough to reverse the legislation.

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[Anonymous Coward]

well if we're going OT, when's your next victorious withdrawal from a newly-freed country ?

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. You're so funny and original. You must be from U.S.A.

I'm not convinced that the post is from an American. True, the grammar is poor, but the post contains no spelling mistakes, references to "nukes", or brain-dead cowboy-isms such as references to being "fur us or agin us". If indeed an American, the poster a member of the very small minority of relative sophisticates that inhabit a land that it seems is populated, in the majority, by frothing lunatic throwbacks who are too addle-brained to realize or care that fascism is descending upon their once great land.

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[R2.0]

"You must be from U.S.A."

Or Britain.

Or Germany.

Or Canada (Well, the non-Quebec parts, anyway).

Or Russia.

Or for that matter, any other country. You seem to forget that NO ONE likes France except the French (And maybe the folks in that suburb next door, what's it's name...Belgium!). Just because the US has recently eclipsed France as the Most Hated Country in the world shouldn't obscure France's long tenure at #1, and it's current solid position at #2 (there's a bad pun in there, somewhere)

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[Buelldozer]

Funny, but consider this: (taken from www.dictionary.com)

Fascism
A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls...

So after I look that up I head back to the front page to see that my British cousins are going to start tracking ALL vehicle movements...passenger and commercial for "security services".

Stop the Insanity!

If America is being covered by the cloud of fascism we are not the only ones. Yes I'm American, yes I'm still proud of that fact.

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, you must have amazing wet dreams just thinking how awful those French are...
each to his own I guess !

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because the US has recently eclipsed France as the Most Hated Country in the world shouldn't obscure France's long tenure at #1
Nobody hates anyone as much as everyone hates the Turks

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice. "Yes we're fascists, but so are you!"

/Nothing more needed really

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You seem to forget that NO ONE likes France except the French"

It's good to be hated by "all" because anybody who is for us is against everybody else.

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[IdleTime]

I don't hate France, but then again, I have many many years of visits to France whereas the wast majority of France haters have never been outside Shitville, USA. If they have, it's on a daytrip to Backwater, USA. None of them have ever set foot in France nor do they have any idea of all the great things that has come out of France and true, some things didn't turn out that great, but then again, what can really be done for USA anyway?

Most hated country? In USA maybe, but in other places around the world, USA takes the top spot.

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[freeweed]

Yeah, but soon the government will design a bigger 2x4, with a bigger nail in it.

Eventually, they will have a big enough board, with a big enough nail, that it will destroy them all!

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[christian.elliott]

You must be from the U.S.A.

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[christian.elliott]

You'd be amazed what people can do with sticks and rocks when the people in authority are not allowed to use deadly force. By using force you are only going to incite more violence (Especially with the situation that supposedly led to those riots). If the population (or part of a population) of any country decided to rise up against the government, you would most likely see that government fall quite quickly.

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[Anonymous Coward]

But where will you get a 2'x4' in France?

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[uberjoe]

You seem to forget that NO ONE likes France except the French

What about French-Americans like me. My society tells me to hate frogs, but everytime I ask Grandpa if he wants some more freedom fries or freedom toast he beats me over the head with his cane, and curses me en français. What's a franco-american to do?

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[Anonymous Coward]

They do make good kebab.

Who cares about those civil rights issues etc. anyways? I mean, I've got to eat something.

(I honestly don't care, I like kebab :o)

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[Richard Steiner]

I don't hate the USA, but then again, I have many many years of visits to the USA whereas the wast majority of USA haters have never been outside Shitville, Europe. If they have, it's on a daytrip to Backwater, Europe. None of them have ever set foot in the USA nor do they have any idea of all the great things that has come out of the USA and true, some things didn't turn out that great, but then again, what can really be done for France anyway? :-)

Sadly, I think both my paragraph and yours are largely correct. :-(

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[R2.0]

Actually, I think you may have put your finger on something. I think that part of the reason the French get reviled in the USA is the under-representation of French descended US citizens. Outside of Louisiana, there don't seem to be a lot of people whocan call France "the old country". Most of the rest of Europe sent waves of immigrants, but not France (well, not Spain either, but the US gets the Spanish incluence via the southwestern route.) I can only think of 1 person I've ever met whose ancestors came from France, and even he pointed out he was from the Alsace region, which he described as "more German than French."

Think of it this way - if one were to make a crack about Ireland, Italy, Germany, etc., there's a pretty good chance that someone in the immediate vicinity will take offense. When was the last time anyone you know defended France due to an ancestral tie? (Besides yourself, of course)

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[NeutronCowboy]

I'm sure that's why France is the most visited nation in the world: http://www.ambafrance-us.org/atoz/economy.asp/

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I like France, and I am neither from France, nor from one of the 'suburbs' nearby. I do, however, dislike Americans. Not all of them, of course, just the ones that act as childish, annoying and stupid as you do. If you would look further than the fence of your ranch, you would notice this counts for a staggering majority of the world.

[prepares to go stand in the corner for feeding a troll]

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, how could you possibly know that? Is it because of all your travels in Africa, Asia and South America? The French-bashing seems to me to be a primarily english-speaking thing. Here in Sweden we hate the French (damn their farming subsidies!) just as much as we hate Germans (damn their Swedish property-buying!), Spaniards (damn their inefficiency!), ourselves (damn our complacency!) and a little less than we hate Americans (at the moment. Damn their war-mongering!). Ils sont fous, ces Suédois...

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[koafc]

Alternate article title: France raises the white flag to consumer demand

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[StikyPad]

Unlike, say, Chicago or L.A. or Washington, D.C. right?

But, you know.. don't let a reality interfere with your opinions. A good zealot never does.

Re:Who would have guessed it?

[ThaFooz]

Well,
a) It was a joke, lighten up.
b) Of course riots happen elsewhere. My original comment was a dig at the paralyzed French government for lacking the resources to control the violence, not the underlying problems of race/class that exist everywhere. The '92 LA riots were bad, but the response was much better (national guard & the like, and largely controlled after the 3rd day). The Chicago & DC riots simply do not compare in size or duration to that of LA an Paris, so I wonder why you even bring them up while neglecting the '65 Watts riots (the worst in terms of violence & destruction).

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[jwambach]

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,69901-0.htm l?tw=wn_tophead_2

Feel free to bash :)

Wording??

[cyberbob2010]

I think they probably could have worded this a little better. They are making it sound like these "deputies" are not a part of the government as the "government" is going to fight them. It is not as if these are some rebels in the foot hills making their own laws.

Re:Wording??

[Anonymous Coward]

The deputies are not part of the government.

Re:Wording??

[cyberbob2010]

"The national government of France is divided into an executive, a legislative and a judicial branch. The President has a degree of direct executive power, but most executive power resides in his appointee, the Prime Minister. The President's choice for Prime Minister must have the confidence of the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament; also the Prime Minister is always from the majority party in that house." Sounds to me like they are

Re:Wording??

[SpaceAdmiral]

In many countries around the world, "Government" refers to the "Executive" branch. That's what they are doing here and the wording is perfectly fine.

I can understand why that would be confusing for Americans, though. Hope that helps.

Re:Wording??

[Anonymous Coward]

1. The word 'deputies' doesn't appear in your quote.
2. The deputies form the National Assembly (paraphrased from same fountain of knowledge - see 'France') which elects the Government.

To be fair though, the phrase 'government' is a bit vague, but you can be sure that when the French go on a bitchfest about their government it's not the National Assembly they're after.

Re:Wording??

[PeDRoRist]

The national assembly and the deputies (legislative authority) are not part of the government (executive authority).

They are elected and work separately, and although they both represent the people, they don't always cooperate (mostly depends on whatever wing is in power) and can occasionally fight each other:
the assembly can censor the government (quite rare), the government can forcibly promulgate a bill of law without the deputies' consent (which happened twice since the latest presidential and legislative elections in 2002) and the president can dissolve the assembly (which last happened in 1995 IIRC - a disaster for the RPR (right wing) majority at that time)

Re:Wording??

[El Cabri]

It is a too-litteral translation of the French terms : "deputy" is for "député", who is a member of the lower house of parliement, the National Assembly. "government" here strictly means the executive branch of government, more precisely, the prime minister's cabinet (the president, even though he is part of the executive, is usually not considered part of what is covered by the word "gouvernement").

Re:Wording??

[cyberbob2010]

Thanx all
Despite the trash talk people throw at /. I learn something new here every day
:)

Bad idea...

[GreyWolf3000]

This could set precedent to undermine copyright as a whole. In which case, I predict we'll start seeing things like proprietary derivatives of GPL software emerge and not get challenged.

Unless a new paradigm for duplication and distribution of digital works is created, we need copyright to be enforced in all cases in order to protect free software.

Re:Bad idea...

[Aim Here]

"In which case, I predict we'll start seeing things like proprietary derivatives of GPL software emerge and not get challenged. "

In the absence of copyright law, what does 'proprietary' mean?

I thought the GPL was a legalistic hack to protect the ethical right to share information. If the government goes and legalises that, then the GPL becomes almost, but not quite, entirely redundant.

Re:Bad idea...

[SerpentMage]

Is this an undermining of copyright? I think not. In the article the following paragraph says it all.

"Legal music downloading sites such as Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes have French-language sites, as do major music companies such as Vivendi Universal SA. Last night's amendment would allow someone having bought a song from one of those sites to share it with family or friends."

I still think that general peer to peer networks a'la Kaaza would be in hot water. What I think the law is trying to get at is the stopping of the draconian DRM law that takes away fair use. Many of the online music shops have music that only certain computers can run. This law addon says, "Hey you bought, you can share it like you would a CD among family and friends".

Re:Bad idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the GPL was a legalistic hack to protect the ethical right to share information. If the government goes and legalises that, then the GPL becomes almost, but not quite, entirely redundant.

Remember that RMS's philosophy is not only that you should have the right to share information you want to share, but that you should have a responsibility to share information others want you to share.

There's a reason why the GPL concentrates on the inclusion of source code. In a world without copyright, there would be nothing to stop you taking GPL software, modifying it, and giving copies away - for free - without source code. And RMS would not want you doing that.

Re:Bad idea...

[Anne Honime]

This could set precedent to undermine copyright as a whole.

France never had, doesn't have, and surely won't have a notion of 'copyright' in the law ; that's completely alien to us. We *do* have intellectual property, but it's absolutely not the same thing as your copyright. Main difference : an author, in France has some perpetual rights on his work that he just can't sell to anyone (producer et al.), and that he only can use anytime after the release of his work, even after selling distributions' rights. Those are called 'moral rights'.

Re:Bad idea...

[Curien]

Protect it from what?

If some frenchman starts selling a slightly-modified version of some piece of Free software, how does that impinge on my ability to use the original version?

Re:Bad idea...

[parodyca]

I predict we'll start seeing things like proprietary derivatives of GPL software emerge and not get challenged.

Maybe, but it will all be free software. You wont be able to exploit it commercially without following the terms of the GPL. Just as you wont be able to exploit (sell) commercial software or music or whatever, without following those terms.

This seems reasonable to me. So what if the GPL loses some of its wind. If copyright laws are less powerful, the GPL does not need to blow so hard.

Re:Bad idea...

[Richard_at_work]

How is the GPL going to force me to open up the sourcecode when the law backing it no longer exists? The GPL does exist as a means to 'protect the ethical right to share information' (not that I agree that sourcecode is information) but not jsut the binaries but the sourcecode as well. Under the OP scenario, copyright no longer exists as a force to make me open my sourcecode up under the terms of the GPL.

Re:Bad idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

an author, in France has some perpetual rights on his work that he just can't sell to anyone (producer et al.), and that he only can use anytime after the release of his work, even after selling distributions' rights.

That sounds like a good idea. What happens to the rights when the author dies? Does it go into what we in the US call the "public domain?" Or do the rights go to the heirs?

Re:Bad idea...

[Anne Honime]

Or do the rights go to the heirs?

They go to the heirs for plus/minus 70 years, then, public domain (the variation takes into account the length of wars, so a book published in 1936 gets a protection bonus of 5 years).

Re:Bad idea...

[ThreeE]

So what you are saying is that France surrenders all intellectual property rights to the author?

Re:Bad idea...

[Kjella]

There's a reason why the GPL concentrates on the inclusion of source code. In a world without copyright, there would be nothing to stop you taking GPL software, modifying it, and giving copies away - for free - without source code.

True. Then again, without copyright what value does the source have? Any binary you create can be distributed everywhere at no cost, so the value is almost $0. You might possibly earn a few bucks writing improvements on demand, but 99% of the COTS market would vanish in an instant.

Re:Bad idea...

[Anne Honime]

So what you are saying is that France surrenders all intellectual property rights to the author?

It's much more complicated than that, and I lack english skills to explain it properly, but I'll try : in France, IP rights are either money-worth or moral. In the 1st category belong the rights to copy, distribute, display, etc. Among the 2nd are the rights to withdraw the work, forbid its representation, defend its integrity. Basically, the author can't give away the rights of the 2nd category, therefore anytime in the future, he can forbid any exploitation of his work without justification, provided he pays back the holders of other kinds of money-worth rights for the damage they face after that decision. But the main idea is that an author can always get back all the rights on his work, even if somebody else paid for the job.

Re:Bad idea...

[Aim Here]

True. It's won't be as easy to use copyright law as a stick to force people to open up the sourcecode. Of the four software freedoms, the (legal) freedom to use the sourcecode to modify the code is the one that won't be automatic if copyright law suddenly evaporates - it's also the freedom which is generally least used, in practice, which is why I hedged my original post with the phrase 'almost, but not entirely,'.

I'm still not sure whether I was right to use the word 'almost', since it's certainly not immediately obvious that the right to modify/see source is the least important.

Re:Bad idea...

[Mo Bedda]

I thought the GPL was a legalistic hack to protect the ethical right to share information. If the government goes and legalises that, then the GPL becomes almost, but not quite, entirely redundant.

Your ethical right to share your own information has never been in danger. You could always release to the public domain. The GPL prevents you from taking the shared information, using it, and distributing it but not sharing the result. OSS certainly benefits from the GPL, but it does not require it.

But the article only mentions music and movies, so I'm not certain the GPL would be impacted. They are not talking about repealing copyright; they are talking about expanding fair use. It does not sound like it would be legal for me to take a movie, replace all the credits with my own, and release it to theaters or sell it on DVD. Not having read the proposal itself, I would assume that sharing means a non-profit/p2p sort of thing, not a for profit/selling movies and music online sort of thing.

Re:Bad idea...

[mumblestheclown]

I wish I had moderation points for you today. Well said!

Re:Bad idea...

[Aim Here]

"Your ethical right to share your own information has never been in danger. "

When talking about 'the ethical right to share information', it's generally taken to mean the ethical right to share information of general use, no matter who comes up with it.

If I happen to have a computer program or a book or whatever that my friend would find useful, RMS and others think I should be allowed to make a copy of it for him or her.

It's the copyright holder's right to call in lawyers and cops and the armed might of the state to stop me nonviolently sharing information that might be considered unethical from that perspective.

Re:Bad idea...

[bedroll]

True. Then again, without copyright what value does the source have? Any binary you create can be distributed everywhere at no cost, so the value is almost $0. You might possibly earn a few bucks writing improvements on demand, but 99% of the COTS market would vanish in an instant.

The same value that it has now. The important thing is that you can always go in and modify the source code. The fact that it is required to be free as in beer is merely a way to ensure that it is always Free as in speech to everyone, regardless of their financial situation. Sure, this is unimportant to end-users, but it is highly important to developers. It means that I can satisfy a small amount of end users (even just 1) by making changes to something that I didn't code. It means I don't have to beg and play games with the original coders to get a feature that I require implemented. It also means that, should the developers kick the bucket or give up programming for a lucrative career in car sales, I have the source to upkeep myself or find new developers to work on.

There's your value. That doesn't require copyright to exist. Unfortunately, the current license that enables (forces) all of that does require copyright to exist. Should copyright cease to exist a new contract would be required that relied entirely on contract law to enable such a system.

Re:Bad idea...

[Jerom]

Indeed, and without copyright how many copies is he going to sell anyway?

J.

Re:Bad idea...

[Nicolas MONNET]

Quite the opposite, in France, authors can't surrender (some of) their right, even for a lot of money.

Re:Bad idea...

[cpt kangarooski]

As it happens, it's an amazingly terrible idea. It tends to discourage people from doing business with authors since the author can always break his promises and get away with it. This ends up being bad for authors too, since they get fewer opportunities.

It's kind of like if someone was selling you a plot of land which you wanted to build a house on; would you want the plot where you owned it outright, or where the previous owner could march into your house and start throwing away your furniture because he didn't like it?

Re:Bad idea...

[Alsee]

required to be free as in beer

False.

The GPL allows you to charge as much as you like. The only issue is that after you have sold some copies you have no way to prevent your customers from then selling it as well, potentially undercutting your price.

So you can charge whatever you like for the first copies, and what you can get away with charging for later copies depends on complex factors and can often drop to zero in a fluid market. If you are selling software to companies for example - particularly megacorps, it is quite likely that that company will have zero interest in even attempting to eneter that software market to undercut you. You could quite easily manage to resell the exact same GPL software many times over.

That is also true even for public domain software, or even if there were no copyright law at all.

On the otherhand thge ability for customers to become suppliers and undercut prices does tend to drive the market price rapidly towards zero for mass market off-the-self consumer software. However that is a purely market effect, and the GPL places no restrictions on your ability to set any prices you like.

-

Re:Bad idea...

[burnin1965]

"In the absence of copyright law, what does 'proprietary' mean?"

It means that companies will pillage the open source projects for code, create a product based on that code, and then sell the product without releasing the source code or any improvements they may have made to the code.

Presently the copyright holders of open source code can take legal action against anyone who does not follow the guildlines of the GPL (or some other OSS license), the license under which they have released their code.

Several companies have already been caught violating open source licenses and to date they have all agreed to abide by the license. If copyright law is abolished then the open source licenses will lose their legal strength. The pillaging will only become worse as you will see companies ripping off open source code for their closed source proprietary products with zero legal repercussions.

At least that is what I suspect he meant by his statement. ;)

burnin

Re:Bad idea...

[bloblu]

This could set precedent to undermine copyright as a whole.

Not so. The amendments just say that sharing file is not in itself a copyright infringment. There can be many legitimate use, in particular downloading songs you already own rights for (e.g. you bought the CD, and then it broke). This is called private copy under french law: you can have a copy of any work you paid for, in case you lose the original version.

(I'm a frogg, excuse my English)

Re:Bad idea...

[parvin]

If the government goes and legalises that, then the GPL becomes almost, but not quite, entirely redundant.

The phrase "almost, but not quite, entirely redundant" is itself almost, but not quite, entirely redundant.

Re:Bad idea...

[Aim Here]

I got all that the first time.

There's just one tiny little crucial flaw in your argument that you guys seem to be missing though. See if you can spot it.

Re:Bad idea...

[Alsee]

not that I agree that sourcecode is information

Huh? Did you mis-write that? Did I mis-read that? Or did you actually claim that sourcecode is somehow NOT information?

Under the OP scenario, copyright no longer exists as a force to make me open my sourcecode up under the terms of the GPL.

True, but it is expected that that would be far less of an issue. Pretty much all commonity software would be open source. There is very little incentive and ability to produce closed source versions (as people could redistribute the binaries anyway), and trying to go with a closed derivative of an open project would be really lousy. Either you are stuck with that version and no bugfixes or improvements, or you have the huge labor and delay of repeatedly merging all of the changes from the open version into the closed project and of hunting down any bugs that introduces into the closed version.

Or at least that is the reasoning.

So I think even ESR would be satisfied with that system of universal freedom, even though it meant that freedom to keep sourcecode secret. The GPL sourcecode requirement is mainly to keep the open ecosystem viable in the face of the overwhelming current legislatively enforced zero-freedom ecosystem.

-

Re:Bad idea...

[Johnny Mnemonic]

In the absence of copyright law, what does 'proprietary' mean?

No source. I suppose you could hack on the binary all you want; knock yourself out. Smart vendors would tie their code to their stuff, so you couldn't run it without buying it.

Re:Bad idea...

[Anne Honime]

As it happens, it's an amazingly terrible idea. It tends to discourage people from doing business with authors since the author can always break his promises and get away with it. This ends up being bad for authors too, since they get fewer opportunities.

Amaizingly, it has been proven to work pretty well for 150+ years, so that must not be that bad ! It didn't starve creation a bit, amainzingly authors still managed to find producers / distributors, and it didn't raise the number of litigations to a fraction of what you're accustomed to.

What's amainzing here is the wonderful propension for outsiders to outright tell we've got things backward when we actually did invent the very notion of IP you're frowning at, the one you did emasculate into the copyright laws.

Now, think what someone like Orson Wells would have done if he had had means to loosen up a bit the tight grip of Hollywood.

Re:Bad idea...

[werewolf1031]

Not at all. Read back to what Anne Honime(828246) said:

Basically, the author can't give away the [monetary, ie. distribution] rights of the 2nd category, therefore anytime in the future, he can forbid any exploitation of his work without justification, provided he pays back the holders of other kinds of money-worth rights for the damage they face after that decision.

Emphasis mine. So, for the original author to change their mind after agreeing to distribution, he must pay the distribitor for losses that result from that decision. It's nowhere near as arbitrary as you paint it. This structure protects the author's rights but does't allow them to cause severe economic harm to a distributor by changing their mind on a whim -- otherwise, such a thing could be abused to intentionally harm a distributor they don't like by setting them up (think guerilla tactics).

Re:Bad idea...

[cpt kangarooski]

Amaizingly, it has been proven to work pretty well for 150+ years, so that must not be that bad !

And the system used in America has been proven to work pretty well for nearly 300 years, and traditionally hasn't had anything like moral rights. Moral rights are crap. Utilitarian copyright is where it's at.

when we actually did invent the very notion of IP you're frowning at, the one you did emasculate into the copyright laws.

Yeah, and England invented copyrights altogether. As far as I'm concerned, we shouldn't have 104A at all. It was a terrible idea, and one that we only have due to treaties that we never should've agreed to. I hope that someday soon we'll be able to get rid of all international ties vis a vis copyright and get back to doing things right.

Now, think what someone like Orson Wells would have done if he had had means to loosen up a bit the tight grip of Hollywood.

He would have kept making ads about frozen peas. Studios didn't like Welles because he was uncompromising, and his films flopped commercially.

Moral rights do not do a good job of helping artists because you cannot force people to give them help. This is why a utilitarian system is superior -- it helps artists by exploiting their self-interest and appealing to the self-interest of the public. People are predictably greedy, and the system works. Also, moral rights degrade and paternalize artists; they're treated like children who ought to get special treatment because they aren't expected to know better. I say that if an artist makes a bad deal, then that's tough. He didn't have to make a particular agreement, and has learned a lesson. Selling art to someone who wrecks it is no different than selling a nice car to someone who drives it to death.

Re:Bad idea...

[Anne Honime]

>> Amazingly, it has been proven to work pretty well for 150+ years, so that must not be that bad !
> And the system used in America has been proven to work pretty well for nearly 300 years, and traditionally hasn't had anything like moral rights. Moral rights are crap. Utilitarian copyright is where it's at.

Thank you very much for your reply, so much helpful to show the inherent flaws of copyright logic :
1) Your system has been working since mankind exists, because it amounts to jungle law : the powerful can kick the crap out of really creative people, bribe them, starve them, nobody gives a f*cking shit about it ; hence, this is not *law* as a means to create social balance.
2) If copyright was utilitarian, why the hell the end consumer would not be entitled full distribution rights on something he utimately paid for ? Well, it doesn't, because copyright obviously favors captation of the rights by industry, therefore it's not a true capitalist law, but a legislation of unbalanced privilege.

In fact, this is exactly the reason why french authors did revolt and forced the adoption of our intellectual property laws under the leadership of Victor Hugo.

Re:Bad idea...

[ThreeE]

Authors must be a very unique kind of people in French society.

Re:Bad idea...

[burnin1965]

Sorry Aim_Here, but I do not have the ability to read minds. The discussion of the subject would be much more efficient if you'd just spit out what your thinking.

Anyhow, I'll take a jab at it based on your previous post about what is proprietary after copyright is gone.

Proprietary suggests that "something exclusively owned by someone, often with connotations that it is exclusive and cannot be used by other parties without negotiations".

Obviously if you do not have access to source code which at one time was open then the source code has become proprietary. Yes you would still have access to the original code, and yes you could legally make copies of the binary produced from the now closed source code, but what you would not have is the new code that was added to the original code. And thus the project that once was an open source project will have forked into a closed source proprietary project.

Current open source licenses rely on copyright law as the legal muscle to ensure that licensees of the source code abid by the rules of the license which quite often involves keeping the source code open. Once copyright law is gone so too is the legal means of ensuring companies abide by the license.

So as the parent post suggested, eliminating copyright law would very likely result in many open source projects being ripped off by companies who would turn them into proprietary products.

burnin

Re:Bad idea...

[burnin1965]

without copyright, there would be nothing to stop you taking GPL software, modifying it, and giving copies away - for free - without source code

Hmm, a coward, not surprising considering the twisted interpretation of the GPLs purpose. Anyhow, let me provide some enlightenment.

The issue the GPL is concerned with is not free binaries without source code, its more like scumbag companies who rip off open source code for inclusion in their products which they require you to PAY for and yet they have no intention of releasing their source code or giving anything back to the project.

Of course there is more to it than that, but that bit should address you twisted perspective.

burnin

Re:Bad idea...

[mikefe]

I thought the GPL was a legalistic hack to protect the ethical right to share information. If the government goes and legalises that, then the GPL becomes almost, but not quite, entirely redundant.

If copyright is not equally enforced, and the new "anyone can copy" copyright is used against a GPL Free Software project, then it effectively becomes public domain, and a company could take the source code, make changes and not release the changes to the recipients of the binaries.

The GPL is not about absolute freedom. It is about keeping source code open and free, as in freedom. That restricts people from making it closed and proprietary.

Re:Bad idea...

[burnin1965]

It's won't be as easy to use copyright law as a stick to force people to open up the sourcecode

Actually that should read more like:

Without copyright law it will be impossible to force anyone who uses GPL code to abide by the guidelines of the license and keep the source code open.

The way you say it makes it sound like people are running around with the GPL beating up developers left and right trying to force them to release their source code. The GPL has no impact at all as long as your not borrowing from the pool of GPLed code.

burnin

Re:Bad idea...

[Curien]

Huge pet peeve.

Without copyright law it will be impossible to force anyone who uses GPL code to abide by the guidelines of the license and keep the source code open.

Someone else can't close the source code once it's been opened by its author. All they can do is fail to openly release *new code*. Talking about "keeping" the code open is nonsense -- all the code that was open to begin with stays open regardless of what a third party does or fails to do.

So, trying again, you might say: "Without copyright law, it will be impossible to force anyone who distributes works derived from GPL-licensed code to abide by the guidelines of the license (ie, supply code to recipients of the binary, release under GPL, etc)."

Re:Bad idea...

[adorai]

so could I write a proprietary piece of software based on GPL'd code, and then charge $1 billion for a distribution fee? I wouldn't restrict the right of anyone to redistribute the source code for free, once they had purchased the first copy...

Re:Bad idea...

[burnin1965]

It seems your pet peeve is based on a mis-understanding of what is said.

Obviously using GPLed code illegally in a proprietary product does not suddenly make the original open source project closed, and I can understand how suggesting such a condition could cause some people to get riled, but that is not what I said and I don't think I've ever seen anyone suggest such a concept either.

Open source code released under the GPL is available for anyone to use even in a product they wish to sell for profit, however, the ownership of the source code is still maintained by copyright law and is only licensed for use. Copyright law is an enabling force behind the licensing practice for GPLed source code.

If a developer gets heart burn over releasing their own code under the GPL then all they have to do is leave the GPLed code alone. Its that simple.

As far as your suggestion for a restatement of the line, I can accept it. Your statement is much clearer on the guidelines imposed by the GPL but it is basically the same statement which I made.

burnin

Re:Bad idea...

[burnin1965]

"Protect it from what?"

From actions which are destructive to the economics of the open source model. The leech who is selling the software which was intended to be open source ends up diluting the base upon which the open source model works. Open source is still a very new economic model but the following article from Perens is a good explanantion...

http://perens.com/Articles/Economic.html

From the article the following paragraph explains some of the internal workings of an open source project and from this you can see how the leech will be pulling away resources that could be driving the project...

Only when the software becomes useful to others does the Open Source paradigm work fully, because only then will other parties have an incentive to use the software. Once they are using the software, these other parties will have an incentive to extend the software to implement additional features that are of interest to them.

The incremental cost of adding a feature is much smaller than the cost of the entire development. Parties that create modifications have an incentive to write them in such a way that they will be accepted by the other developers on the project and will be merged into the main body of source code that is shared by all developers. If this merge does not happen, the continuing cost of maintaining the added feature will be higher, since its developers must track changes to the main source code and maintain compatibility with that changing base.

Thus, Open Source tends to foster a community of developers who make contributions to a useful product. The cost and risk of developing the product is distributed among these developers, and any combination of them can carry on the project if others leave. Distribution of cost and risk begins as soon as the project is mature enough to build a community outside of its initial developer.

So you see, the thieves who steal from the open source community are no better than the theives that steal from the closed source community.

burnin

Re:Bad idea...

[jZnat]

You can only charge at most the same amount for the source code as the software does. So if you were to charge $1B for the source code, you'd also have to charge at least $1B for the binaries. Otherwise, you're breaking copyright law.

Re:Bad idea...

[blackdragon7777]

Proprietary does not mean what you think it means. A proprietary product is a product that is marketed under a trademark. So there are already proprietary derivatives of GPL software. Ubuntu is trademarked by Canonical Ltd. which makes Ubuntu Linux a proprietary software product (and derivative of Linux which is also proprietary).

Re:Bad idea...

[Curien]

No. You must release the source code for free (though you may require reimbursement for distribution costs). However, you only have to give the source code to people you gave the binary to. If you charge for the binary, then you only have to give the source code to people who bought it.

However, there's nothing stopping one of your customers from distributing the stuff for free.

Re:Bad idea...

[Curien]

I only mentioned anything because I'm sick of Free Software advocates using misleading terminology. You came sorta-close, but you weren't bad at all compared to most.

Really, my only issue with what you said was the word "keep". Saying the GPL "keeps the source code open" implies that a person may somehow close the source, which they cannot. They can simply fail to open *new* source they create -- the old source stays open no matter what.

Re:Bad idea...

[Curien]

First, GPL-like "forced openness" is not necessary for Open Source. The BSD Unixes and plenty of similarly-licensed projects seem to be doing quite well without it. Second, the Perens quote actually illustrates my point perfectly: "Parties that create modifications have an incentive to write them in such a way that they will be accepted by the other developers on the project and will be merged into the main body of source code that is shared by all developers." Perens is saying that regardless of the legal force, simply having third-party modifications added to the main source tree (so that future versions don't break patched-in features, say) is enough incentive for most people to release derivative works Openly.

If you need laws to support your business model, there's something wrong with it. This is no less true of Free Software than any other industry. I happen to disagree that Open Source needs the backing of copyleft to continue -- and if I'm wrong, we need to come up with something better anyway.

Re:Bad idea...

[cpt kangarooski]

Your system has been working since mankind exists, because it amounts to jungle law : the powerful can kick the crap out of really creative people, bribe them, starve them, nobody gives a f*cking shit about it ; hence, this is not *law* as a means to create social balance.

Not in the least. Rather, people are free to make good deals or bad deals. But no one is forced to make any deals at all. If an author wants someone to buy his work, he's going to have to find a buyer that he can come to an agreement with. If he can't come to an agreement, he doesn't have to sell his work, however. He might make a bad deal, by selling his work for less than it's really worth (although note that publishers are more important than authors as a rule -- if you write the best book in the world, that alone will not cause it to make money; marketing it well is what causes it to make money, and the publisher usually is the one spending money to do that) but so what?

We don't allow take-backs when people sell their houses or their cars or their stocks for less than they're really worth, so long as the deal was conducted in a fair manner. Why would we treat artists specially? Isn't that highly paternalistic to say that artists are not capable of making good deals, so we have to protect them from themselves? Especially when we don't do that for anyone other than children, or people who are actually being defrauded (rather that just making a bad deal)?

No. No one forces them to take the first deal. In fact, no one forces them to deal at all; artists can always self-publish if they cannot find a publisher that they can come to an agreement with.

This is not the law of the jungle, this is ordinary contract law, of the kind that everyone engages in all the time. It has winners and losers because we're not all so perfect that we can set the mutually optimal prices each and every time.

If copyright was utilitarian, why the hell the end consumer would not be entitled full distribution rights on something he utimately paid for ?

What a bizarre question.

Copyright is utilitarian because it is meant to promote the progress of science, just as it says in the Constitution. Copyright is doing a good job when it accomplishes this goal, and is doing a bad job when it is not. Essentially, accomplishment of this goal is broken into a few parts: encouraging the creation of original works, encouraging the creation of derivative works, encouraging publication, minimal protection during the term, and the shortest term possible.

Ideally we'd have artists making all the works they would make, and having them in the public domain instantly, where everyone is free to enjoy them and use them as the basis for future works.

But realistically, we achieve some of the goals by temporarily trading away the satisfaction of some of the other goals. In the end, all the goals get accomplished.

All of the goals are benefits for the public, mind. It is not the objective of copyright to benefit artists. Rather, that is just the means to the end. Artists are like a donkey pulling the farmer's cart to market. If you don't exploit it by offering it a carrot, it goes so slow that you don't make much at the market. If you offer too many carrots -- as many carrots as it wants -- then it eats them all, and you have nothing to sell at the market, so you've taken a loss. So you offer the minimal amount that gets you to market in time and with enough goods to make the most in sales. The happiness of the donkey is how it is exploited, but it is not something that the farmer cares about for its own sake.

The distribution right, cut into as it is by the first sale doctrine, is essentially about the right to distribute newly-made copies. By having a right to the first sale, but not to later sales, it allows copyright holders to go after not merely those pirates that make copies of their works, but those pirates who then sell or otherwise give away those copies. Selling a used book, OTOH, is perfectly ok, so l

Re:Bad idea...

[Alsee]

I see some other poeople replied quibbling over details, but the basic answer is yes.

The GPL allows three options on how you handle the source code vs executable code issue, but to keep things simple we really only need to address one of them. You create and sell a single package containing everything, the software along with the source and the GPL license file. That option bypasses the details and complexities the other two replies went into. It makes the source code "free" in the exact same sense that an engine is "free" when you buy a car, and the car dealer never needs to deal with any issue of giving naked engines to anyone under any circumstances.

You can sell that combined package at any price you like, and you can keep selling it to as many people as you can find willing to buy it from you.

As you acknowledged, your customers have the option of jumping in redistributing it, potentially limiting your success at finding further paying customers.

-

Re:Bad idea...

[Alsee]

Pretty much all of the complexities vanish if you (section 1) charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy and use option 3a, distribute the source and executable in a single package.

-

Re:Bad idea...

[Anne Honime]

Sorry, I won't discuss your answer in details because 1) I know your arguments as well as mine, and we both could go on and on without reaching a compromise 2) it's Xmas day, I've presents to make, and little time ; so peace on earth is in order, let's bring our share to it.

But, just to single out a point : basically, your argument is centered around the motto "volonti non fit injuria" attributed to Immanuel Kant - that's perfectly OK, but this excerpt of Kant is alwayd used on purpose out of context, because Kant wrote it in a disputatio where he proved that motto is not always right ; for instance, in case of suicide, oneself injures himslef by free will (Kant self given example).

There are many conceptions of what law should be ; natural, technical, etc. You have your side, I don't share it. Happy Christmas, anyway.

Re:Bad idea...

[cpt kangarooski]

Actually, that's assumption of risk in a tort context (and it's volenti, not volonti, IIRC). I'm talking about assumption of risk in a contractual context. There's a pretty significant difference. Furthermore, neither artists nor publishers are in a position where consumer protection has any traction as an argument either.

Ultimately, I see a contract to sell a copyright as being no different than a contract to sell a car, or a house, etc. So long as the parties act in good faith and have the ability to contract, etc. there is no need to allow either of them to later be able to engage in rescission. Maybe they'll make a bad deal, but the law should not protect everyone from their own poor judgment.

Re:Bad idea...

[Aim Here]

Okay okay, I'll spell it out, since you have difficulties with the screaming bloody obvious.

"Once copyright law is gone so too is the legal means of ensuring companies abide by the license."

See, you sort of get it, but this doesn't just apply to open source licenses, does it?
In the absense of copyright law, the proprietary software producers wouldn't have any kind of exclusive right to distribute their software. We'd be in a world of freeware, either closed or open source. What would be the incentive for the 'proprietary' producers to even be in the software business at all?

Re:France are weird

[Idimmu Xul]

That was supposed to be:

French Government Lobbied to Ban Free Software and
France about to get worst copyright law in Europe? but then this! I just don't know whether to hug or punch them!

(Slipped and hit submit instead of preview :( )

It will not pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am French, I know how the government works there, and I can tell it will not pass. There is going to be a second reading of the law, and the amendments voted for the "legal license" to download stuff will be removed. Some guys from the ruling party have voted for the amendments, and the government is going to sanction them for that; hence at the next session they will simply be removed.

And if by chance the amendments are still present when the law is voted at the parliament, it is going to be cancelled by the Senate.

Welcome to democracy folks. This is just an advertizing "coup" from the opposition party. In the end, we'll get DMCA too (possibly a worse version of it). I know. I'm from there.

Re:It will not pass.

[dangitman]

I know. I'm from there.

Shouldn't that be "here," or are you living outside France?

Re:It will not pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to democracy folks. This is just an advertizing "coup" from the opposition party. In the end, we'll get DMCA too (possibly a worse version of it)

The law in question is that DMCA equivalent. That's kind of the point - the deputies placed an amendment on the bill to completely change the spirit of it, as a protest against its restrictions.

Re:It will not pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm taking the US perspective (as Slashdot is an USian website).

Re:It will not pass.

[Liquid Len]

I am from there, too. This debate occured at the beginning of the holliday season, when few members of the parliament were actually present for the vote. Now, medias and people are talking a lot about this, and what was presumably meant to go unnoticed is under intense discussion. Several elections will occur in 2007 and I'm not sure representatives are willing to uphold this unpopular law too forcefully. Besides, it's now pretty clear that the current prime minister is getting ready to run for president, which surely has an increasing influence on government ruling.
I don't know how it'll end, but I'm not quite as pessimistic as you are.

Re:It will not pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

USian website

Only a french(wo)man to say such a thing...

Re:It will not pass.

[redelm]

Thanks for the insight into the French legislative process. I thought it very odd that a legislative body could vote anything directly into law without some sort of presidential/royal assent.

Especially in France, where I understand the President has unusually broad powers, thanks(?) in part to de Gaulle.

Re:It will not pass.

[dangitman]

I'm taking the US perspective (as Slashdot is an USian website).

Which is what I find so weird. You are so subservient to the perceived slashdot audience (even though the audience is international) that you bend the laws of language, and possibly physics, to entertain an American viewpoint. After all, you are always "here," not there.

Re:It will not pass.

[pete-classic]

Some guys from the ruling party have voted for the amendments, and the government is going to sanction them for that; hence at the next session they will simply be removed.

I have to admit that I know virtually nothing about French government, but that doesn't sound very democratic to me.

Also, can you elaborate on how the legislature is separate from the government?

Also, I find it funny that you put coup (d'état) in quotes. We put it in italics . . . because it's French!

-Peter

Re:It will not pass.

[Richard Steiner]

Where does this forum reside? Inside of France, or outside of it?

"Yes" is a valid answer. :-)

Re:It will not pass.

[metlin]

I am French...

I'm sorry! :-(

Re:It will not pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

Many Brits use "Usian" to mean "American"

Re:It will not pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we fuck. I suppose you think we wear bowler hats all day too.

Re:It will not pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't???

Re:France are weird

[jonnythan]

Hug them?

Why would you hug them?

This is a terrible thing. Sure those crazy French citizens would be able to download music to their heart's content for free, but, uh...... do you simply not believe in copyright?

Regardless of law, is it perfectly OK to buy a CD then proceed to redistribute it ad infinitum?

Merde!!

[malia8888]

The French Parliament voted last night to allow free sharing of music and movies on the Internet, setting up a conflict with both the French government and with media companies.

I smell a really big merde storm brewing here!...:-P..

Re:Merde!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, G.W.B. to get a call from his Bosses [^W] advisors "We just got an update on our new top runner in the Axis of Evil(tm), you might want to revise your travelling plans for Europe for a bit"

FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

This was made yesterday (21 Dec), during Chrismas holidays. As a consequence, only 58 deputies (out of 577) were present, 30 of them were for a 'global licence', 28 were against...

I don't think it's really significative

Re:FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth is that the proponents of the draconian copyright law tried to sneak it through during the holiday since they knew many would not be present. But it didn't work because some opponents showed up and voted for an alternative version.

So while this isn't expected to pass in the Senate, it is quite significant, because they've succeeded in stopping Hollywood from pulling a fast one.

It amazes me that they don't have quorum requirements for such things...

Re:FYI

[ronanbear]

meh, I'm just glad they didn't do anything REALLY controversial. Instead of Le Torrents you could have Le Soldiers in Iraq assisting the war on terror

Re:FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, and that's what funny : the government planned to have this vote late at night during Christmas holydays as an emergency (one vote only) although it was floating around for about two years. They tried to do it in our back (I'm a french citizen), and it came back right at their faces ! Now the government wants a second vote ... pretty strange for this so-called "emergency" vote !

What to call this law?

[corvenus]

Will the Americans rename the French music piracy to "Freedom music piracy"? Ironically, in this instance the use of the word Freedom would actually make sense.

Re:What to call this law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you people still hung up on "Freedom Fries?" Besides that "freedom music piracy" makes no sense, it makes no sense from the perspective of French -> Freedom because rather than refer to a generic object with a label that doesn't even make sense, it would be referring to behavior within France. There was never a "freedom shits," "freedom people," "freedom basketball" movement where people described the French and their action as being "Freedom."

"Freedom fries" was the brainchild of a bunch of politicians pertaining to their own cafeteria that was broadly considered childish and had no support. Get over it, already. Learn something.

Re:What to call this law?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Get over it, already. Learn something."

My sincerest apologies for not knowing the full history of the freedom fries fiasco.

Re:What to call this law?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm afraid that your apology cannot be accepted. It wasn't a fiasco. It was an embarrassing stunt by a handful of Republicans that was engaged in without so much as a vote. It had no wide-ranging implications other than to give people an inane subject to make jokes over, and something for foreigners to sound equally-retarded about drudging up as some sort of evidence of U.S. stupidity. Playing with it is as self-effacing as calling the French sissies or surrender monkeys. To be sure, there is an anti-French sentiment within certain groups in the U.S. (think Bill O'Reilly, not Joe Public) and plenty of ignorance of history, but at no point in time did calling "fries" (common U.S. phrase for describing the food) "Freedom Fries" seem like anything but retarded by the U.S.

Further the suggestion that "freedom music piracy" made sense even on its own is patently stupid. Please explain the meaning of "freedom music piracy."

Re:What to call this law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let it go man, the guys has just been brainwashed into another anti-republican fanatic.

Re:France are weird

[dangitman]

France about to get worst copyright law in Europe? but then this! I just don't know whether to hug or punch them!

I hear they are into BDSM over there, so they probably would be quite excited if you did both.

Oh! Yea Right!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the same France that Slashdot sensationalistically reported was going to outlaw free software?

France is going to outlaw free software but legalize piracy? Yea right! There's not much worse than frog loving pirates.

Re:Oh! Yea Right!

[Anonymous Coward]

'Piracy' by definition is illegal. So there's no way you can 'legalize' it.

File swapping is something else and as the state is the sole authority who is giving the (record) authors _any rights_, they are as well quite qualified to restrict those rights.

Usual record company bullshit.

Heavyhanded lobbying

[draxredd]

Not to mention iTune and Virgin prepaid cards being distributed to the parliament members in the Hall of l'Assemblée Nationale. France is not yet accustomed to such blatant lobbying, prefering more hypocritical means of pressure.
So far so good but the government is certainly going to pull a Cheney on this (as in "pulling cheney back to vote patrioct act prolongation).
If the text is finalized, i guess french ISP will see a major surge in overseas subscriptions.

Re:Heavyhanded lobbying

[nfg05]

Why would french ISPs see increased subscriber rates? Laws apply to the country you're in when the act was committed. It doesn't matter that your internet access is provided by a French company, if you're downloading copyrighted works while in the US or other countries with copyright laws, it's still illegal.

Re:France are weird

[Anonymous Coward]

I just don't know whether to hug or punch them!

That sort of sums up France for several centuries.

Not yet fully voted

[Anonymous Coward]

This is only the half of the law being voted yesterday.

The government is now trying today to reverse this vote, or at least to ask every internet user to pay a tax (to download freely, but not to upload). If this seems familiar to the cd/dvd tax, you are not too far...

Let's not make any conclusion and wait till tomorrow to know the real decision (Probably not as catchy as this news' title)

Could've been said better?

[Wylfing]

the French Parliament voted yesterday into law...This decision goes against the French government

Eh, isn't Parliament part of government? Anyway, it's the National Assembly we're talking about here. And it wasn't "voted into law," it was simply passed by the Assembly. The chance of this becoming a real law is zero, this is just political gaming in French government.

Re:Could've been said better?

[Albanach]

No Government refers to the Executive branch, parliament is the legislature. The givernment may be formed by members of the parliament, but that doesn't make the parliament the government - as an opposition members in the parliament would tell you!

Re:Could've been said better?

[stud9920]

Eh, isn't Parliament part of government?

Monsieur de Montesquieux would like some words with you.

Legislative != Executive

Re:Could've been said better?

[Anne Honime]

this is just political gaming in French government.

Maybe, but generaly speaking 'political gaming' doesn't take place in public at the parliament, more in the corridors and far away from cameras. This is a 1st in the french political life, and it shows a really deep division inside the current majority. Followups will be very interesting. For instance, a MP of the majority declared he was voting against the government because, being the father of teens, he didn't wanted to face prosecutions along with 8 million people. As far as it goes, it is a very strong point for his peers.

Re:Could've been said better?

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally, in a Parliamentary system, the "Government" refers to the ruling Party or Coalition, which gets to choose the Prime Minister and Cabinet which is the Head of Government.

But you are partly right - The Fifth Republic of France is not exactly a Parliamentary Government. The National Assembly is in fact part of the parliament, but in addition to the Prime Minister, there is a popularly elected President which also has significant powers. Elle est très embrouillante, non?

Re:Could've been said better?

[mumblestheclown]

Eh, isn't Parliament part of government?

I don't know about France, but in many other countries, including the UK, the answer is a definite NO (in the general case).

Pardon me for presuming, but, well, it probably wouldnt hurt you to go read about some governmental systems outside of the USA. There's a lot of good I think from studying the UK system in particular, since (while it certainly has its downsides), presents some interesting contrasts with the USA with regards to devolved and decentralized power, "working without a constitition", the role of national vs local governments, having a truly professional AND POLITICALY NEUTRAL public servant corps, and the difference between government and parliament.

Re:Could've been said better?

[El Cabri]

It's hasty translation. "Gouvernement" in France means "Prime Minister's cabinet", which, along with the presidency, form what Americans would call the executive branch of government.

The Prime Minister and his cabinet are always according to the majority elected to the lower house of parliament, which is not the case of the president who is elected independently.

However the MPs (députés), even though they theoretically can draw up bills or reject the gouvernement's proposed ones, usually acts as a rubber stamp to the cabinet designed legislation, for different reasons.

In this case the reasons seem twofold : firstly in France the parliament is still relatively free of aggressive lobbying from private interests, while the government is far more exposed to them. secondly, and more importantly, this particular piece of legislation is a transcription of European law. And national parliaments have no oversight of European law, which depends on the European Parliament and mostly on governments. And this particular piece of European law was actually passed at the time when the majority was opposite to what it was today.

Deputés like to rebel sometimes and try to pass amendments that they know go against the course set by the cabinet. But it's difficult for them because a strict voting discipline is enforced within the political parties, and dissent can have nasty consequences on a politician's career when the party leaders belong to the cabinet or are likely to in the future. And also their constituencies usually don't hold them accountable for their votes on individual issues. Instead they know they are expected to always vote along with the majority if they belong to it, or against if they are in the opposition.

Sacre Bleu! 519 members still have to vote?

[digitaldc]

"The amendment was approved 30 to 28, with 22 members of the UMP voting in favor. While there are 577 members of the lower house, few were present for last night's vote."

This title is misleading, if the measure was passed by only 2 votes and 90% of the members still have to vote, I would say the title should say that France may legalize file sharing? Or maybe I just don't know the French government very well.

Last night's amendment would allow someone having bought a song from one of those sites to share it with family or friends.

Who needs a law to do this?

Re:France are weird

[anonicon]

Regardless of law, is it perfectly OK to buy a CD then proceed to redistribute it ad infinitum?

Yes. ;-)

Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[SmallFurryCreature]

If I buy sugar am I allowed to then offer people sugar in their tea to my hearts content? If I buy a car can I offer rides to hitchhikers as much as I want?

Then why should music be different?

The current system was introduced only at the beginning of the last centurie. We survived millenia without it. Do not think that just because currently the law has made for an industry were none of the normal rules apply that this has to remain the same for eternity.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is an incredibly moronic argument. Are you serious or trolling, I can't really tell.

You cannot buy the sugar once and magically give the same amount you bought to everyone who wants it. And as for the car, are you creating copies of the car and giving them for free to the hitchhikers?

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[Tango42]

When you give someone sugar, you no longer have that sugar. When you give someone a COPY of your music CD, you both have it. There's a very big difference between giving someone what you bought and giving them a copy of what you bought.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[ozydingo]

I support filesharing as a means of distribution and hate the RIAA, but that was a terrible argument.

By offerring people sugar from that which you purchased, you are giving up your own use of that sugar. The company from which you purchased it does not need to take your word for it, there's no way you can still have the sugar if you gave it to someone else.

Likewise, offerring rides to hitchhikers is in no way comparable to copying and distributing a CD. If you instead compared it to letting a friend listen to a CD while you do, then it might have been an appropriate comparison to make. But last time I checked, noone ever got in any trouble for that, at least on the scale that could be comparable to providing individuals with rides in your car. Playing the CD at a public event is another issue, but that's not what's being debated here.

If people who made arguments like yours, clearly not having any grasp of he situation, would just shut up, we might stand a chance at giving a unified, logical, sensible argument that could stand to be heard by those in power to make a difference. But perhaps I'm just too optimistic.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[Skye16]

First, I don't disagree with anything you said. However, I have a hypothetical situation.

Let's say we somehow manage to produce replicators, a la Star Trek. Now we suddnely CAN create duplicates of sugar or duplicates of cars.

Should we be stopped from doing that? Should it be illegal?

I'm just curious. The probability of ever being able to replicate something like that is probably right around the probability of me becoming Emperor of the Universe. But, if it were possible, what are the legal ramifications? Would Ford be right in saying "you can't put the [quantum representation schematics] (or whatever they'd be) into your replication device"? Or would you say "you know what? fuck you. i bought the car, it's mine, and i'm doing with it as i wish."

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[idobi]

Copyrights exist in relation our current economic model. In a world of replicators, the economic engine that drives the world would drastically change, so the foundation of your question is meaningless.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[Roj Blake]

At that point society is so different that this is not even an issue. If cars can be replicated than food can be too. So humans would not be stuggling to survive anymore. We would not be working to trade our worth for food and shelter so there wouldn't be a need to protect our assets/ideas and such.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[Skye16]

The foundation would change only if those who have the most to lose will let it change. Look at the RIAA or MPAA, for instance. Things have changed with their economic model. But they do their best to pass laws to make it safe for themselves. Replicators come along and you'll see something similar, but on a much larger scale.

In the end, you'd be right. But what about at that first moment when replicators became possible? There would be a struggle, and I'm just curious who would tell Ford "alright, sure. we'll not put your escort in the system."

The basics are still there; a potentially changing system, a company who put forth so much money in invention/creation having their ability to make a profit undercut (or completely obliterated), and the interesting question of what is better: free* duplication (sans energy, replicator (whether futuristic or modern), and communication) at the possible expense of no future innovation, or the "old" system.

I lean more towards free duplication - however, the possibility of no more innovation or content creation (or, more likely, slowing down the innovation or new creation) is a concern that must be addressed.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[narrowhouse]

Moronic it may be, but what is your reasoning for the other side? An artist writes a song once, sings it once, records it once. They should have the right to profit from every copy of it made from that point on? Why? Why is the length of time they control the rights to that song longer than they used to be? Does it make them more creative or less that they can live off of one song for 5 years? In the US the STATED purpose of copyright and patent laws is to foster the growth of sciences and arts, not to be fair or make a living for anyone. What is the supposed purpose in other countries? Companies want to sell songs like they are "real" property with intrinsic value, but the want to control it like they just loaned it to you.

If you look at all of this in a historical context then you will see that the current system is fairly new. We have really only had recordings for about 100 years, before that musicians had to either perform their ass off or sell their work to a good performer. Songs were stolen and copied constantly.

  It is easy to make moronic statements when you are talking about a complex and highly debated topic, but the most moronic statements are the ones that are made as if they are some sort of reveletory truth that settles the argument once and for all. The grand-parent sees music recordings the same way you do, a glass that never empties and can be shared without diminishing anyone's supplies. They see that as a reason to share, your reason why that is moronic is, what exactly? It cheats the owner of the original song? Would it be fair if it cost more to share it, but the "original" owner got none of that money? If you make a table and I buy it, then I buy wood and make a copy of your table to give to a friend, what have I done that makes it different than sharing a copy of a cd except cost myself money? Oh, but wait, I didn't give my friend an EXACT copy of your table, is that the difference? So it's ok if I share a CD with a friend if I use OGG or MP3 where their copy is not as good as the original? It's a complex issue, like I said. Maybe the grand parent was moronic, maybe they are just generous.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[arose]

Well, we have information replicators now, but I don't see the economics of information changing drasticly.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[jonnythan]

If you're replicating then reselling the newest, most expensive microprocessor on the market, then yes it should be illegal.

The existence of a replicator has nothing to do with it. AMD cannot manufacture and market exact copies of Intel chips, whether they have replicators or not.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[jonnythan]

"If I buy sugar am I allowed to then offer people sugar in their tea to my hearts content? If I buy a car can I offer rides to hitchhikers as much as I want?"

Sure you can. Just the same way as you can lend out or sell your entire CD collection to your heart's content.

However, you are not allowed to set up a manufacturing plant and produce identical copies of that car that you bought. Nor are you allowed to buy an Aeron chair and sell an identical copy of it, or buy that brand new John Grishma novel and print and sell your own copies of it.

Allowing the absolutely unrestricted distribution of music is the exact same thing as allowing people to print and sell as many copies of any book they wish. The fact that one is via computer has nothing to do with it. You can't set up your own print house and produce and distribute copies of bestsellers just because you feel like it.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[idobi]

The economics have changed profoundly, from increase income of attorneys scrambling to protect intellectual property to the decrease in income of professional photographers in competition with anyone with a digital camera...

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[arose]

That is just the continuation of existing practices and trends, I see no real changes since the concept of copyleft.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[idobi]

Existing laws would, for a time, protect current intellectual rights holder. You would be legally forbidden to copy a car, because of patents or trademarks. However, if replicators were a reality, the capitalist system would collapse, where the only valuable commodity would be energy production, and the mining and manufacturing of materials required to create replicators. Finally, there would be a debate as to what, if any restrictions should be placed on what should be replicated. Should inventors of new and useful products that can be replicated be financially rewarded. Is there any reason to financially reward anyone in a world where everyone can replicate anything they want? Would our civilization even survive when we no longer even need to gather and hunt for our survival? What would we do with our time?

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[idobi]

If you don't see any real changes, then you're just not looking hard enough. In monetary terms, information has become less valuable.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[Alsee]

Let's say we somehow manage to produce replicators...
Should we be stopped from doing that? Should it be illegal?

Not only sould it be illegal, you should be SHOT for even suggesting it.

    -- Sincerely, the RPAA
  (Real Products Association of America)

-

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[Seby123456]

I think the 'replicators' over complicates the argument - if someone buys a table, then makes an exact identical copy of the table, manually, from a piece of wood they have - is that a problem? The law says yes, if the table was copyrighted. We're not allowed to make exact products of tangible products, so at least the argument agaisnt music piracy is consistant. The problem is the ease with which the music/data can be copied, which I think makes the argument one of 'Should we be allowed to do something which is incredibly easy to do?'.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's silly. Tables CAN NOT be copyrighted. Nor can sugar.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[JVert]

What if food was replicated and cars were not?

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[Anonymous Coward]

This post is insightful? You don't explain WHY it is/would be wrong to reprint things. IMHO there is not good reason. Except that there are some currently corporate entities who actually make money buy some invented law system called copyright. It is just the way the system currently works, it may as well be changed in due time.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[Seby123456]

The design can be, and often is - and that is what you're copying if you are making an identical copy.

Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product?

[jonnythan]

I think that someone should be able to make a living producing creative works that people enjoy, such as books and music.

Rejecting copyright law outright will basically result in that not being possible.

The Framers agree with me, and that's why copyright is in the Constitution.

Contradicting News...

[stupid_is]

The Register is running a different story:

Individuals in France who ignore copyright by downloading illegal music files will also be subject to a harsher "graduated" enforcement procedure, according to Agence France Presse.

If uploaders keep ignoring warnings, they can be put on trial. A new anti piracy bill that is being examined by French MPs would also allow record companies to include technical measures to stop users from directly making copies.

Re:Contradicting News...

[yogikoudou]

This was the ministers's proposition.
The two amendements voted last night go against this repressive measure. Mr Bloche, a socialist deputy (left-wing) bashed this all-repressive govt attitude and propositions for about an hour and a half. The repression has not been voted. The whole governement project, voted as "emergency" just before Christmas (when nobody's present) has failed, and lead to the legalization of file sharing, considered "personnal, private copy".

Thanks a lot to the socialists for this move !

Re:Contradicting News...

[BESTouff]

The register is late. That was before the amendments were voted last night.

Finally a copyright law I like

[Yartrebo]

I must say that this law actually looks good in all ways. If implemented, it will do everything from encouraging the spread of technology, increasing standards of living, saving natural and human resources, and even closing the trade deficit in France. Too bad I'm too cynical to actually think it'll stick.

New War

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if G.W.Bush will declare war on france? and who will the brits team-up with? will we see history a repeating?
please place your bets now..

Re:New War

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the US Dems as creators of the DMCA will be calling for forces to be diverted from Afghanistan & Iraq to invade France.

Notable quotes:

Ted Kennedy: "We must protect the freedom of Hollywood to continue to create crappy movies. While France has very good wine everybody knows nobody would ever knowingly download a French film, it's a obvious attack against the US movie industry, and a major contributor to my pocketbook"

Hillary Clinton: "As my husband's administration passed the DMCA so we must protect it at all costs, it's so important I will even divert resources from my crusade against fun video games to fight this evil attack against Hollywood"

Re:New War

[Anonymous Coward]

Notable quotes:

Ted Kennedy: "We must protect the freedom of Hollywood to continue to create crappy movies. While France has very good wine everybody knows nobody would ever knowingly download a French film, it's a obvious attack against the US movie industry, and a major contributor to my pocketbook"

You've got to be kidding! Teddy is too drunk to make complete sentences.

Re:France are weird

[honeypotslash]

I lean towards punch them. How long will this last before they raise the white flag again?
--
Get your Free MacMini here

... so now we have to learn French...

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like p2p software is going to be written in French. Fortunately, there's a Windows Service and Linux Shell Ext that will automatically translate into English.

Political situation in France

[palad1]

The current french government is not really popular, not popular at all even.

The weird thing is that there is no traditional opposition to this government. The left wing is not in good shape at all (since the 2005 elections where Jospin lost to Le Pen (our very own racist nutjob)). Which leads me to my point, these amendments were voted not because they are a Good Thing (tm) (which they are!), but because the UDF (center-right) saw this as a way to strenghten its role as the 'Real Opposition' and gain voters in the 'internet generation' demographics, which is not favorably biased towards them.

But rest assured the current government is backed by very powerful industrials who cherish their fscking IP rights, so these amendments will be vetoed to death, or stealthly removed during the holidays season, just like previous bills have been passed last summer.

I'd like to give my props to the eucd.info/ guys for their actions though, but don't fool yourselves, even the 'good guys' that voted these bills are using us, voters for their very own agenda.

That's the sad truth... or maybe I should stop reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture :)

Re:Political situation in France

[Anonymous Coward]

> the UDF (center-right) saw this as a way to strenghten its role as the 'Real
> Opposition' and gain voters in the 'internet generation' demographics, which
> is not favorably biased towards them

The UDF did in fact vote against the legal licence amendment. They voted with the PS (left) to send the bill back to the laws commission of the assembly though. It failed.

The legal licence amendment was supported by a few UMP (Chirac's party) "rebels" and mainly by PS representatives. You could call these rebels too, since the PS is officially against the legal licence, their leaders are just as friendly to the *AA as the others.

Re:Political situation in France

[Cochonou]

Which leads me to my point, these amendments were voted not because they are a Good Thing (tm) (which they are!), but because the UDF (center-right) saw this as a way to strenghten its role as the 'Real Opposition' and gain voters in the 'internet generation' demographics, which is not favorably biased towards them.

Not really. On this page, you will find the trancript of the debates. You will be able to read:

M. Jean Dionis du Séjour - Le groupe UDF est opposé à ces amendements.

Which can be translated as : the UDF group is opposed to these amendments.

Re:Political situation in France

[palad1]

http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=346947 states that the amendments were deposited by a PS representative and an UDF representative.

Re:Political situation in France

[Cochonou]

This seems incorrect to me. On your link, I see :

Contre son avis, les députés ont adopté dans la nuit deux amendements identiques - un UMP, un PS - qui légalisent les échanges de fichiers sur internet via le système "peer to peer".

which can be translated as : Against [the governement] will, the representatives have adopted two identical amendments - one from the UMP, and one from the PS - which are legalizing peer to peer file sharing on the internet.

Now, let us check the facts more carefully : you will find the direct links to the amendments we are speaking of here and here.
I do not find the name of any representative of the UDF in these texts. If you want to check by yourself, here is the list of the representatives.

Here's another theory...

[stubear]

"...who argue the deputies only wanted to show their independence from the government..."

Or possibly this is an attack on the U.S. economy. If they made it legal to freely distribute intellectual property online then either the U.S. media companies would need to pull out of the french market altogether or take the hit in sales due to widespread distribution without compensation.

Re:Here's another theory...

[NixLuver]

That comment might make sense if there was any evidence of the 'hit in sales due to widespread distribution without compensation'. The fact is that American media outlet's economic downturn that they attribute to file sharing was equivalent to or in many cases less than 99% of the other industries in the US faced during the same time.

Re:Here's another theory...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooooor possibly the world doesn't, you know, revolve around the US, and they don't give a damn about you guys personally? Last I checked, France had a healthy independant cultural production, and means its laws for itself, not you. You do have a point about this turn of events affecting US-made contents, of course -- it will be affected, but no more, and no less, than French contents.

On a more personal note, you may want to take a deep breath and consider stepping back a little from the somewhat narcissistic trip. If you look hard enough you will *always* find something in other people's actions that can be read as an attack against you. It doesn't mean that it's the case, though, and there is danger in assuming that it is. Prudence is one thing; paranoia another one altogether. It's not an easy balance to strike, though, I'll grant you that.

Re:France are weird

[rizole]

Isn't that some kind of operating system?

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[mmalove]

"About time someone gives the recording industry the middle finger" ..... Ok, while I agree with the statement, a 5 - Insightful?!?! ..... There seems to be a growing trend that you can do anything legally as long as you live in the right country at the time : abortion, file sharing, pot smoking, drinking under 21, euthanasia - all legal but in differing countries. Oh, and none of them in the self proclaimed land of the free.

'Twas the (Night Before)x3 Christmas...

[AndroidCat]

And all through the lower house, not a creature was stirring, except a tenth of the 577 deputies, of which 30 voted in favour of this ammendment. Joyeux Noël, but I doubt it'll survive very long once everyone gets back from the holidays.

Ah well, it's the thought that counts.

Oh, tell them about the EU constitution

[SmallFurryCreature]

'Goverment' also wanted to push that through. The voter didn't go for it. Not in france, not in holland (where I am from).

There is a backlash going on with the voter not taking it anymore. I am not that familiar with france (language barrier) but I do get the impression that it has much the same problems as holland. With a cultural elite (media and politics) having put themselves in ivory towers where they can keep telling each other everything is alright while the real world is going to hell.

Holland had Pim Fortyun and Theo van Gogh and their murderers who upset this carefully constructed fantasy world. France had the recent riots and the continuing rise of extreme right.

With the EU constition it became painfully clear that the politicians were totally removed from the real world. They just could not get that the voters were not going to vote it through just because they told them to.

I think this "protest" vote is a sign that even certain circles of goverment are beginning to realize that something is wrong.

To dismiss this as simply a publicity stunt is cheap. It is like calling the EU constition rejection a cheap stunt by the voters, no this is a way to tell the direct leaders of a country to get their act together. The NEW rules proposed are bad for the public and this was one way to make it painfully clear that there is resistance. Sometimes you have to shoot people in the face to get their attention.

Of course the problem is that the media who are supposed to tell us about these kind of things are the people behind the whole DMCA and similar crap.

But still it is good to see some resistance. I think this battle is far from over. If your leaders got a brain they will not want to have another disaster like the referendum. Of course if they had a brain none of this would have happened in the first place.

Re:Oh, tell them about the EU constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, but this time there is no referendum. People will not vote for or against this law. This matter is in the hands of the government and the parliament. By the time we arrive in 2007 (the next presidential election) the law will already be in place.

Re:Oh, tell them about the EU constitution

[johansalk]

"It is like calling the EU constition rejection a cheap stunt by the voters, no this is a way to tell the direct leaders of a country to get their act together."I'm sorry, but refusing a document very important to the whole of Europe without understanding it just to tell "the direct leaders of a country to get their act together" IS a cheap stunt. I think the opposition parties in the relevant countries fooled the people, and tricked them into a stupid temper tantrum of whatever-you-say-I-say-no kneejerk. Don't try to deny it, it's a fact. Most people had no idea what the constitution document entailed, and most voted, like you said, "to tell the direct leaders of a country to get their act together". I call that not just cheap, but stupid too.

Re:Oh, tell them about the EU constitution

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Well, if the voters who were voting on "a document very important to the whole of Europe without understanding it..." then the govts. failed to do their duties in educating and informing their publics of what the document said. So you think voting yay on a document you don't understand is intelligent? If so could I get you to sign some of these legalese ridden power of attorney documents?

Re:Oh, tell them about the EU constitution

[Fordiman]

(you'd think the french in government would have learned not to delude themselves into thinking their population likes them. I mean, they've been doing this since they've had a monarchy, seriously.)

Re:Oh, tell them about the EU constitution

[NeutronCowboy]

Don't know where you get your information from, but the EU constitution was rejected by the french voters after extensive discussions and analysis. Did you know that before the vote, the EU constitution was the best selling book in France? And it's not cheap or small either, as it clocks in at nearly 500 pages.

So to your comment that people voted on it without understanding it, I say you go read some French newspapers from that time period. Or is Fox News taking up too much of your time?

Re:Oh, tell them about the EU constitution

[Anonymous Coward]

"Most people had no idea what the constitution document entailed, and most voted, like you said, "to tell the direct leaders of a country to get their act together". I call that not just cheap, but stupid too."

Would you have preferred the people to vote FOR a document they do not understand?

That's what I call stupid.

At last!

[Billosaur]

A country where I will be free to share my William Shatner and David Hasselhoff MP3s with others!

This just in . . .

[DrHogie]

The domain name http://lepiratebay.fr/ was just registered.

Re:This just in . . .

[Celsius 233]

Damn, slashdotted already.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[R2.0]

Abortion isn't legal in the US? I thought that the big hairy deal here was that abortion IS legal.

But hey, whatever one needs to say to make one's point...

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Filip22012005]

Why do people always complain about the way stuff is moderated? You seem to think that hundreds of people voted this guy insightful, while in reality, only 3 people did. Of the thousands of people visiting /., 3 thought this was insightful. Sure, many didn't bother to mod him down again, but 1) why spend you modpoints negatively, and 2) this article is not that old yet, stuff may happen.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours!

Good man yourself... are you sure your government will let you do that? I mean they spent a lot of cash on brainwashing you to dislike France because they wouldn't join your half cocked crusade, they might be upset at the waste of their money!

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[ndtechnologies]

Yeah, I've been trying to give them the finger for over 3 years now, but I guess it hasn't done any good! The funny thing is, File-Sharing can be a great tool for the distribution of music. It's just a matter of utilizing it in a way that will allow both the artist and the listener to benefit from it.

With our online music store, we are going to be utilizing BitTorrent technology for the distribution of some of our music.

About 2 years ago, there was a Music Industry meeting here in Nashville, and the President of Sony Music Nashville was quoted as saying "our biggest mistake was shutting down Napster", now take that for what it's worth, but it does say something.

Re:At last!

[Anonymous Coward]

freedom kissing

I think you've got the wrong forum, dude. Maybe freedom fries would be more familiar to your audience.

Re:Sacre Bleu! 519 members still have to vote?

[Anonymous Coward]

The ones that were absent don't get to vote anymore.

Re:France are weird

[dangitman]

Isn't that some kind of operating system?

Yes, it's an ultra-secure system - meaning you must never forget the safe-word or there are grave consequences. Administrator privileges take on a whole new meaning.

Would you like some Freedom Fries

[bignobody]

to go with that download?

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[burnstone]

"drinking under 21"

In Soviet Russia... err... sorry, in Switzerland, you're allowed to drink beer and other drinks with low alcoholic content from your 16th birthday on. Drinks with more alcohol (schnapps and the like) from the 18th birthday on.

But this rules don't get very much attention... a twelve year old boy can go into a shop and buy wine as much as he likes... (well, not all shops. But most.)

--
Sorry for my english-skills. I hope they'll improve in the future :)

Not exactly

[SmallFurryCreature]

Not sure about the exact arrangements in every country but most, holland, england, america and france got 2 houses or whatever the local version. One is the 'goverment' It is the one that gets the biggest headlines and from here the ministers are chosen. In america and holland the elections are also staggered. So you have elections every 2 years rotating. One for the president and his ministers. One for a second group who do not directly control goverment.

They are however the final step for any law that has to be passed. Now this changes immensly between countries BUT if directly elected this second house is still usually different from the main house. 2 years is a long time in politics and in america it used to be a case that a party would rarely control both at the same time. One of the reasons Bush is so powerfull is that currently the republicans own both houses.

There is also another difference. The up and comers and career makers are in the first house. This is were the attention is and this is where you can make it big. The second house tends be more like a retirement home. It has older people who don't feel they have to make a name for themselves anymore.

Strangely enough while it would make you suppose they are extremely conservative this is not always the case. They certainly can be far less corrupt. A person with no ambition is far harder to buy off. A person with grandchilderen will be more concerned with the enviroment then with getting a seat at the board of a big oil company.

The second house can act like a brake. Wich is why it is there in the first place. It is far from unusual for the second house to shoot down the more ambitious new laws. While sometimes this can be seen as bad when it comes to progress it also stops law like these from being passed.

It is not just political gaming when this happens, it is the system working. Not fast, not perfectly but as it was intended to.

The next time you wonder why you got so many different elections? It is because each election allows you to vote for a brake. I like a lot of brakes. Goverments should never move at more then a snails pace. Fast moving goverments tend to invade poland.

Re:Not exactly

[Katchina'404]

It's not "houses", it's "branches" of government ! Modern democraties are supposed to have three branches mutually controlling one another. Of coursie THIS IS A MODEL.

One first branch is called the legislative branch. It's generally an assembly of directly elected people, called the parliement. Sometimes the parliement is composed of two different houses. It's the case in the U.S. with a Senate and a House of Representatives. They are mostly supposed to "make" the laws (i.e. write them, and vote them).

A second branch is the executive branch (i.e. ministers and president/king/ruler/head of state, also known collectively as "The Government" which is confusing). Sometimes these people are designed by the legislative branch, sometimes they are directly elected by the people. They are mostly supposed to apply the laws. It is often the case that they write the laws and submit them for voting to the legislative branch.

The third branch is the judiciary branch, with its network of courts and tribunals. Some of their members are often designated by the executive branch, although they also have their own internal designation systems. They are responsible for checking that the laws are correctly applied (i.e. the executive power does not violate the law) and correctly written (i.e. a lesser law is not un-compatible with a higher law).

This being said, Bush is not so powerful because he has "two houses" but because the Republicans are in power in both legislative houses (House of reps AND Senate) as well, of course, as in the executive branch. Added bonus : the longer a party remains in power, the more judges they will appoint at various levels of power in the judiciary branch, thus tainting for a long time the judiciary with their ideas.

Also note that the press is sometimes reffered to as "the 4th branch of power" because normally they should constantly check on the 3 real ones.

Re:Sacre Bleu! 519 members still have to vote?

[AndroidCat]

If you're not there for the vote, tough. That's why most places have party whips to round up politicians from the local bars and brothels, and that "bing-bong" sound to let everyone know that a vote is happening. That said, they'll find a way to bounce it back down from the upper house and re-vote when everyone is awake.

Opposition party sneaks one over in the middle of the night in order to embarrass the government and score points. Not because they do or don't care about the issue. Nothing to see.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[CodeHog]

You forgot group sex in Canada.

Cottonsarnit.

[dangitman]

But I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling virgins.

misleading title (surprised?)

[TheTilde]

I don't think we can call it "legalizing" because there is a fee for everyone: some people say it can be 6 or 7 euros. 6 or 7 euros???? That's too much!!!!

Since when shall we pay for sharing files?
What about people who don't download copyrighted and restricted materials?

yeah I'm from France and I don't think these are good news.

Re:misleading title (surprised?)

[thunderbee]

Oh you are? You're not using the /. blurbs as your only source of french-centric news, are you? Then you should know that it's on a voluntary basis. You'll just ask your ISP to pay the tax, and that'll allow you to download whatever you please without fear of reprisal. Don't pay the tax, don't download (c) material. You're still free to get the latest torrent of your distrib.
Since a theater seat is now about 9, I say 7 sounds pretty fair.

Re:misleading title (surprised?)

[TheTilde]

I'd be very happy to read some more informative links if you got some.
Thanks /je serais trés reconnaissant d'avoir des liens car je ne l'ai entendu que sur LCI sans ces détails. Les liens slashdot ne me renseignent pas plus. Chou-blanc sur Libération ainsi que sur toolinux.com

Merci/

Re:misleading title (surprised?)

[Anonymous Coward]

So by your logic, you can't call it "legal" to get a CD from a shop because, horror of horrors, you have to actually pay for it. Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Mulletproof]

"About time that someone gives the recording industry the middle finger."

"...The initial bill's detractors who pushed for this amendment want a tax for author rights to be paid by everyone on the ISP fees."

Frankly, this is dealing with the devil to pay Paul before curiosity killed the cat ...Ok, nevermind that, but this ammendment assumes everybody is guilty of usurping copyrighted material. In fact, you will be taxed no matter what the content of your file tranfers, even if you have never used P2P software in your life.

Look, I'm all for "sticking it to the man", but this is a fine, fine example of playing off a hot issue to make easy money. I feel sorry for anybody who actually supports this legislative spam in France, thinking it's a good deal or they're "sticking it to the man" when they're in reality sticking it to themselves and their friends.

This just in...

[tomcres]

Metallica boycotts France.

Nobody cares.

Re:This just in...

[PhysicsPhil]

Metallica boycotts France.

It's the gift that keeps on giving!

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[IAmTheDave]

I mean they spent a lot of cash on brainwashing you to dislike France because they wouldn't join your half cocked crusade

<francebashing>The US doesn't spend any money on making us dislike France. France has got making us dislike them pretty much covered. Wanna know why France really legalized file sharing? Because the US didn't.</francebashing>

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[kokojie]

In capitalist China, you are allowed to drink from ANY age, some parents feed their 1 year olds alcoholic beverages, I'm from China btw.

Ce n'est pas une légalisation du P2P

[aaribaud]

I've read the amendments and the law, and the minutes of the debates, and I'm even listening to the current debates right now (and yes, I'm French) and I am not sure at all that this legalizes file sharing. It might possibly make downloading licit, without doubt subject to the payment of a personal copy tax. However it does not legalize uploading at all.

Re:Ce n'est pas une légalisation du P2P

[bloblu]

It looks like you're right. What I believe is happening, though, is that it legalize file sharing in principle as an instance of "droit de copie privée" (e.g. the right to own a private copy of works you paid for). If you own a copy of a song, you are entitled to download it...

Anyway, as somebody already said, these amendments will most probably be cancelled either in the Sénat or latter in the Assemblée nationale. And if it remains in the final law, the European Court of Justice will probably declare them illegal (not faithfully enforcing the directive).

Re:Ce n'est pas une légalisation du P2P

[aaribaud]

Not sure about how faithful to the directive we need to be : it looks like our lawmakers and ministers sometimes think it is vital to follow directives, and sometimes not.

Anyhow, there won't be any later, since the government somehow thought that this law was urgent (1) so there will be no second vote. This leaves the Sénat. And this leaves some time for proponents of fair use à la française to lobby--only just as much as Virgin did, promise.

(1) I imagine that "urgent" here means "got to have it passed so that content providers can pump money between Xmas and New Year's Eve".

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[ragefan]

Good man yourself... are you sure your government will let you do that? I mean they spent a lot of cash on brainwashing you to dislike France because they wouldn't join your half cocked crusade, they might be upset at the waste of their money!

When has the government *ever* been concerned with the waste of money? Apparently you forgot the first rule of government spending: "Why build one when you can have two at twice the price?"

Re:Sacre Bleu! 519 members still have to vote?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Who needs a law to do this?"

Everyone, if the RIAA gets its way.

Are you surrendering?

[Z-Knight]

I am French,...

Are you surrendering to me?

;)

Re:France are weird

[Idimmu Xul]

Hug them?

Why would you hug them?

This is a terrible thing. Sure those crazy French citizens would be able to download music to their heart's content for free, but, uh...... do you simply not believe in copyright?

Regardless of law, is it perfectly OK to buy a CD then proceed to redistribute it ad infinitum?

I venemously hate all opensource hippies and all file sharers. All both parties do is steal money from honest hard working folk that just want to get paid for the work they do.

That's why.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Scarblac]

abortion, file sharing, pot smoking, drinking under 21, euthanasia - all legal but in differing countries.

All legal in the Netherlands, plus gay marriage, prostitution, gambling...

Didn't stop us from becoming a bunch of small-minded, anti-intellectual, complaining, intolerant islamophobiacs, so it doesn't really say much. Just means that we like to tax the things we can't stop anyway.

Why are we seen as criminals by default?

[Anonymous Coward]

The day that I'm going to be taxed for author rights in ISP fees or when I buy a computer I will actually stop buying CDs and only copy music illegally from the Internet. I'm not going to pay twice because I'm not stupid. I don't have illegal software or music so don't try to fuck me!

But then again...

[Billosaur]

...perhaps it's not so cut-and-dried. From The Register: France and Finland are preparing to crack down on illegal firesharing with tougher punishments for hardcore miscreants.

Re:Sacre Bleu! 519 members still have to vote?

[Anonymous Coward]

The amendment is effectively voted, as the 519 deputies not there just can't vote now that they missed the opportunity. (They were probably sleeping that night or with their family preparing Christmas rather than participating to the debate).
But the government (meaning here the "ministre de la culture") will put that to a contradictory vote today. Be sure he will drag to vote all the deputies this time, not just the one disagreeing with him.
The music industry didmissed the vote for the amendment as being just a show of independance, because the government chose a speedy vote system and just before Christmas, hopping this law will pass undisputed. That angered some deputies to the point they voted this way.
Voting againt a law proposed by the government when you are part of the majority is very unlikely (and risked) in France political system where the parlement is more an approving than a debating institution.

After latest night's amendment the government has now to use the regular procedure, lengthy and ensuring proper debate of this.
Not that it will stop the music industry lobbies to have their shit passed.

For the record, it was the first time in France history that lobbying was so strong and blattant, with music industry's representative being allowed to stage a presentation of their online purchasing services INSIDE the 'Assemblée Nationale' (our Congress) while lobbies of the consumers and families where not allowed such unprecedented and shameful opportunities.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anne Honime]

Ok, nevermind that, but this ammendment assumes everybody is guilty of usurping copyrighted material. In fact, you will be taxed no matter what the content of your file tranfers, even if you have never used P2P software in your life.

The law states that the tax will be declarative : you want to copy, you pay the tax, you don't, you pay nothing (but there are chances you'll be monitored a bit ...)

Re:France are weird

[zoeblade]

I hear they are into BDSM over there, so they probably would be quite excited if you did both.

Um, I don't know anyone into BDSM who likes being punched. I think you're thinking of pain in general, rather than a few specific types of pain which can be eroticized.

Re:At last!

[Anonymous Coward]

We will reply with a Leonard Nimoy's ogg video, then surrender to switzerland. Mouhahahahahaha!

Not everyone

[Alarash]

It's not "everyone" that would have to pay to their ISP. That would be optional. Here's an interview (english translation) of the deputy, Alain Suguenot, that proposed the amendment. The ISP would then transfert the money their receive from their customers to the SACEM (sorry, no page in english on Wikipedia), the French RIAA, like it's already done for television broadcasts.

Mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

And maybe the folks in that suburb next door, what's it's name...Belgium!

Just because you can't think of the name, that's no excuse to use language like that.

Wow

[beforewisdom]

France legalizing file sharing and Canada legalizing group sex:
http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=news _home&articleID=2125712

It sure is dull to be an American

Re:Wow

[christian.elliott]

I'm sorry, but if I'm allowed to swap my wife with a buddy of mine, I sure as hell should be able to swap my music.

Re:Wow

[seanvaandering]

Canada legalizing group sex

The article seems to agree with you as well:

"People from the states, with all the restrictions that they have now, will have more reason to come here."

Let's party!

Re:Wow

[beforewisdom]

LOL!

If Canada gets legal file sharing you can smoke pot there, trade music, and have group sex. Sure the climate sucks, but with all of that who cares?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

> Today in the news: France legalizing file sharing and Canada legalizing group sex

Tomorrow in the news: USA legalizing nuclear pre-empitve strikes on godless sodomite communist countries by President Bush's executive order.

Welcome to the dull American century!

Re:Wow

[slavemowgli]

Oh, will you US-American guys *please* stop referring to yourself as "Americans" if you really mean "US-Americans"? There's a lot of countries in America, from Canada to Chile, and your ursuping of the word for your own nationality is just arrogant.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but US Canadians don't WANT to be referred to as Americans (even hyphenated ones)!

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, like US laws were keeping you from having group sex.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sure the climate sucks"

  Don't worry about that. GB thinks global warming is imaginary so it should be warm by the time you make it up here. We welcome you but don't bring your shitty politics. Also we have no army and want to keep it that way. We'd rather spend our cash on building better schools and having universal healthcare.

We're not perfect but carefully distributed treats --not reckless punishment or an uncaring state-- is the Canadian way. It seems to work considering our economy is on fire, we have wicked social services and (pay attention) NO GOVERNMENT DEFICIT IN EIGHT YEARS. One of our provinces even has NO DEBT.

I think the problem with some Americans is they think they are the best at everything which is clearly not the case in politics anymore as the US is still at war with half the world at any moment. (Too many alien asskicking movies.) The truth is you get better at things by observing others successes rather than droning "I'm the best". We followed you for decades cause you did stuff right. Now it seems that we are the ones on the right track.

Cheers.

Fee not mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

[QUOTE]
Frankly, this is dealing with the devil to pay Paul before curiosity killed the cat ...Ok, nevermind that, but this ammendment assumes everybody is guilty of usurping copyrighted material. In fact, you will be taxed no matter what the content of your file tranfers, even if you have never used P2P software in your life.
[/QUOTE]

Fee will be on the will of the customer. If he want to DL protected materials, he will pay the fee.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[twiddlingbits]

SO next the Netherlands taxes Breathing? ;) Seriously, ever though about a tax on stupid politicians? If very much against new taxes just so the Gov't can spend more but a tax on stupid politicians I would support strongly. Come to think of it add stupid drivers to that list.

I dont think this legalizes public file sharing...

[llvllatrix]

According to the *translated article: "authors cannot forbid the reproduction of works that are made on any format from an online communications service when they are intended to be used privately." Sharing a movie on a public torrent would still be illegal. However, a nice side effect of this amendment would be the use of emulated games, provided you have coppied the ROM off of a cartridge or disk you own. This amendment still does not address my qualm with the legalities of file sharing; that is, illegal copies are a security issue for the media producers and it is their responsibility to address it. The government should not enforce any laws beyond those that apply to any other business to help them solve this problem (ie a royalty tax on cds).

Ah, the further Socialization of entertainment.

[ScentCone]

So, they propose collecting a tax from French citizens to offset the income that musicians and their businesses will lose once there's no limit on freely distributing those musicians' works. So, where do you supposed the French government will send the checks to British, or American, or Italian musicians? Will the National Symphony Orchestra in DC be getting some of their income, now, from French taxpayers who only like listening to Eurotrash Disco Remixes? Will urban Parisians have to subisdize the production of Morroccan ex-patriate class-warfare Islamo-rap?

Re:Ah, the further Socialization of entertainment.

[trollable]

FYI, the money (radio, tv, ...) is already collected by the SACEM and then sent to the corresponding foreign organization and dispatched to the foreign artists. There is no change at this level.

Re:Ah, the further Socialization of entertainment.

[ScentCone]

FYI, the money (radio, tv, ...) is already collected by the SACEM and then sent to the corresponding foreign organization and dispatched to the foreign artists. There is no change at this level.

That's my point! The only way they'll know who to pay is if they track the file sharing. Only the French would consider the enormous new bureaucracy for that to be somehow serving the world's artists better than people just paying the artists for music in the first place. Not to mention we're right back to gigantic government lists of who uses what audio files. Or (my guess) no one is thinking about this, and it's "screw the foreign musicians twice" - once by assumging that all artists are equal, and second by keeping those taxes in-house.

Re:Ah, the further Socialization of entertainment.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, they propose collecting a tax from French citizens to offset the income that musicians and their businesses will lose once there's no limit on freely distributing those musicians' works. So, where do you supposed the French government will send the checks to British, or American, or Italian musicians? Will the National Symphony Orchestra in DC be getting some of their income, now, from French taxpayers who only like listening to Eurotrash Disco Remixes? Will urban Parisians have to subisdize the production of Morroccan ex-patriate class-warfare Islamo-rap?

Your little green footballs are showing.

Re:Ah, the further Socialization of entertainment.

[ScentCone]

Your little green footballs are showing.

Honestly, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly the law that was being discussed at the time, being transformed to what you read in the headline, so your linked article is a tad out of date.
Also note that the fee will not have to be paid by everbody, only to those declaring that they use p2p software.

Mod parent troll

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

The US doesn't spend any money on making us dislike France.

Hahahahah, ohh, ah thanks man, that made my day...

France has got making us dislike them pretty much covered.

And how did they do that, denouncing the illegal invasion of Iraq, which lead to the current ongoing train wreck in said country? How dare they, the gall, the nerve, the brass of the beggars! Don't they know they owe their very existence to the Yooo Esss? Why its not like they ever helped the US in any way... Heheh...

Re:Mod parent troll

[IAmTheDave]

And how did they do that, denouncing the illegal invasion of Iraq, which lead to the current ongoing train wreck in said country?

Among other things, how about France's illegal trade of oil with Iraq against the UN sanctions and Oil for Food programs? Or perhaps their ongoing (since 1975) campaign to outlaw the use of English words in french advertising and government and scientific papers, like the word "email" because it's too English?

France and the french (yeah, I've been there several times on business) are a bunch of snobs who regularly thumb their noses at America, so screw 'em. There are just a few examples of how France is responsible for their own reputation over here.

Re:Mod parent troll

[mailtomomo]

since you judge all frenchs, i guess you've met all of us, but i don't remember it ...

i won't say that France is greater than US but only that we've just a different way of thinking and it is subject at misinterpretation.
oh, and English words aren't outlawed in advertising, you have just an obligation to explain them since the national language is French. (i still think it's stupid but i've a english level way better than most frenchs)

Re:Mod parent troll

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Did the French sell them chemical weapons? Is that why Dubyaw was so sure he would find WMD in Iraq, he still had the receipts?

campaign to outlaw the use of English words in french advertising

What do you care, I thought you were american, not english...

France and the french (yeah, I've been there several times on business) are a bunch of snobs

I think you'll find that people everywhere are less than pleasant when you start acting as though you have some natural advantage purely by dint of being american. Now I realise I'm making an assumption here, but based on your previous diatribes, I'd feel fairly confident putting money on it.

responsible for their own reputation

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, buddy.

Re:Mod parent troll

[Xavier]

Well, if you've gone here ONLY for business, chances are low that you met the kind people ... And if you gone in Paris for business, its even worse ... Parisians, you see, that are often seen as snobs, as you said, even from a French point of view...

And may be Frenches have hard time staying kind with Amercian people seeing how hard we were ( are ? ) bashed by American medias ?

Finally, about the Oil stuff : ther's a difference between the politics from a country, and the people living in this country.

Because GWB is a jerk does not imply that all Americans are. ( excepted media's people ? )

( btw : excuse my English ... )

Re:Mod parent troll

[IAmTheDave]

I think you'll find that people everywhere are less than pleasant when you start acting as though you have some natural advantage purely by dint of being american. Now I realise I'm making an assumption here, but based on your previous diatribes, I'd feel fairly confident putting money on it.

Really? That's funny... because I wasn't made to feel that way in Mexico, Canada, Germany, Italy, India, Japan, Ireland, Chile... Tell me, have you travled so much as to be able to render these valid opinions? Have you spent time in the country you are so heartily defending? Or if you live there, have you spent time in the US or the other countries I've mentioned? Because a whole lot of them are not all for the Iraq war, but still didn't treat me like dog dung for simply being American.

Re:Mod parent troll

[IAmTheDave]

It's true that most of my time in France was spent in Paris (not all, but most.) And I heartily agree that not all people are jerks, and that the Parisians are certainly more densly populated with jerks than other parts of the country (just as say, NYC and LA are probably more jerk-dense than other parts of the US.)

Re:Mod parent troll

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Tell me, have you travled so much as to be able to render these valid opinions?

Yup, more and wider too. Additionally I speak a half dozen languages, two of which are asian, and a smattering of a dozen more. You see I like to immerse myself in different cultures, to try to completely understand them. Thats why you won't catch me staying in a hotel; I'm the guy living in a hut halfway up a mountain in the triple canopy jungle.

have you spent time in the US

No, I choose to avoid countries that treat me like a criminal by fingerprinting me before I set foot inside their borders. And I do believe I am a member of a very large and growing club on that one.

still didn't treat me like dog dung for simply being American

Two words, "freedom fries". Oh and by the way you are aware that the term french in french fries is describing the method of cutting them, not country of origin? I mean that by itself says it all. As far as I can see, no one made the US invade Iraq. So remind me, who started looking down on who first again?

Re:Mod parent troll

[Anonymous Coward]

since you judge all frenchs, i guess you've met all of us, but i don't remember it ...

What comes around goes around. It's no different than the french judging all Americans based on sitcoms or their biased media.

Re:Mod parent troll

[koreaman]

"Since you judge all Frenchmen"
"I have an English level way better than most Frenchmen"

Ton anglais n'est pas parfait, mais c'est mieux que mon français, j'en suis sûr.

Re:Mod parent troll

[m0rph3us0]

The culture of people who live in huts rarely venture to other places nor do they participate in geopolitics.

In countries that matter you'll gain a better understanding of the culture by living in a city with the other 90% of the people. In very few countries do most of the people live in a hut half way up the mountain under a triple canopy forest. Most intelligent people have figured out that that way of life sucks and moved to the city.

What you are learning about the culture is like going to Montana and living in Ted Kaczinzky's cabin and claiming that you now understand American culture, when really you've just been trained as a luddite.

Re:Mod parent troll

[PunXX0r]

"Because GWB is a jerk does not imply that all Americans are."

Actually, we are. Almost all of us. Enough of us that the percentage of us who aren't self-aggrandizing, image-obsessed, greedy, small-minded morons functionally registers a 'zero' by most metrics. Having been raised American, by Americans, I can say this with high confidence. The GP of this post is an idiot Democrat, who still thinks that the War in Iraq has ANYTHING to do with Iraq (read 'America's Secret War')... others who have read and responded to this have been idiot Republicans (who support the Prez-ee-Dunce because he is 'Righteous'). We Americans have systematically replaced our internal lives with commercials, and our political reasoning with clipped sound-bytes. We don't read anything which could challenge our thinking... in fact, we really don't read at all.

Depending upon my mood, I find this funny, or exceedingly depressing.

Re:Mod parent troll

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

The culture of people who live in huts rarely venture to other places nor do they participate in geopolitics.

Oh so filipinos are shut-ins who never travel abroad? Interesting. And thats not to say I haven't lived in other jungles than the vegetative types. But your sneering disdain for and mind boggling ignorance about those that live halfway up mountains pretty much invalidates anything else you have to say on the matter.

Re:Mod parent troll

[mkw87]

And how did they do that

Do you know nothing of history?

We are FRANCE! Piss off!
*someone threatens them*
PLEASE, PLEASE HELP US WE NEED YOUR HELP!!

Re:Mod parent troll

[kid zeus]

You're a fucking moron. Haliburton's theft of Iraq war funds is far greater than the UN's (and since when does the UN = France anyway? How stupid are you?). I've been to France many times to. Once or twice on business, but most of the time to, you know, ENJOY myself there. And by and large the people there have been friendly and interesting. A hell of a lot more interesting than the average American I run across. Maybe if your experience is that they're snooty it has something to do with the fact that they don't suffer jack-asses (read: you) as lightly as they do here in the States. Dumb-ass. Oh, and France's military record is a just a tad greater than America's as well, Personally, I'm a pacifist and I don't find any wars except those of pure defense to invasion or revolution anything to be proud of, but Charlemagne and Napoleon have a bit of a leg up on any US figures I can think of. The US wouldn't exist if France hadn't bankrupted itself funding our revolution against Britain. The French invented the 20th Century special forces and they fought the most bravely (and suffered by far the highest casualties) in WWI. Meanwhile, the French resistance in WWII was about as brave as they come. Open your eyes, read books, talk to people and, above all else, get your head out of your ass.

Re:Mod parent troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Protecting your language is common. Most countries do that. USA doesn't have to use as extreme measures, because other countries are more influenced by the English language (movies, music, invasions...).

Re:Mod parent troll

[koreaman]

J'ai déjà expliqué à quelqu'un..
Vous, qui habitez en France, êtes "Frenchmen". "French" c'est un nom propre qui veut dire "la langue français" ou un adjectif qui veut dire "français". Vous êtes "Frenchmen" ou "French people".
J'ai te corrigé parce que je crois que tu veux apprendre le meilleur anglais. C'est déjà très bon, ce faute n'est pas grave du tout.

Je sais que mon français n'est pas parfait, mais il faut pratiquer, n'est-ce pas? Si j'ai fais des fautes, corrige-moi s'il te plaît.

Re:Mod parent troll

[ThaDerro]

What, kind of like a small colony declaring they are independent from the World Superpower, and then begging for help from the only other nation large enough to save their hides? Yeah, you're right.. that does sound familiar..

Re:Mod parent troll

[IAmTheDave]

You're a fucking moron

Who talks like this?

and since when does the UN = France anyway? How stupid are you?

Um, you mean the same France that is one of only 5 countries that has veto power in the UN Security Council? Yeah, how DO I equate them?

something to do with the fact that they don't suffer jack-asses (read: you) as lightly as they do here in the States. Dumb-ass

Man, do you like, have a small penis or something? This kind of attack is warranted in an intellectual debate?

The US wouldn't exist if France hadn't bankrupted itself funding our revolution against Britain.

* cough * WWII - repaid.

Open your eyes, read books, talk to people and, above all else, get your head out of your ass.

You realize that talking like this doesn't make you sound smarter or more worthy of having your viewpoint accepted. Rather, it makes you sound uninformed, because those that don't have truth on their side often try to shove their viewpoint down the throats of others by talking the loudest, making the most noise, and being the most controversial. Call me names all you like, if that makes you feel like more of a man, but it's really not very becoming.

Media should be free

[gamer4Life]

This would save so much money paid to lawyers. The media industry was created through the advancement of technology (reproduceable media), and now that technoogy has advanced further, they are trying to stop the natural progression.

Artists can still make alot of money by performing in concerts, where people will still pay alot more to see them perform live. Movies can still play in theatres where people will want to see the big screen and hear the big sound. The only areas where they will suffer are in the CDs and DVD market.

Sure there will be some pain (to the RIAA and MPAA), but the economy will adjust, and a new business model will arise.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

"The French government has vowed to fight this decision (babelfish link)."

LOL, they said France and fight in the same sentence.

This just in...

France surrenders to Kazzaa...

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[hackstraw]

I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

TFA says:

The amendment, which is attached to a bill on intellectual property rights, states that ``authors cannot forbid the reproduction of works that are made on any format from an online communications service when they are intended to be used privately'' and not for commercial use.

I am no copyright lawyer, but somewhere it does not seem for the inverse to make sense. Meaning, how could authors forbid the reproduction of works that are intended to be used privately? But this also kills the entire notion of copyright altogether. The GPL appears to be null and void in France now, even though it has never been "proven in court" anyway.

What does copyright actually mean? How is it binding? Can I say at the bottom of this post:

(C) 2006 by hackstraw

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this post, but changing it is not allowed. If you read this post twice (copying it from the computer to your brain more than one time), I am therefore explicitly granted the right to kill your gerbil if I see fit.

Everything but the last sentence was taken from the FSF's copyright on the GPL. To me, that statement seems like an EULA, and what validity do either of those have?

Another thing, is I'm confused after this stuff that has come from France in the not so recent past.

Re:great!

[HaydnH]

I think you've just written the code for Google, I could be wrong though!

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[transatlantique78]

ever though about a tax on stupid politicians?

Considering a law to tax politicians would have to be passed by same politicians, fat chance of *that* happening.

Too bad, though, it sounds like a good idea...

Re:Time to Move

[Sonicboom]

Ahh... but the fine print in the article said that the ONLY files that are allowed to be shared are bad french discoteque remixes and Jerry Lewis movies.

No thankyou. I'll stay here.

What am I missing here?

[MemeRot]

This was approved by the French Parliament, correct? So who is the French 'government' that is vowing to fight this? Does this mean that the career bureaucrats are saying they're going to ignore the elected officials who are supposed to be running the government?

Re:What am I missing here?

[Anonymous Coward]

This was approved by the French Parliament, correct? So who is the French 'government'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Government

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[mordors9]

At least one good thing came out of all of the ill feelings. I discovered what great wines there are coming from Italy and Australia.

Re:France are weird

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of law, is it perfectly OK to buy a CD then proceed to redistribute it ad infinitum?

Yes.

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[account_deleted]

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Huh?

[dprior]

Color me confused. France is set to "legalize file sharing" and the government is vowing to fight it? So who is legalizing it? Wouldn't it be the government? The equivalent summation if this happened in the US:

"Congress is set to legalize file sharing while the government vows to fight it."

Maybe I just don't understand the French Government structure.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're a few days before Christmas, although the UMP (right-wing party) has the majority, only 60 people were in the Assembly last NIGHT. And most of them were for the legalization (many center-right-wing, socialists and communists were present).

Re:Huh?

[draxredd]

I'm french and i don't get american political structure neither "President+dog want to legalize torture, while the congress vows to fight it"

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like the syntax is kicking your ass too, friend.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

In Italy...

[GozzoMan]

... we pay an authors' rights tax (managed by the notorious SIAE) on each writable media (CDs, VHSs, etc.), comprised in the retail price, AND using them to copy content by aforementioned authors is NOT legal, nonetheless.

Yes, I'm serious.

Re:In Italy...

[GozzoMan]

Sorry to reply to myself: after having written the previous post, I decided to do a little proper research, trying to reach official documents (instead of "common tv-news-driven knowledge"), with constrasting results.

IANAL but in fact, it seems that copying copyrighted content is allowed in Italy, under the rules and limits of private copy, that is in short that you do it strictly by yourself and for yourself and the aforementioned tax for the medium has been payed, but there's (at least to me) a little confusion about what kind of content qualifies, due to awkard wording in the law. And I think that's what gives the impression to the layman that the thing is not allowed.

Please ignore the previous post. I'll surely research futher.

Re:In Italy...

[GozzoMan]

Well, here I am.

SIAE documentation is very lacunose, and (I've been told) always an headache. The law is more comprehensible: my current understanding is that any audio or video (I think not software), to which a physical person had acquired rigthful possession of a copy, can be copied by the same person and for the same person, provided the tax on the media has been payed.

There's also a puzzling "or had acquired rightful access", does it mean you can copy rented or aired content? I really do not know.

Furthermore, the net is full of heated discussions on the topic, meaning of course that it's absolutely unclear to most of Italians.

Re:France are weird

[Anonymous Coward]

Search for 'gutpunching'. Weird but true.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

He said stupid politicians...I guess they are not THAT stupid, after all.

Which is good. Now they are not allowed to make excuses on the grounds of beeing stupid.

Re:I dont think this legalizes public file sharing

[east coast]

According to the *translated article: "authors cannot forbid the reproduction of works that are made on any format from an online communications service when they are intended to be used privately."

What I'm taking from this is that sharing would be legal as long as it wasn't done by individuals with no intent on profiting from the work (ie, no bootleg CD sales).

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[rufty_tufty]

Erm In the UK I believe you're allowed to drink from any age - if it's your parents giving it to you in your own home. A tradition is to dip the baby's dummy in Brandy :-)

Drinking in pubs from 18, younger in restaurants with food I believe.

What can I say, I've been drinking since the age of about 5, and it's not aflichted me in the leisht...

--
They call me free, I call me a fool! - Train

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[rufty_tufty]

/me points at the statue of liberty

Re:France are weird

[A.K.A_Magnet]

OK some much needed explanation. I have been following all parliament debate over streaming (and I have to use a w32codec ;)).

The things were bad. We were horrified. Our bastard government and so-called "Culture" minister wanted to pass something very much like your Digital Content Security Act along with the transcription of the European Copyright Directive (EUCD) in the "DADVSI" law. So they wanted DRMs to be forced in each "cultural" format and forbid to bypass DRMs. It would have effectively banned all free software that act as a "transmitter" or makes copies because they would have needed them to implement DRMs and force the software editor to prevent people from bypassing the DRMs. However, it's in the 4 fundamental freedoms of free software that people are allowed to modify the source code, so it would have been bad.

The project is in parliament since tuesday. Yesterday, the socialists and communists MEPs (along with very few right-wings) surprised everyone with the approval (59 MEPs, 30 for, 28 against) of the "optionnal global license": those who want to pay 7euros/month will be able to download any music (or movie older than 4 years) from p2p networks, FTP servers, newsgroups, etc. Software is excluded. But the global license removes the need of obligatory DRMs.

Only few amendments (included the global license) was voted yet. The law isn't voted, and it is being (as I watch right now) delayed because this amendment changes pretty much everything. They will certainly do whatever they can to cancel it. However they'll have a hard time doing it. They're trying to remove the amendment as we speech.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[lbrandy]

Good man yourself... are you sure your government will let you do that? I mean they spent a lot of cash on brainwashing you to dislike France because they wouldn't join your half cocked crusade, they might be upset at the waste of their money!

Sorry. I've been bashing the french long before my government "brainwashed" me. Mod parent overrated.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[wonko_el_sano]

Even if this fee were mandatory (which it's not) it's no different than the 'fee' you pay when you go to a restaurant that plays music. Regardless of whether you listen or not, the restaurant still has to pay a fee to a PRO (Performance Rights Organization) and they pass the bill onto you.

To me it makes sense that the laws that govern the distribution of music through the air waves be similar to the laws that govern music through the ethernet.

Whahey!

[LupusCanis]

I hope the rest of the EU follows suit, for once France is actually doing something right.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[dargon]

Don't forget Canada, quite a few award winning wineries there.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[IAmTheDave]

May I suggest "The Little Pengiun" Shiraz out of Australia? Self promotion warning: I wrote a review of it here. But the point (so you don't have to click) is that it's hands down my favorite red wine. Go Australia!

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Maxo-Texas]

To add to your point.

This will be like going to a restaurant and paying 30 cents extra because of music played there- but they are not playing music while you are there.

Personally, I like the idea except that I know the artists will probably be screwed and the companies will get 90% of the taxes.

Going to be murder to apportion it fairly. If one artist sells 3 million copies and another is listened to by 3 million people but never sold any except at concerts, who deserves what share of the pie?

legalize it

[Anonymous Coward]

légalisez-le

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Dare nMc]

>drinking under 21
Also drinking under the age of 21 is not a national law, actually 19 states have no specific laws against consuming alcohol (only about possesion in public, and purchasing/sale) under the age of 21.

Number of

[BonoLeBonobo]

For your information, about 20 deputies against 20 voted for this amendement. The other deputies were not in the Parliament (they are not constrained to be there).

So the big problem is : why so few deputies take care of this problem.

Re:France are weird

[madstork2000]

WTF? What does open source have to do with file sharers. Opensource the author has EXPLICITLY given permission, under the conditions of the license to redistribute the software or more generally the work they produced.

The copyright owner in the case of OSS may have many reasons for their actions, and are motivated by more than $$$. There are some occasions where squeezing every last dollar does not make sense. For example many in-house applications, that perform limited, but useful tasks. It would cost more to distribute and support those applications than it would to just give it away.

Why give it away? Say your little application saves your company $50 a day, in the time it takes hourly employees to sort and classify incoming email orders. Well if you give that away to another company, and they save the same $50 a day, that is about $15,000 a year. Maybe they can now hire another part-time employee, or slightly lower their prices, or pay a bigger xmas bonus to their employees.

There are also many other ways to be compensated other than money. If you hate OSS what the hell are you doing hanging out on slashdot? Slashdot and its parent companies are open source hippies after all and give away source code all the time.

Also you may want to refrain from using the Internet since most sites are served up by Apache, most email passes through servers based on Sendmail or one of its open source competitors, ftp / ssh and numerous other protocols are also dominated by open source tools.

The fact is you'd still be enjoying Prodigy, AOL, and Compuserve at $50 a month, on a $2000+ Windows box or a $3000+ Mac box if not for open source.

My kids watch a children's show called the "Magic School Bus". The school kids taken on magical field trips in the bus. Often the trip revolves around a child making a silly wish. For example one kid wished "recycling" didn't exist. So the bus magically transformed the world into "a world without recycling", which of course was not a pretty site.

Anyway, my point is you are like that simple minded child, who could not comprehend the world beyond their own small world view. Hopefully you like that fictional child will see the bigger picture eventually and be so selfish and self centered.

I guess until then you can move to France, since they do want to outlaw open source, though you'd have to deal with the darn file sharers... Oh well I guess you'll just have to pick your poison (which is fine by me.)

-MS2k

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we are brainwashed. Maybe we do joke around about the French. But at the end of the day, if (when) it becomes necessary, we will bleed for the French again. We still consider them friends.

Already Being Taxed Through Cassette, CD-R & D

[batteryman]

We are already being taxed when are buying blank cassettes, CD's & DVD's.

Re:At last!

[foniksonik]

TFA say France not Germany... so swap it out with Celine Dion and any Bad Techno, say Moby for instance...

Re:France are weird

[dubstar]

I believe that France collects blank media levies, similar to Canada. Perhaps they also have something relating to private copying in their copyright law.

In Canada, downloading of musical works from the internet was in fact covered under private copying last I checked. It is perfectly legal as far as I know, provided you are not also uploading or otherwise distributing. That may have changed recently though - I haven't been paying much attention to it lately and I don't have time to search for more recent sources. This is the most recent I had.

I do know that the recording industry associations here were on the same all-out assault they are elsewhere to nullify any private copying rights that Canadians may have. They are also introducing the same copy protection schemes and digital restriction mechanisms to musical CDs that are sold here (e.g., Sony BMG-Rootkit). They also lobby to have the levies raised at every chance they get, despite the fact that they continue to try and make it impossible to perform the copying that the levies are supposed to reimburse them for. So from my point of view it looks an awful lot like it's the recording industry that doesn't believe in copyright - at least not as it has been interpreted by the Canadian judicial system.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Peter La Casse]

At the same time, let's not confuse "doesn't have a law explicitly allowing it" with "illegal".

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[wonko_el_sano]

Actually PROs are in charge of all the complicated distribution issues. They already do it and it's already pretty complicated with restaurants, radio stations, clubs, etc. Artists (or song writer's) receive the bulk of these fees since it's not about recordings, but about the actual songs.

The task would be momumental, but could fit into their existing framework. PROs don't give money based on album sales, but based on how frequently songs are played. They don't perform exact counts but do a lot of survey work and extrapolation. With the digital realm, downloads and and sharing could be tracked (people wouldn't try so hard to make them difficult to track if they knew it wasn't illegal) exactly and artists compensated for their work from the fees collected from ISPs which are then passed on to users.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Oersoep]

This is exactly how it is in the Netherlands.

Here extra taxes are charged on writable media such as blank CDs. As a result, it now is allowed to make private copies of your own music.

Which is rediculous, that's like raising taxes on cars to stop fining speeding. As long as the money sums up.

A while ago this CD-tax-mafia wanted to tax HDs and MP3 players!!! Thank god that idea was rejected...

Woowhoo Communism!

[RingDev]

"The initial bill's detractors who pushed for this amendment want a tax for author rights to be paid by everyone on the ISP fees."

So now all musicians can be treated exactly the same. And the government has control over which musical groups/producers get funded and by how much. For all the people who have been saying that the content providers need to find a new means of revenue, I think they may have found one.

Atleast it's just France.

-Rick

Re:Woowhoo Communism!

[Coeurderoy]

First of all there are two similar proposals
1) Tax everybody
2) Tax only thouse who use a P2P protocol.
Second
The "principe" is that all the money collected is shared by all the registered authors, each authors receiving a percentage of the global fund depending of the percentage of the audience that downloaded his/her content.
The difficulty is that right now this mechanism exists with the CD and USB key tax and is based on CD/DVD sales.

Unfortunatelly there is no reason to believe that the listening patterns are the same on the internet and in the CD/DVD market.
And the CD/DVD market could very well disapear within a couple of years.

So what is needed is a way to "count" downloads, not an easy task.
Especially if you do not want to snoop on the citizens.

Of course the people that are really running scared are not the artists but all the middle people from the major's marketing creatures to the big chain sales clerc.

Help I actually want to do this

[gQuigs]

1. Register as an "author".
2. Profit.

Awesome in its simplicity, isn't it?
Now how do I register?

Re:Help I actually want to do this

[PeDRoRist]

It's not that simple. To register as an author or compositor (or both) with the SACEM (the french organisation that manages author rights) you have to (AFAIK) release an album with at least 3 songs you wrote or co-wrote. Alternatively you can ask an established artist (preferably someone famous, as I understand it) to become your sponsor, which eliminates the need for an album release.

French tourists never wear Canadian flags abroad

[Nicolas MONNET]

Some US tourists do, though.

I wonder why that is ...

(I'm actually not wondering that much.)

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[pegr]

Abortion isn't necessarily "legal" but it's not "illegal" either.
 
JULES
Well, abortion is legal there, right?

VINCENT
Yeah, it's legal, but is ain't a
hundred percent legal. I mean you
can't walk into a restaurant, roll
an abortion, and start puffin' away.
You're only supposed to abort in
your home or certain designated
places.

JULES
Those are abortion bars?

VINCENT
Yeah, it breaks down like this:
it's legal to buy it, it's legal to
own it and, if you're the
proprietor of a abortion bar, it's
legal to sell it. It's legal to
carry it, which doesn't really
matter 'cause -- get a load of this
-- if the cops stop you, it's
illegal for this to search you.
Searching you is a right that the
cops in Amsterdam don't have...
 
  (Welcome to my twisted stream of consciousness...)

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[nwbvt]

"Meaning, how could authors forbid the reproduction of works that are intended to be used privately?"

Well if you reproduce something and distribute it over the Internet, its no longer that private.

" What does copyright actually mean? How is it binding? Can I say at the bottom of this post: (C) 2006 by hackstraw..."

Well for starters, I believe /. retains some rights to your post, so you cannot claim copyright over it.

"To me, that statement seems like an EULA, and what validity do either of those have?"

I think people generally have to do something beyond just reading it to agree to a EULA.

" Another thing, is I'm confused after this stuff that has come from France in the not so recent past."

This wasn't really a real vote, as I think it only got 30 out of 500+ votes. Just there were only 52 people present, so it passed.

Your point on the GPL is a good one though. With all the bashing of copyright laws on /., many have forgotten that open source software depends on copyrights. Though the law does allow them to prohibit the distribution for commerical use.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Lonewolf666]

That was the version proposed at the request of the media industry.
Now it appears that parliament has turned the law into something quite different. But I'd like to read a bit more about the decision before commenting further.

Three Cheers for France!

[tjstork]

At my Christmas dinner, I'll be sure to have a French flag flying somewhere, and some French wine, and some French cheese, and yes, some FRENCH FRIES.

Re:Three Cheers for France!

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG u mak bebe jesis kry! :(
Why do you hate freedom?

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

this is shamelessly offtopic, but yeah, australian wines for the win every time

Abortion Legality

[hackwrench]

Most abortions are legal in the US. Row vs. Wade just said that it was the Federal government's job and not the State's job to decide whether or not it was legal or not. The Federal government has passed laws saying that it is legal in most cases where the fetus can't survive outside the womb.

Re:Abortion Legality

[djp928]

Uh, no. If that were the case, instead of having to overturn a SCOTUS decision, the Republicans would only have to pass new laws saying the old laws "legalizing" abortion are void, and that abortion is now illegal in all cases. The fact that they haven't done that shows the fallacy of your statement.

What Roe v Wade decided was that a woman has a constitutional right to an abortion, and therefore the government has no power to prevent her from having one in most cases. It struck down state laws outlawing abortion as un-constitutional, and thus abortion became legal by default. States can (and have) try to restrict abotion in other ways, but outright banning of it has certainly been declared un-constitutional.

The decision said nothing at all about it being the Federal government's job to decide. In fact, it said it was nobody's job except the woman herself. That's why in order to outlaw it again, pro-lifers need to either get a constitutional ammendment making it illegal, or have the SCOTUS revisit the decision and decide they were wrong the first time, there's no constitutional right to an abortion. To do that, however, would probably *also* overturn our dubious "constitutional right to privacy", since the Roe v Wade decision was based on that right in the first place.

-- Dave

Re:Abortion Legality

[hackwrench]

I was about to say:
The Republicans would only have to pass new laws saying the old laws "legalizing" abortion are void. The thing is that all Republicans aren't against abortion.

While the second half of that statement is true, I decided to see what Wikipedia has to say about the case.

Turns out that Roe v Wade didn't decide that a woman has a constitutional right to an abortion, but it did decide that laws on the books at the time on abortion were in violation of a woman's right to privacy. My position was inaccurate and I need to do some reading to establish a new one.

Other people assume one of several things. First, that if their position is wrong, the other person's position must be right.

I acknowledge that at this point, I lack sufficient information to tell, but I'm not going to fall into the second stance of some which is to maintain their rightness at all cost. I don't believe I must always be right, but I do believe that I should in all cases try to become right.

Re:Abortion Legality

[djp928]

Well, that's certainly noble of you. Have fun with your reading.

As for there not being a "Constitutional right to an abortion," I admit that statement perhaps goes too far--the ruling, as we both noted, is based on the "right to privacy", another Constitutional guarantee not exactly spelled out anywhere in the Constitution but nonetheless illuminated (some would say created) by the SCOTUS in several decisions (check out this for some more reading.)

So as I said, overturning Roe v. Wade could very well endanger this privacy protection. That's because in order for the SCOTUS to overturn Roe, they would have to do one of two things. Either decide that abortion is for some reason not protected by this right to privacy (and for all the work the Court did previously to show that it *is* protected, that might be tough), or to decide that this "right to privacy" doesn't exist at all, so the basis for Roe is void. This actually would probably be an even harder path to take, as the right to privacy, no matter how shaky some feel it is Constitutionally, is on pretty firm ground precedent-wise.

As for there being some Republicans who don't seek to outlaw abortion, of course you're right. But I was speaking of the party as a whole, not every individual member. I can say that "Democrats seek a repeal of the Bush tax cuts" and be telling the truth, even if certain individual Democrats don't seek that, or don't care either way about the tax cuts. The party line is still a repeal of the tax cuts, just as the Republican party line is to seek a repeal of Roe v. Wade.

-- Dave

Taxed Instead

[jtwJGuevara]

. The initial bill's detractors who pushed for this amendment want a tax for author rights to be paid by everyone on the ISP fees.

If this happened in America I would have a shitfit. As someone who is online frequently but does not trade music or swap files online, I couldn't fathom the government taxing me through the service I use on the pretense that I might optionally do something the service allows, in this case sharing files that are copyrighted by others.

Then again, I'm willing to wager the American government is already doing something similar to me through another commercial service that I'm not aware of at the moment.

The way stuff is moderated.

[hackwrench]

The whole point of moderating is to make posts visible at various viewing level filters. When a post is visible at a viewing level where the user would prefer not see it, it's a problem. Furthermore, based on extended viewing settings, all replies to a level 5 post may become visible when viewing at the level 5 filter.

Wha?

[Guppy06]

"the French Parliament voted yesterday... against the French government"

Silly me, I thought Parlement was the French government!

Re:Wha?

[tumbleweedsi]

In Britain, as with most nations which have a democratic system developed to maturity over centuries, we have a parliament with at least two main parties. The majority party is the government while the collection of all members of parliament make up the parliament. Normally the majority party, the government, win the votes however if party members choose to vote against their party whips then it is possible for the parliament as a whole to vote against the wishes of the governint party.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, this is using economic theory in a normal, clever way.
It's been known for most of two centuries that the most efficient way of distributing a content composed of non-rival goods of null marginal cost is to decorrelate compensation for fixed costs from actual consumption, so that there is no restriction whatsoever to the incentive to use the said zero-cost good.

So actually, having everyone pay for the utility is in fact the most efficient way of dealing with the digital revolution.

There is no question of being guilty or not, in the same way that there is no question of being guilty of being ill or not when your taxes pay for medicaid. The only point is: how to best deal with a purely fixed costs industry? Answer is "by taxing to provide for the fixed cost, and setting the non-rival goods free thereafter", as most anyone who ever studied economics for a single year know.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Hrshgn]

>in Switzerland, you're allowed to drink beer and other drinks with low alcoholic content from your 16th birthday on.

Are you sure this limit isn't just for buying beer?

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[war3rd]

From what I understand, underage drinking is legal in the States too if a beverage is given to an underage child by it's parent. And this goes for in a resaturant (or other public place) as well. I haven't seen the law myself, but I've seen it done enough and it's been my experience as well (when I was underage).

Pasta be upon the French

[Anonymous Coward]

...and then I saw a man, and I could smell him too for an unbearable stench came from him, and his name was freedom. He said "Let the pirates multiply", for he had been touched by His Noodly Appendage, and thus the earth became cooler by the minute saving cities from the ever growing ocean.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Sorry.

Apology accepted.

This will really be news when...

[Nom du Keyboard]

This will really be news when...

...it actually goes into effect -- if ever. Right now it is just a proposal passed by a legislative body and still subject to reconsideration and/or overturning in a number of ways. So don't get too excited yet.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[RichardX]

I don't know if you're trolling with your sig ("If man evolved from apes, why are there still apes and not more people?"), mean it as a genuine question, or even as some form of sarcasm, but for what it's worth I'll bite...

Man did not evolve from apes. Man and apes evolved from a common ancestor.
That's it, it's that simple.

If your sig was meant as some kind of irony, then 'scuse me for wasting your time, my irony detector must be broken
If it was meant genuinely, then I hope this helped, and I would also direct you to the excellent Evolution 101 website which will fill you in on many other aspects of how evolution works
And if it was meant as a troll, well, I guess you got your laugh.

Re:At last!

[Richard Steiner]

"Lu-cy... In the sky... With diamonds..."

My poor brain will never forget that sound... :-(

Is P2P private?

[trollable]

Every one is focusing on the tax, payment and copying. But there is nothing new there. Tax is already collected for CD and tapes, rights are already payed by radios, ... and you have the right for private copies. Nothing new here, every thing is already working. The real question is: Is P2P a private copy? If yes (as stated by the vote), then there is no more restriction to share (privately and so non-commercialy) but a tax is collected. Side note: the fact there is a tax is mainly because of the inability to trade rights at the individual level. An "ideal" system would be to pay each time you listen a song, for example $0.01. That would lower the entry price a lot. Additionaly, every thing should be promoted to the public domain in a reasonnable time frame.

Re:Is P2P private?

[koutkeu]

In that case i should i also get paid each time i'm forced to hear a song i didnt ask for? especialy if i hate it?

Re:Is P2P private?

[Anonymous Coward]

yes it is, u can do it at home, alone, while jerking off. Its as private as it gets

Re:Is P2P private?

[trollable]

In that case i should i also get paid each time i'm forced to hear a song i didnt ask for? especialy if i hate it?

How? If you're listening it on radio, in a restaurant, ... it is already paid. If it is at your home, then yes you should pay. Even if you don't like it. Because you have discovered it and you listened it. You will never listened it again but you did once. So you will pay a very very small fee, let's say $0.01. But this is a good thing because for the same price, you will also discover very good music.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! /me hands parent a "Internet Champion" medal.

The French gov't had better pay attention

[intnsred]

The French gov't had better pay attention.

Because as the revolt of poor people a few weeks ago brutally showed, many French people still have a spirit of resistance -- and they probably have a few more bottles of gasoline kicking around. :-/

Crappy Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I wanted to mod you Insightful, but because you're already at 5 for Funny, it won't let me. Sorry.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[ookaze]

In France, we pay taxes on :
- blank media (CDR, DVDR, ...) depending on the size
- media players (like IPod) with same criteria

and we have worse things, like red warnings on epilepsia on every games because of a stupid hoax that the government believed.
I can't start to say how I feel about the situation, I prefer not :(

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Max von H.]

I confirm the legal age for buying AND drinking beer and wine is 16 in Switzerland. You gotta be 18 to drink the stronger stuff like vodka, etc.

It's also true that any teenager can buy booze almost everywhere, as there's no real constraint on shopkeepers if they get caught, which almost never happens. It's pretty stupid since some towns (like mine) have decided to ban alcohol sale altogether after 9PM (in shops, not in bars), regardless of the age of the buyer, as to keep teenagers from getting pissed drunk in the streets (they're noisy, you see...).

I would have much prefered a thougher law against shopkeepers who sell to underage people, so I could buy myself a beer at night without going to a bar...

I think you mean Three Cheers for Freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

At my Christmas dinner, I'll be sure to have a Freedom flag flying somewhere, and some Freedom wine, and some Freedom cheese, and yes, some FREEDOM FRIES.

Fuck the US.

US was hip-deep involved in Iraq's oil sales

[intnsred]

how about France's illegal trade of oil with Iraq against the UN sanctions and Oil for Food programs?

Far be it for me to shed some reality on this nationalistic rhetoric, but if you research the issue, you'll find two interesting items about that oil for food scandal: (1) US companies made far more money on the corruption than did companies of any other country, and (2) the US gov't was very aware of Iraq's violations of sanctions in selling oil. The US even tacitly approved the breaking of sanctions by Iraq exporting oil through Jordan and Turkey since it helped two of our "allies" and would have had an adverse economic impact on them if the smuggling was stopped.

Or perhaps their ongoing (since 1975) campaign to outlaw the use of English words in french advertising and government and scientific papers, like the word "email" because it's too English?

The Canadian province of Quebec has a lot of bizarre laws regulating the use of French in commerce, specifying the size of French text vis-a-vis English on billboards, etc. So what? Why should I care what language the people of another country speak?

The way you portray this is as if it's a human rights violation -- they're regulating commercial speech, not torturing people...

Re:US was hip-deep involved in Iraq's oil sales

[IAmTheDave]

The way you portray this is as if it's a human rights violation -- they're regulating commercial speech, not torturing people...

Well, while I am against the regulation of speech in any setting, I am simply trying to state that the actions of France often leave a bad taste in the mouths of Americans. I never said the reverse wasn't also true, which I'm sure it is. However, somehow despite these things, we seem to have a better relationship with countries like Germany and Italy despite the huge gaping differences between the countries. I was just trying to identify why it is that people have such a problem with France - including myself.

Re:US was hip-deep involved in Iraq's oil sales

[intnsred]

Well, while I am against the regulation of speech in any setting,

Fortunately that view is not very popular. Even the right-wing US Supreme Court acknowledges there is a difference between commercial speech and other forms of speech, and that difference is reflected in many legal precedents and court decisions.

Re:US was hip-deep involved in Iraq's oil sales

[PhB95]

AFAIK these regulation are by far less stringent than in Quebec. Lots of ads are partially or totally in English, with the law only requiring that a translation is added at the bottom (almost always in very fine print). Otherwise, official docs and contracts have to be in french or translated : Isn't this normal? After all this country does have an official language !
A few days ago, on a french radio station, a psychologist was explaining why your kind of feelings were frequent (of course, these exist the opposed way too). Among multiple origins were differences in the appreciation of what is public/private space/stuff in the two countries. The funny thing is, that psychologist was a US citizen...

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Transmogrify_UK]

...and not forgetting Britain.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[utexaspunk]

However, no laws have been passed specifically detailing the legality...

The government shouldn't (and usually don't) pass laws explicitly detailing the legality of things. It is assumed that whatever the government doesn't explicitly deem illegal is legal. The freedoms the people are granted in the constitution are all outlined by making it illegal for the government to do certain things. Note how each amendment in the Bill of Rights forbids the government from doing something. It doesn't grant us the right to free speech by saying "the people have a right to free speech", they say "Congress shall make no law" abridging it. The lawbooks of a government where nothing was clearly legal unless explicitly stated as such in law would get thick very quickly. I can see it now:

1.00 The government deems the opening of one's eyes to be legal.
1.01 The government hereby deems the reading of these laws by the citizens to be legal.
1.02 The government hereby deems breathing to be legal.
1.03 The goverment hereby deems walking to be legal.
...
97,649,234,234.05 - The government hereby deems reading slashdot.com to be legal. (albeit a waste of time)
...

...or illegality.

The whole point of Roe v. Wade is that our courts explicitly deemed laws detailing the illegality of abortion to be illegal themselves. They did this because the Bill of Rights puts limits on the government which effectively imply a limit when it comes to making laws which intrude on an individual's right to privacy and freedom when it comes to their relationship with their doctor and their own bodies; and thus it may not make laws outlining what procedures they may request their doctor perform on them. Those who are for a government who says a woman can't remove a blastocyst from her uterus might as well be for a goverment which has the power to deem anything related to what you do with your body illegal- having tumors removed? ("clearly God wanted you to die, we shouldn't interfere with the will of God!") getting yourself circumcised? (the atheist state forbids you mutilate your own dick in the name of your god!) (Having your baby circumcized, btw, is another matter. Mutilating someone else's genitals in a barbaric fashion without their choice is wrong, IMHO) getting a tattoo? masturbation? taking viagra? inserting a sex toy? anal sex?

Ingesting whatever one wishes, whether marijuana or heroin, should be legal by this logic, but isn't. Euthanasia should be legal by the same logic, but I'm not sure- does anyone know if we're there yet in the US?

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[gryphokk]

Well for starters, I believe /. retains some rights to your post, so you cannot claim copyright over it.

I guess you've never noticed this disclaimer above every discussion:

The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

assumes everybody is guilty

[dpilot]

You're right, in that they assume that everyone is guilty, and that's wrong.

But you're wrong, in a more important aspect - At least they're attacking the right problem, or at least your quote implies that they are. To wit, "want a tax for author rights to be paid by everyone..." Note that it didn't say, "pay the publishers so the publishers can pay the artists," though that's how it may well be implemented, and the second "pay" may well be replaced with "cheat". So while the end effects may not really help, at least the initial intent appears to be in the right place.

Here in the US, what we DO with legislation is all about preserving the ??AA's business model. The ??AA cry about their lost revenue, and our legislators cry about unpaid artists. (Presumably while receiving campaign contributions from the ??AA, and knowing exactly who is benefitting from the legislation.)

But at the base of it all the problem should remain this: How do we fund artists, so they'll keep making art?

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Predius]

Depends on the state. In Maine, it's illegal for anyone under 21 to consume alcholic beverages, period. Dad can't pass a capful of Bud to his son at dinner, under their own roof. I think the majority of states are that way.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[CmdrGravy]

Amusingly ( or not ) in the UK now the equivalent of the PRO have determined that music shops must pay them fees or stop people coming into the shop and testing instruments by playing copyrighted songs on them since this is, in their opinion, a public performance of the work. They sure know how to win friends and gain public support...

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Dollar Sign TA]

I think that's mostly correct - a minor can consume alcohol in the presence of their parent. However, that doesn't extend to getting a drink with your parents at a restaurant. The difference is that at a restaurant, it's seen as the restaurant giving alcohol to a minor (even if the parents consent). That being said, at most nice restaurants, there's somewhat of an understanding that you'll give alcohol to a minor if their parents are there. But, it's not legal and I have in fact seen my 26 year old brother get carded, with my parents there, at a nice restaurant, for ordering a hot chocolate with Bailey's.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[lowrydr310]

Absolutely not! If you're underage and your parents give you alcohol even in your own home, they can be cited with furnishing alcohol to a minor (if they get caught). If you're not 21, no drinky for you under any circumstances. Not too long ago (a decade or two ago) I know of several states that had their drinking age set at 18 but as of lately all 50 of the United States it's 21. In the US territory of Guam, you can drink at 18 (I don't know about Puerto Rico or other US Territories).

The way I see it is that if you can join the military and vote, you should be able to legally drink. The problem is that so many American kids have irresponsible parents who don't teach responsible behavior. I never drank when I was in High School only beacause of fear of getting charged with underage drinking (little did I know that you can get away with practically anything when you're still a minor!). I've been to several parties where people drank and I still had good times.

I guess my parents were responsible - they always informed me about alcohol and told me that if I ever happened to be out somewhere and get drunk I could always call them for a ride, and I wouldn't get into any trouble. I had no interest in drinking while in high school, but that changed when I went to college. Even then, I never went overboard. Sure I've been very drunk, but never to the point where I don't remember doing something.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[SebNukem]

Howdy /.ers

The French Scapegoat

And always remember to g0d bless america united we stand and support our troops.

Amen.

Half implemented in Canada

[nuggz]

Well it's legal to download in Canada now.
Uploading is illegal though. AFAIK

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[PenguinBoyDave]

It was meant as a little of all the above...but mostly to get a laugh, because I know this starts flame wars, and it was my attempt to be funny.

Re:Time to Move (Culture crisis)

[Old Grey Beard]

Ahh... but the fine print in the article said that the ONLY files that are allowed to be shared are bad french discoteque remixes and Jerry Lewis movies.

That's one point I've not seen mentioned here. Widespread downloading of American movies and CDs will cause further erosion of French "national identity". This of course cannot be allowed to happen, and is the real reason the legislation will never become law.

A comment

[Anonymous Coward]

We wear other flags because we don't want to be accosted by people (such as those posting above) who think people from this country are all idiots.

If there's one thing that I really dislike, it's those viewpoints that state that all Americans love our leaders and are gun-toting morons. Those stereotypes and the sentiments they cause are exactly what makes me personally not want to be a part of my own country. And it makes me sad about the state of the world and humankind, that individuals from an entire nation are hated just because they live in said nation. I personally don't hate France, and if I did, I wouldn't hate everyone in France.

I tried so hard to get out of here when I graduated college, but the reality is, for people like me (just starting out), partially because there are rules against allowing expatriates, especially from here, to get jobs. And you can't get a visa if you don't have a job, so basically, you're stuck.

Just because I was born here and live here does not mean I agree with everything that goes on. It also doesn't mean I can change the mind of every single person in this country. I do everything I realistically can, as a citizen. The reality is that for some reason a lot of people here like our government, and in fact, I do not know any of these people.

And everyone is NOT like them.

Pretty Easy for France to Do

[bayers]

Pretty easy for France to do since 99% of the copyrighted material stolen is U.S.

Re:Pretty Easy for France to Do

[shark72]

"Pretty easy for France to do since 99% of the copyrighted material stolen is U.S."

Great point. The same thing goes for Canada: the tariff they pay on recordable media is paid only to Canadian artists. Lots of Canadian Slashdotters use the existence of the tariff as a moral free ride to pirate all the music they want, but I doubt that a significant amount of it is Canadian.

Whether we like it or not, intellectual property is the U.S.'s biggest export. The billions of dollars it brings into our economy each year plays a major factor in the quality of life that we enjoy. As somebody else alluded, one of the motivations of the French deputies who happened to show up this week might just be that it's a bijoux battle in an economic war against the US -- just as the red state pinheads stopped drinking French alcohol at around the time we invaded Iraq without their help.

Re:Pretty Easy for France to Do

[PhB95]

Better take a look on what music and movies run here before stating this. Yes, there's a lot US stuff, but it's far, far from 99%. And I'm pretty sure the SACEM does pay foreign copyright owners.

Boo France!

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

I don't like anything French! I am a proud American! I stand by the Statue of Liberty as I, uh, oh shit... that's things French?

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Fordiman]

Wait.... you're telling me there's a reason to live in France now?!

What IS this world coming to?

Re:"get their act together" IS a cheap stunt

[RedLaggedTeut]

Most people had no idea what the constitution document entailed

Indeed, and this would have been reason enough to vote against it.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[burndive]

Replacing music purchases with a flat tax on Internet use is the stupidest 'solution' to the file-sharing problem I've ever heard in my life. These idiots are assuming that the only purpose of the Internet is online music filesharing. Moreover, they are assuming that artists will continue to produce quality work when the quality of their product has been completely decoupled from their cash flow.

Glad I'm not a fan of French music.

A 50-year hard limit on all copyrights would be nice: it would ensure that culture is not held hostage, but that's not happening.

Re:Sacre Bleu! 519 members still have to vote?

[Stonehand]

There's no minimum quorum requirement ? I find that... strange, somehow.

Re:Sacre Bleu! 519 members still have to vote?

[Alsee]

Last night's amendment would allow someone having bought a song from one of those sites to share it with family or friends.

Who needs a law to do this?

Prior to the ammendment the law was pretty much by and for the publishing industry (including the music publishers of course).

Without this ammendment, men with guns could show up at your house and forciby drag you into court and then fine or even imprison you.

-

Re:France are weird

[Redwin]

Yeah, if you do something wrong it totally screws you..

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Aranth Brainfire]

"I mean they spent a lot of cash on brainwashing you to dislike France because they wouldn't join your half cocked crusade, they might be upset at the waste of their money!"

Believe it or not, people were nonsensically bashing France long before that.

We can be dumbasses with or without our government helping us, kthx, stay in your own country.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe it is actually from 5 and I'm not sure it has to be by the parents in your own home specifically though.

You can drink beer/cider from 16 in a restuarant, but not spirits.

You can also drink from 16 in a private club.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[trewornan]

Maybe it's true it was half cocked, but the reason France wouldn't join in is that ELF had all the contracts with Iraq for exporting oil once sanctions were lifted.

Re:Sacre Bleu! 519 members still have to vote?

[AndroidCat]

Perhaps. Every representative system of government has its sneaky rules, procedures and customs, and the members rarely like to have a strict accounting of their attendance. Frequently someone has to officially request a roll call before quorum is enforced, and there might be reasons for not wanting to do that. Perhaps this was some committee of ammendment or something that required less people? *shrug*

In any event, it can't be adopted as law until both assemblies stop ammending it and shuttling it back to the other. A vote conforme.

Ya know....

[tacokill]

You know, I've often wondered about this. I have "friends" who have been engaged in piracy for looooong time. More than 15 years.

During that time, my "friends" have NEVER seen anyone prosecuted for downloading. Rather, ALL of the prosecutions seem to be for uploading. And that includes nasty stuff like child porn, etc.

Does anyone know of a single case where someone was prosecuted ONLY for downloading? Kazaa, etc don't count because they upload while you download and from what I have read, all of the people sued thus far, have been sued for "distributing", which is code-speak for uploading.

Please, please. Someone take a stab at this. I really would like to know if there has EVER been a case where someone was prosecuted only for downloading restricted material.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[shaitand]

Everything is legal until a law is passed that makes it illegal. The only reason anyone questions this obvious concept is that the courts have a tendency to decide things are illegal or punishable simply because they feel they should be.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

They just knew what would happen in Iraq.
They predicted chaos and it even came worse.

France: OK to attack GreenPeace, but not Sadaam

[AHumbleOpinion]

Lets not forget that France considers military action against GreenPeace (one killed) to be OK, but against Sadaam, no. I guess GreenPeace doesn't make them any money.

"Initially, the French government denied all knowledge but it soon became obvious that they were involved. Soon French Prime Minister Fabius appeared on television to tell a shocked world, "Agents of the DGSE (Secret Service) sank this boat. They acted on orders." The French Minister of Defence resigned. Six weeks later in New Zealand, the preliminary hearing in the trial of agents Prieur and Mafart began in Auckland. It was expected to last for weeks but a deal was struck before the agents entered the courtroom. In just 34 minutes, they pleaded guilty to charges of manslaughter and wilful damage, attracting sentences of 10 and 7 years to be served concurrently. A UN negotiated settlement meant that the two agents were transferred to Hao atoll, a French military base in French Polynesia to serve their time."

http://www.greenpeace.org.au/rainbow_warrior/bombi ng_of_1985/intro.html

"A New Zealand court found two members of the French Secret Service guilty of manslaughter. Although they were sentenced to 10 years in jail, both were free within two years. One was smuggled out of Tahiti under a false identity."

http://www.greenpeace.org.au/rainbow_warrior/bombi ng_of_1985/death_of_crew_member.html

Re:France: OK to attack GreenPeace, but not Sadaam

[Anonymous Coward]

Greenpiss are a bunch of noxious morons. Anyone killing their members is making the world a better place.

Re:France: OK to attack GreenPeace, but not Sadaam

[Anonymous Coward]

So if somebody sent in a Greenpeace membership form with Saddam Hussein's name on it, the war would have been cool?

Re:France: OK to attack GreenPeace, but not Sadaam

[transatlantique78]

Agents of the DGSE (Secret Service)

Just to clarify -- I always understood the "Secret Service" to be the personal, close guard of the US President (so it's a bit of a misnomer).

The DGSE (or whatever it's called these days), or Direction Générale des Services Extérieurs, would be the equivalent of the CIA : intelligence gathering and covert action abroad.

If there is a functional equivalent to the Secret Service, we would be the last to know, of course.

How many governments does France have?

[serutan]

Parliament voted this into law, but the Senate could overturn it, then the Upper House can do something else...
and I thought U.S. government was confusing.

Re:How many governments does France have?

[Marlow the Irelander]

The Senate are the Upper House. It's the same thing. Speaking of 'the same thing', Parliament and Government are different. It's like the difference between the US Congress and the President (and Secretaries of State, Defence, Homeland Security etc.). Legislative branch and executive branch, in political science terms.

France didn't surrender to GreenPeace ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

France didn't actually surrender to something (not yet at least)!

France didn't surrender to GreenPeace. They conducted a successful military raid sinking a GreenPeace boat (one casualty). The French agents were captured, tried, and convicted in New Zealand, but France successfully "rescued" them. France pressured New Zealand to have the murderers transfered to French territory and then released them without having them serve their sentences.

"Initially, the French government denied all knowledge but it soon became obvious that they were involved. Soon French Prime Minister Fabius appeared on television to tell a shocked world, "Agents of the DGSE (Secret Service) sank this boat. They acted on orders." The French Minister of Defence resigned. Six weeks later in New Zealand, the preliminary hearing in the trial of agents Prieur and Mafart began in Auckland. It was expected to last for weeks but a deal was struck before the agents entered the courtroom. In just 34 minutes, they pleaded guilty to charges of manslaughter and wilful damage, attracting sentences of 10 and 7 years to be served concurrently. A UN negotiated settlement meant that the two agents were transferred to Hao atoll, a French military base in French Polynesia to serve their time."

http://www.greenpeace.org.au/rainbow_warrior/bombi ng_of_1985/intro.html

"A New Zealand court found two members of the French Secret Service guilty of manslaughter. Although they were sentenced to 10 years in jail, both were free within two years. One was smuggled out of Tahiti under a false identity."

http://www.greenpeace.org.au/rainbow_warrior/bombi ng_of_1985/death_of_crew_member.html

IN BIZARRO LAND

[VxJasonxV]

OSS illegal.
Copyrighted materials legal for all to take.

What a world we live in.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[serutan]

they spent a lot of cash on brainwashing you to dislike France because they wouldn't join your half cocked crusade

Not my half-cocked crusade, mate. Bush won by less than 3%. Nearly half of us over here know he's a lying bastard.

Life in Pre-Revolutionary America is an interesting experience.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't stop us from becoming a bunch of small-minded, anti-intellectual, complaining, intolerant islamophobiacs, so it doesn't really say much. Just means that we like to tax the things we can't stop anyway.

The taxing sounds much better than still being a bunch of intolerants that instead spend tons of money futilely trying to prevent the unstoppable.

Typical Moderation Abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

In an article about France and P2P, comments like yours bashing Bush in a completely offtopic forum get modded up.

The moderators are really suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome if they even can't stop themselves from modding up any offtopic Bush hating posts.

It's sad how far down this site has become. As much as the slashbots feared Bush would ruin America and the world, it's quite evident that it's destroyed slashdot, at least.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

We ought to have forceps for this kind of deal.

.....blow me france

[Nissmo]

i dont care.... F*** France

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Bob Uhl]

Indeed, that was essentially the rationale used by the court in Roe vs. Wade; however there's one key difference between the examples you cite and abortion: a tumour is part of one's body; a foreskin is part of one's body; and egg or sperm is part of one's body; a blastocyst, embryo or foetus is not, but is instead a seperate human being (albeit one which relies on his mother for food & protection--not all that different from an infant in that regard). The debate is not over whether one should be allowed to do with one's body as one pleases, but over whether one should be allowed to do with another what one pleases. If the embryo weren't a human being, I couldn't care less what is done with it.

Your position in favour of abortion but in opposition to infant circumcision is peculiar: you are alright with killing the kid one minute before birth, but against a procedure which reduces the risk of various diseases one minute after? Peculiar.

Please, take my GPL stuff and "steal" it

[Makarakalax]

90% of free-software authors would be happy if some company could make use of their contributions to open-source.

Yes, I'm one of the 90%.

I only use the GPL on my software because I hope it will encourage companies, etc. to contribute back to my work, and thus my software might improve a little where it may not have if I made it pure-BSD. But in reality, I don't care if they violate the licence I assign.

So in conclusion, I feel most artists/creative people in the world are greedy sods. Thank you.

However! Copyright has to stay. But I frankly feel 20 years is more than enough. And get rid of the stupid, stupid, 70 years after death part. I want my children to have to work to put bread on the table, and I want everyone else's too as well. Too many free-loaders = a less prosperous economy and a poorer world overall.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Bob Uhl]

Well, considering that radical Islamists have murdered a man openly in the streets, threaten members of your own government such that they must live in hiding and are attempting to overthrow your laid-back, tolerant society, wouldn't a little fear be in order? Just curious...

What?

[riversky]

How about this!! So if someone in France steals my music/movie/graphic design or any other material I have copyrighted to make a living....I would expect the same respect of French property in the US.

Next time I am down at the store I get to walk out with French cheese and wine for free. It would only be the fair thing to do.

Re:What?

[Mr2001]

Next time I am down at the store I get to walk out with French cheese and wine for free. It would only be the fair thing to do.

No, the fair thing to do would be to copy some French cheese and wine. (You do realize that copyrighted works aren't the same as physical objects, don't you?)

Re:What?

[riversky]

Yes certainly. But theft is theft, and I think the law should see no difference between stealing a DVD physically and digitally.

Re:What?

[Mr2001]

But theft is theft, and I think the law should see no difference between stealing a DVD physically and digitally.

Rape is rape, and I think the law should see no difference between forcing sex on a woman against her will and staring at her chest.

Wait, that doesn't make sense. They have almost nothing in common.

The only common thread between theft--real theft--and copyright infringement is that you get something for free. That's it.

But think about it for a moment. Is getting something for free really so bad? We all get things for free all the time. Every time you turn on your TV, you're getting something for free; and if you change the channel or use the bathroom during a commercial break, you're not even "paying" for it the way they expect you to.

No, the thing that makes theft wrong is that you deprive someone of something. If I steal a CD from the store, that's a CD they can't sell. If I steal your car, you can't drive to work. But if I only make a copy of your car, you've lost nothing. You might not gain something that you otherwise would have (e.g. if I had decided to rent the car from you), but you were never really entitled to gain it in the first place.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[nwbvt]

You may want to read the entire Terms of Service:

With respect to text or data entered into and stored by publicly-accessible site features such as forums, comments and bug trackers ("OSTG Public Content"), the submitting user retains ownership of such OSTG Public Content; with respect to publicly-available statistical content which is generated by the site to monitor and display content activity, such content is owned by OSTG. In each such case, the submitting user grants OSTG the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, all subject to the terms of any applicable license

So yes, you are responsible for what you right, but you are granting them some rights over it. You cannot claim a copyright over it with terms like the one the origional poster claimed.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Scootesti]

Well, my American friend. You see, the US is one of the few countries that impose a legal drinking age of 21. Anywhere else in the world (that even has a legal age) tends to be on the side of 18-19, which really does make more sense since most people really are adult enough to handle it responsibly at that age. Now in terms of how other countries want to run themselves, in terms of copyright laws, pot-smoking laws, and any other form of law, that's really up to nobody but the citizens of those countries.

This has been another installation of the world views with yet another dumb, drunk Canadian.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew there was a reason why "French Fries" were called "Freedom Fries" :-)

Re:Typical AC rightwing fucktard

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, all you can do is point to a demagogic wankfest of a column, and bemoan: "Oh no, the nerds on Slashdot really hate our idiot manchild of a leader!" What happens when they turn out to be right? Will you perform the necessary self-examination?

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[thatguywhoiam]

Not my half-cocked crusade, mate. Bush won by less than 3%. Nearly half of us over here know he's a lying bastard.

Ok, mate, fair enough - the half-cocked crusade in your name, then.

Now go talk some sense into your fellow countrymen. Don't shuffle off with 'Don't blame me, I voted for Kodo'.

sincerely,
an alarmed Canadian

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Naerymdan]

Wow, never knew they overturned the judgment about echangist clubs...

I have to go now.... where is my phonebook.... clubs... brothels.... exchange houses... gang-bang! Bingo!

C y'all!

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[lbrandy]

When are you going to apoligize for pumping ignorant bullshit and karma-whoring?

Sigh

[brandondash]

Yup, more and wider too. Additionally I speak a half dozen languages, two of which are asian, and a smattering of a dozen more. You see I like to immerse myself in different cultures, to try to completely understand them. Thats why you won't catch me staying in a hotel; I'm the guy living in a hut halfway up a mountain in the triple canopy jungle.

After this thread I lurked your other posts. I am rather shocked that someone who is obviously very smart and well educated would have such a blinding and seething hatred for a people you have never met. It deeply saddens me that you would brand an entire nation based a handful of (obviously negative) experiences. You have countless times berated other posters for putting forth opinions of peoples and cultures they obviously never bothered to experience, yet you turn around and spout the same malformed opinions about me and my family and friends. You of all people know that you can never know someone based on what you see in the news.

I have no facts to present and I do not intend to anger you more than you already are. I just hope that you can step back and listen to your own words.

Two words, "freedom fries".

Many of us laughed when we heard about that, but now we cry because people like you are convinced that's the way we think. Propaganda doesn't just exist on our side of the pond it would appear.

Re:Sigh

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Thats fair and reasonable, and I should only respond in a likewise fashion. Just to get things back on track, this is about the american attitude towards france, not about my attitude towards america. Its easy to paint people with a broad brush, and spout fire and brimstone based on that, but more difficult to challenge direct manufactured biases, as I have attempted to do here.

On a personal level, I have no problem with individual americans, with you or your family. I might have a problem with your opinions, but thats just a matter for healthy debate. If you're right, I'll change my views. Nothing I have said was less than factual, nor did I say "the american people" or "americans" anywhere, and unless you feel your government represents you personally, you shouldn't feel that my comments are an indictment of your friends and family.

I don't presume to know what you think. I do presume to respond to the points raised by other posters.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya your pretty much right. The French have a ton of connections in the Arab world and have a lot of deals. They realized that the Americans oil price would go down or remain the same while theirs would just end up increasing. They knew they would end up with the short end of the stick and so went against it. After all, this whole war was about oil. Everyone for the war did it for oil and everyone against the war did it for oil. Its a sad world when countries base decisions on oil prices rather then right and wrong.

Government vs. Parliament

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people get confused by the wording, which reflects French vocabulary. For Americans, just translate Government by President and Parliament by Congress. (Government in the American meaning is called State here.)

This is apparently turning to a battle between Government and Parliament, reminiscent of the European Parliament fighting the Commission over software patents. In particular, the leader of the largest group in the Parliament (of which most ministers come from) is saying that the amendments should be kept, making P2P legal.

Of course this is far from finished, as the government has requested a second reading (i.e. another vote), and even after that the Senate must vote it too to make it law. But if the Parliament sticks to its position, there is nothing the Government can do about it (the Parliament can override the Senate, and there is no veto.) Next round (2nd reading) is apparently for middle of january. This gives a few weeks more for lobbying.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[hitmark]

fear the fanatics, not the whole religion...

that goes for all fanatics, no matter what they are fanatic about...

+5 Insightful

[Weaselmancer]

IMHO, you deserve that +5 but you shouldn't have been modded funny. Nice to see a few people out there are still able to do their own thinking. =)

No, the cat does not "got my tongue."

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> The initial bill's detractors who pushed for this
> amendment want a tax for author rights to be paid
> by everyone on the ISP fees.

Lovely. So we get the choice of a tax everyone pays whether stealing music or not, or legalizing stealing music.

Stupid 1 or stupid 2.

Sigh.

This is why nobody should have power, ever.

Re:France are weird

[dangitman]

Um, I don't know anyone into BDSM who likes being punched. I think you're thinking of pain in general, rather than a few specific types of pain which can be eroticized.

Just because you don't know about it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

rather than a few specific types of pain which can be eroticized.

Anything can be eroticized. People have fetishes over all kinds of things. Humans are very creative when it comes to sex. It really is arbitrary, and there are no limits on what "can be eroticized." I mean, some people even find anti-eroticism to be erotic.

On another level, who said that BDSM has to be about anything "erotic" anyway? Not all pleasure stems from eros. They may have other reasons to participate.

What does the new law really say!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just saw this http://www.techreport.com/onearticle.x/9182

It's ok if you can copy music, but ALL software has to have DRM of some kind INCLUDING open-source. That one is repsonsible for what one's application does, and if it can be used illegally and is/has done so, then you face fines/jail time. That sounds damn right hilterriffic to me...

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[jZnat]

Basically, you're putting a certain Creative Commons license on all your posts. Not such a bad idea...

America

[Will_Malverson]

(1) The United States of America is the only country in the world with the word 'America' in its official name. Search the CIA World Factbook if you don't believe me. The only possible exception is the Territory of American Samoa, which is not an independent country.

(2) The official name of that country to the USA's south is Estados Unidos Mexicanos.

"American" is therefore unambiguous. "United Statesian" and similar constructions are not.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[gryphokk]

I stand advised.

(Yes, I click through EULAs without regard to content as well.)

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole religion is fanatical. Read the texts some time. Maybe most Muslims don't practice all the crazy stuff written in the text, but it's all there, and that's why it's so easy to understand why a Muslim would become fanatical.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Grishnakh]

The US has no such drinking age. It's fully legal to walk into a bar in New Orleans and drink alcohol on your 18th birthday.

Most places in the US have local/state laws mandating a minimum age of 21, but that's not a national law by any means.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Grishnakh]

Now go talk some sense into your fellow countrymen. Don't shuffle off with 'Don't blame me, I voted for Kodo'.

We've tried, and we keep trying, but they're much too stubborn to listen.

So that we don't all suffer, we need to break up the country. Split it along the Mississippi or midwestern states. All the blue people move west, and all the red people move east. Then we can all pursue own separate agendas; in the west, we'll legalize pot and avoid expensive and unnecessary wars. In the east, they'll mandate a state-approved religion, ban nudity and porn, ban abortion, pass more large taxes on the poor and middle class while removing all taxes on the rich, mandate a specific dress code for everyone, and mandate teaching of Intelligent Design while banning the teaching of the theory of evolution. After a few decades we'll see which country is more successful.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Hieronymous Cowherd]

Ah, I'm replying to an AC, but I remember back when AC didn't immediately mean "troll", so I'll reply.

Of course, all of the religions spawned in that place and at that time are fanatical. Why is this surprising?

Let's compare the Old Testament, shared by the other main religious competitors:

From Numbers:

31:9 And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.
31:10 And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire.
31:11 And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of beasts.
31:12 And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near Jericho.
31:13 And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp.
31:14 And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.
31:15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
31:16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
31:18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

Hmm...sounds pretty freaky and fanatical to me. In fact, sounds downright genocidal, in addition to any squickiness about stealing away all of the virgin girls for sex slavery.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[StikyPad]

Always nice to meet a fan.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely right! Death to all fanatics everywhere!!

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[thatguywhoiam]

So that we don't all suffer, we need to break up the country. Split it along the Mississippi or midwestern states. All the blue people move west, and all the red people move east.

Oh.

Well, lemme know if you need a hand with that.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Scootesti]

ah, er, well I stand corrected then. At least my excuse for not knowing is that I live in Canada :D. Also the only states I've been to are 21+ for drinking. I'll go back to my ignorance for now.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Grishnakh]

I didn't know either until my family took me to Pat O'Brien's in New Orleans when I was still 18. There's very few places that don't have the 21 year age limit, so it's easy to understand why anyone would think it's a national law.

There's also places where alcohol is actually illegal to consume. The most famous place is the county in Tennessee where Jim Bean whiskey is made. It's produced there, but it's illegal to drink it there. Makes a lot of sense, right?

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[xtracto]

I mean they spent a lot of cash on brainwashing you to dislike France

Just to add a bit of perspective over here. I am from Mexico, I am living on UK nowadays. I went to France last christmas and, although I loved the place (the buildings, Eifel tower and all that) let me tell you that, french people always tend to "look down" on non french. It does not matter their nationality.

I had some french friend living in the UK, although she was "nice", she and other (men/women) french friends always had a "dignity" air on them like if they where perfect.

I had a U.S. friend also, she was kind of dumb (more of the illiterate kind, as the average U.S. American didnt knew anything but what CNN/Fox told her), but when she went out with some friends, she was nice and overall in a better mood than the french.

I am not trying to bash you or anything. It is just that ( and I am not sure if you are french), french people do not make themselves nice to others, they do not try, at the personal level, if someone makes something in a way they are not used, it means the others are wrong or kind of dumb. They are elitists. Man, how I hate that.

People from USA on the other side is stupid. I am sorry to say this, but I think it is the true, but (some of them) after going out of their country, they realize that USA is not the world.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

people get murdered in the street every day. Sometimes by fanatics (Fortuyn), sometimes by religious fanatics (van Gogh). Do you think those politicians went into hiding out of fear or to attract voters. If the first: why did they suddenly come out of hiding again?

Maybe it will pass ...

[BokLM]

We don't know yet. Many things will probably happen in January ...
Who would have known thoses amendments would be voted ? There's still hope.
Hopefully, no DRM for us.

thanks

[BokLM]

Many thanks to eucd.info and all the people who helped this. Without them, we would have DRM everywhere, p2p illegal (even for sharing free software or other free content), and free software would be illegal as well (as any software which does not respect DRM). Ok, maybe this is what will happen finally (that would be sad), but there is still hope ... Thoses people wanted a law that make DRM mandatory, hopefully we'll get a law that allow us to share music legally.

We'll see in January what happens ...

The reasons given are really interesting

[baptiste13]

What stroke me the most is not the amendement itself, but the reasons given in the discussion. Several representatives from all parties have recognised that the internet has the potential to broaden the access to culture a lot, and affirmed that this potential should not be wasted.

It might be that the proposed solution has strong drawbacks, it might be that the decision will be reversed in the end, but it is very important to see this essential question of the 21th century be tackled for the first time in a political institution.

The winds are turning, folks! The RIAA'd better begin to think of *constructive* proposals.

No Thanks!

[Anonymous Coward]

I already have to pay the RIAA's fcking tax on my CDRs used to burn backups, linux distros (I have not a single music burned or MP3ed).

Now, I would have to pay another "tax for author rights ...on the ISP fees." while I never use P2P...

How come some company can force a fcking tax on citizens???

I don't want this law to pass.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[CodeHog]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/35418 44.html

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[utexaspunk]

I'm not alright with killing the kid before birth. I'm alright with destroying a ball of tissue (which is not yet a human being) within the first trimester or so. There's a big difference between a fetus at 2 months vs a fetus at 8 or 9 months- one is clearly developed enough to experience pain and suffer, the other is not. When that blob of cells becomes something more is certainly debatable, but I think most scientists would agree that it occurs long after the first trimester, which is when most abortions occur. I don't have the numbers, but I imagine most occur within the first six weeks.

There is no correlation between infant circumcision and reduced risk of diseases. Get that out of your head. People suggesting health benefits are tweaking their science for the purpose of justifying their barbaric behavior, and there have been many studies which demonstrate that with normal hygeine people all over the world live long, healthy, uncircumcized lives. Why don't we let people decide for themselves if they want large portions of the nerves around their penises removed, instead of doing it when they're too young to resist? Why is it that we protest when certain religious groups perform similar acts on girls, but not boys?

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Bob Uhl]

Re. 'a ball of tissue,' so far as I can tell it is a human being: there's no certain point one side of which it is and one side of which it's not, save conception. It's like puberty: there's no instant at which a boy becomes a man. So far as I can see, conception is the instant at which life is created. Certainly, the embryo is a primitive kind of human being, but I don't see that it's anything else--what else could it be?

I did some Googling, but was unable to find number for when abortions occur; I imagine that they probably are in the first three months, although first six weeks seems a bit early--a mother probably wouldn't know she's pregnant until at least four weeks in. And by week six there's already a heart, brain, arms & legs (acc. to Wikipedia, so take that for what it's worth)...

Re. circumcision, it does reduce the risk of penile cancer; out of 60,000 cases of penile cancer since 1930, less than ten involved circumcised men. Moreover, sexual partners of uncircumcised men are more likely to contract cervical cancer.

Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours

[Anonymous Coward]

You think your country is intolerant, try living in a mohammmadin country for awhile.
You know, one that practices the mojohammadin legal code, the 'shah has rites to everythin or something'. The only benny ya gets is that you can have 4 wifes. But that's not as good as it sounds. Ever look at a woman mojohammydin? No wonder they cover them in sacks! Just try saying something that is'nt in agreement with the most narrow mineded excuse for people in the world and see how fast your head gets chopped off. NOW THAT'S INTOLERANCE!!! And as for always tellin the truth......haw....haw....haw! Average sunny has'nt warmed up to breadfast unless he lies as much as his prayer rug. Shias are a whole nother story though. They actually believe and practice their religion as it should be. Gotta give them credit for walkin the walk as well as talking the talk. But the Shias don't talk as much as the sunnys. Remember the old Iraqi bathist foreign minister before the fall of irak! He was a perfect example of a sunny.