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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).
About time that someone gives the recording industry the middle finger.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
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.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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"About time that someone gives the recording industry the middle finger."
...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 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
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.
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"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.
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.
--
$tar -xvf
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?)
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