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

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: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.

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.