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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 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.
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
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.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
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.
I smell a really big merde storm brewing here!...:-P..
Harpo Tunnel Syndrome--my wrist feels funny.
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
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.
I hear they are into BDSM over there, so they probably would be quite excited if you did both.
... and then they built the supercollider.
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.
--- Back to the trees, back to the trees !
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!
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.
-- Intelligence is soluble in alcohol
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.
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
Isn't that some kind of operating system?
"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.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
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.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
A country where I will be free to share my William Shatner and David Hasselhoff MP3s with others!
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
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...
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
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!
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
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.
I have nothing clever to put here...
"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.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Nobody cares.
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.
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.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
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 ...)
France legalizing file sharing and Canada legalizing group sex:s _home&articleID=2125712
http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=new
It sure is dull to be an American
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?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
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...)
"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.
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?)
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.