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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).
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.
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.
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 !
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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