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Free P2P In France?
cyberbian writes to tell us that earlier in the week the French Parliament voted to allow free sharing of music and movies on the Internet. This ruling puts them in direct conflict with both the Media companies and the rest of the French government. From the article: " If the amendment survives, France would be the first country to legalize so called peer-to-peer downloading, said Jean-Baptiste Soufron, legal counsel to the Association of Audionautes, a French group that defends people accused of improperly sharing music files. The law would be a blow to media companies that increasingly use the courts worldwide to sue people for downloading or sharing music and movie files. Entertainment companies such as Walt Disney Co., Viacom Inc. and News Corp.'s Fox say free downloading of unauthorized copies of TV shows and movies before they are released on DVD will cost them $5 billion in revenue this year."
This was the DADVSI bill that was supposed to turn free software into crime.
You have to admire an independent parliament!
"If the amendment survives, France would be the first country to legalize so called peer-to-peer downloading"
I was under the impression that it's already legal in Canada.
Or does Canada not count?
People will freely distribute Celine Dion songs without any fear of retribution.
Please please stop saying that P2P is illegal. P2P is legal everywhere, downloading/uploading copyrighted material is illegal.
By the way, stop using IP as an acronym for Intellectual Property, IP is Internet Protocol.
For those that can't be bothered to RTFA, down the bottom you'll see:
"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."
And if you look back up the article (obviously the author was trying to sensationalise this):
"The government can overturn the amendment, either by re- opening debate or if the Senate votes it down when the bill moves to the upper house. French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres has asked that parliament re-open debate on the amendment today, Agence France Presse reported."
So only one-tenth of the house were present for the amendment. It seems like everyone else had gone home. 22 of the votes in favour were by a (what appears to be) minority party. As soon as parliament reconvenes, this will be gone. It's way too crazy/stupid/radical, I very much doubt the majority party want this, and you'd need a serious rebellion from that party in order to push this through.
It's not news so much as a political machination that happens all the time ("Quick! They're asleep! Slip in that amendment!")
They don't want to work with the internet, because they fear piracy.
Well considering the way the general populace of the internet has behaved, I don't blame them.
And in doing that, they are directly responsible for most of the file trading.
False. Movies are traded on P2P because people like getting shit for free. There's really no philosophy, unless it's mentioned and people hide behind one "Uh yeah, cause I can't buy it. Right." It's only a question of whether it's J-Random-Warezd00d or the studio releasing it unprotected first. The feeding frenzy that is p2p trading would be just as vigorous.