Slashdot Mirror
France Moving Forward on Legalized P2P
Romerican writes "Over a month ago, Slashdotters joked about France's efforts to legalize P2P. Originally dismissed as a trivial coup by a small group, the French government continues to entertain the topic. News.com is reporting the French Minister of Culture will advocate P2P as a flat-fee service." From the article: "The draft law, which originally aimed to tackle online piracy, is backed by consumer groups in France but heavily opposed by such companies as Vivendi Universal, which owns Universal Music, the world's biggest record company, and a stake in film and TV company NBC Universal. French cinema and music trading associations together with rock stars such as Johnny Hallyday have spoken out against the law, arguing it would kill their work. "
perhaps I am naive...
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
It'd be tragic if truly free music ended up contributing to the cartels through p2p fee collection.
Man, you really need that seminar!
"Everything we're hearing from the government is that it won't happen," said Geraldine Moloney, a spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association in Europe.
Being French, I don't see "legalize p2p" anywhere near...
Well, it would certainly be a better model for driving content to users. The thing is, nobody said that the p2p service would follow traditional (usd) $20/album costs. It is indeed very possible that a p2p service would help the music industry, and without the record label costs, this might even be good for independent artists. Like many things, implementation will decide if this move is good, bad, successful, or unsuccessful.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Understand the mechanics here: If engineered wrong this will simply translate into a tax on internet access for everyone under French jurisdiction, which would be paid to businesses big enough to claim they represent content creators and nothing paid to the actual content creators themselves.
For people who currently observe the law and do not download at all (or only download stuff the copyright owner has given away), this is a tax with no return.
It weakens the rights of authors and hands tax money to the publishers.
But follow me further, if you will: What happens if something like GPL'd software gets included in the definition of content that right now we think will only include songs and music? Would a French company be allowed to re-distribute GPL'd software in violation of the terms of the GPL by claiming this law frees them of the constraints of copyright?
Compulsory licenses are a threat to the Free Culture movement. Copyright is not the problem, copyright violators are the problem.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
Most slashdotters feel that if they don't agree to the law then they don't have to follow it, now they don't have to feel guilty!
Why should they feel guilty if it's legal? Do you want people to use the law as a guide for their behavior or not?
Is stealing physical property going to be legalized next?
Of course not, because there are huge fundamental differences between physical property and intangible "property", and reasonable people know that the analogy between downloading music and stealing CDs (or any other physical property) is as far-fetched as the analogy between gay marriage and interspecies marriage.
If it ever becomes possible to "steal" a copy of a physical object, leaving the original in place, then your analogy would hold up - but then we'd have to ask ourselves what's so bad about making a copy of a car if the owner still gets to keep the original.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
We joked about France being cowards telling us we shouldn't go to Irak.
Reasons given by France were:
1) no links to Al-Quaeda or 9/11
2) it will cause havoc in the middle east and the rest of the world
3) WMDs aren't present like they used to
Today we still haven't found WMDs, it's clear that Bush and Co lied about Saddam Hussein's ties to Al-Quaeda and it did cause havoc and cost billions.
France now fights for people's rights to use the music they payed for in ways they should be free to do so. They also legitimise the use of the p2p technology rather than attempt to make it illegal like some senators in the US.
Sadly friends it seems the US is falling behind both on a freedom level and a moral level.
So to all those people with their surrender jokes that aren't funny I say at least France isn't selling it's soul. It remains true to Freedom. More so in actions than in speech.
Some of the staunchest opponents to P2P in France are French. Unlike the rest of Europe, ~40% of the market for music and movies in France is French instead of being imported from the US & England. So a lot of people see this as an attack of FRENCH products. Tu comprends, Ducon?
Most slashdotters feel that if they don't agree to the law then they don't have to follow it
Don't most people feel that way? Judging by the amount of traffic tickets given out and the amount of people that pass me on the highway, I'd imagine they do.
I dont think many other industries have had to deal with their customers suddenly being able to get the SAME product (not a similiar alternative) for free because of technological change. The RIAA is suing people because whats actually happening is illegal, its copyright infringement anyway you cut it. The business model isnt failing because of competition with alternatives, its failing because the competition is exactly the same product with zero costs and zero investment for the 'producer'.
You have no entitlement to their product - dont like the current system? Go without until its changed.
Kill off the entertainment industry and put your nose to the grindstone. I'm guessing it will play out as a net positive.
You're guessing, and I'm certain.
Music (and almost all other performing arts as well) was far better before your beloved
'entertainment "industry"'. And it was so for hundreds upon hundreds of years.
People might be more sympathetic with the RIAA if they weren't fount guilty of price fixing music at high rates, ripping off countless artists in unfair contracts, colluding with Clear Channel, and making the barrier to distributing music artificially high by economic power.
.... why would this? Just because more people would use it? No, it would increase exposure to their work so they could command higher fees for concerts and other live appearances.
I'm sick to death of these stupid and greedy artists who are terrified they're going to not get a couple thousand a year. It's a couple thousand they might not get anyway - I might download one song from the cd, but I'd never have bought the cd even if I couldn't get that one song. I'd have just done without rather than waste over $20 on a cd for just one song. Are they really losing any money? Unlikely, but they claim they are. Either that, or they're just repeating what they're told to say.