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Legal Victory for P2P in France
nietsch writes "The Register is reporting that a french Kazaa user that had been sued by the SCPP (the french equivalent of the RIAA) has been acquitted by the courts in his county. 'The Judges decided that these acts of downloading and uploading qualified as private copying' Ars Technica has more coverage on the subject, or you can read it in english from the organization that lead the defense."
The title is misleading. Maybe "Legal Victory for a P2P user in France" would be better.
France uses the "civil law" system (as opposed to the "common law" system used in the U.S., the U.K., and the Commonwealth, past and present). It's based on the Roman corpus iuris civilis, and it doesn't have any such thing as "precedent." Each and every case is decided purely on the facts of the case, the law as written, and the judge's... erm... well... judgment.
This doesn't mean P2P is legal in France. It means someone got away with it.
FYI, CD-R/DVD+/-R/RWs are taxed in Europe, as insisted by artists. IOW, if you have downloaded MP3s or movies and burned them on CD/DVD - you are clear, since you are already compensated artists thru recordable medium tax. (And every CD/DVD burner is taxed too.)
And to cool off your hot (in legal sense) American heads, I have to remind that European legal system is NOT precedent-based. IOW, one case over here means nothing. Judge decides the case after looking into the circumstances of the case before him, not by searching prehistoric records of how Gutenberg/etc were judged.
What can you tell from the case, is overall mood over here. People in Europe are sick of taxes. And another association asking for another compensation and protection against competition is just what it is - another association asking for another compensation and another protection against competition. And artist associations here are far from being first in the queue of the beggars, looking for gov't help.
What is illegal here putting such CD-R pile for a sale. But I think it's illegal everywhere. As long as you give it away for free - you are Okay.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Must explain the WWII stuff and all.
It's funny how people always mention WW2 and the french Vichy Government, while completely ignoring the whole history of social and democratic progress.
The Vichy government was a mistake and a shame. But that doesn't erase the fact that Americans owe France their freedom, most of their constitution, and a pretty statue. Looking at thing from a different angle, America's image as bringers of freedom, fighters against tyranny, and lighthouse of the world for democracy was right at the end of WW2. Since then, it's been going downhill quite frankly. Yet nobody seems to blindly ignore America's more glorious past. So give France a rest, read up some of its history, and understand that every country can sometime slip.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash