French MPs Consider P2P Downloads Again

gregbains writes "French MPs are preparing to vote again on a proposal that would allow users to download music and movies in exchange for a flat fee per month. This announcement caused outrage from the music and movie groups, but excitement from the vast majority of civilians." From the BBC article: "A report by the Economic and Social Council which advises parliament on new laws argued that P2P exchanges should be made legal. Meanwhile France's highest court, the Cour de Cassation, ruled there was no automatic right for consumers to make private copies of their own DVDs. As MPs prepare to vote again, backing for the global licence remains strong despite the government's opposition."

Comments

MP == Member of Parliament

[ToxikFetus]

linky

Re:Cour de cassation?

[El Cabri]

I'm afraid this person who I assume is a fellow French national, is a little bit misinformed himself about the workings of his own country : the Cour de Cassation IS the highest court for civil law. There are three institutions that cover what the Supreme Court does in the US : The Cour de Cassation and the Council of State are the highest appeals for respectively civil law and administrative law. The former rules whether justice was administered properly in cases involving crimes and felonies of people or businesses. The later judges whether the State and the local governments act within their legit powers and is the highest appeal for people who, to put in in American terms, "sue the government". And finally the Constitutionnal Council censors bills when they are incompatible with the constitution or international law, _before thay are made into law_. It is not possible to appeal to it once the law is signed, unlike with the Supreme Court.

Re:If the content companies are so pissed...

[KiloByte]

I think the biggest problem in the past 10 years with entertainment companies AND consumers is that each side forgets it needs the other.

Wrong.

Check out how $16-1c paid for a single record gets split (source:

$0.17 Musicians' unions
$0.80 Packaging/manufacturing
$0.82 Publishing royalties
$0.80 Retail profit
$0.90 Distribution
$1.60 Artists' royalties
$1.70 Label profit
$2.40 Marketing/promotion
$2.91 Label overhead
$3.89 Retail overhead

The only part that is not complete waste is $1.60 that goes for artists' royalties. This includes recouping all of their costs, taxes, profits, etc. Everything else is just overhead.

Pressing CDs is a matter of a few cents, boxes and covers are a bit more expensive. Distribution of CDs can be way cheaper than it is the case for daily newspapers -- a CD is a bit smaller, and no one will notice if it takes weeks instead of hours to get to its destination. You can add marketing costs if you don't believe in alternate means of promotion -- just to count all the costs in the classic way.
Every penny extra goes to anti-customer anti-artist parasites, the worst possible type of middle-men.

Now, the analysis above applies only if you use the old way -- CDs in plastic boxes. In comparison, using the Net reduces the distribution costs to fractions of cents per record -- and it can do all marketing for you as well.

So, why exactly do we need RIAA and MPAA again?