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Illegal Downloaders to be Blocked By French Government?
rdavison writes "According to a recent article on the Financial Times site, 'internet users in France who download music and films without paying for them could find their web access shut down by a government body.' The proposal originated with FNAC, an entertainment retailer. According to the article, the proposal has a good chance of being accepted. 'In exchange for the clampdown on illegal downloading, the music industry has agreed to make individual downloads of archive French material available on all types of players by dropping digital rights management protection. The French film industry has agreed to release DVDs more quickly after a film's first cinema screening, reducing the delay from 7½ months to 6 months. However, consumer groups and even some of Mr Sarkozy's own members of parliament on Thursday attacked the proposal for a new internet policeman as a threat to civil liberties.'"
When I lived in Spain, the local FNAC was a great place to browse, but a lousy place to buy. Their CDs are ridiculously expensively priced compared to other options. I'll pick a general classical CD that, as far as I know, is still always full-price, the DG disc with Anne-Sophie Mutter as the soloist on the Berg violin concerto. FNAC has it for a steep 23 euro. Meanwhile, Amazon has it for US$16. Even though I've settled in Europe for good, I've grown accustomed to ordering from Amazon, having everything shipped to a relative in the US, and getting my stuff every few months when someone flies over. But if I didn't have that option, like most European music lovers, you better believe that I'd be downloading nonstop. Retailers like FLAC should realize that outright gouging of your customers doesn't spur business.
Listen: I live in Paris and I have something like 10 wifi networks right in my building.
It would take me a trivial amount of time to crack the WEP keys of this network.
If I ever wanted to go the illegal download way, that's what I would do: use my neighbours connection. Do you really think the SACEM (French RIAA) will truly investigate who did what on which network? I don't think so. My neighbours would be left with the legal fees, prosecutions, etc, while I would just move on to the next hapless victim^W^W wifi network.
I have expanded at length on this subject on my French blog. Including some language that I will not reproduce here.
In a city where even McDonald's offer free wifi for the price of a cheeseburger (not to mention the schweet municipal wifi project rumored to be in the works), this typically represents what De Gaulle said about the French right-wing politicians: the most stupid in the world.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Considering the number of Wifi access poorly protected (Wep) or totally open, I think that "Illegal Downloaders" neighbours should prepare for hard days.
Greed is the motivating factor as the overly-affluent criminalize fair and decent behavior. Co-operation, sharing and community is what makes us great, not the accumulation of ill-gotten unnecessary wealth. Peoples from every walk of life and from every country and culture need to fight for freedom.
Down with evil tyrants!
bull ... the cinema industry would survive just fine, if they'd offer a good product at a reasonable price - think IMAX, reasonably priced confectioneries, comfortable seats and or an intelligent selection of quality films - for example, we have several artsy non-Hollywood cinemas in my town, they do okay despite downloading and the monopolization of the film industry - face the facts, the film industry (TV and Hollywood) needs reform as it is completely evil and corrupt, imho, filesharing is only justice being done
Delivering what the customers actually want.
c++;
I have a bad ass home entertainment center and I haven't been to a theater since X-Files in 1998. I don't want to go to the theater and I don't want to pay $30 (plus tax) for a DVD/BluRay/HD-DVD. I also don't want to wait six months to a year for it.
Cable providers need to offer much larger varieties of "on-demand" content than they already do. I'm talking Net-Flix library quantities. Then, they need to release high definitely streaming on-demand movies the same day they are released to the theaters (which, it seemed last time I went a decade ago, had smaller movie screens than ever!). Charge me $5 or maybe even $10 for it and allow me to keep it for 24 or 48 hours.
Otherwise, you're going to find yourself losing a lot of money. People like myself who won't patronize a movie theater, but are excited about a movie will likely forget about the movie by the time it ever reaches our homes and you'll never get a dime from us in any form at all.
Well, the cinema industry does a great job of doing that itself. Some oldtimers may remember the time when cinemas where actually theatres? you know with a large hall, no cheap popcorn stink a sound system, which deserved its name an operator as oposed to automated systems that don't have any pride and couldn't care less if the image is unfocused or not aligned correctly?
oh yeah, those theatres actually had screens which deserved that name and not pumped up flat screen tvs. Oh and you also didn't get pestered with 40 minutes of cheesy ads and the coke was not 6$
Modern cinemas suck so bad and provide such a bad experience that I really don't want to be bothered, with very few exceptions. For example the local cinemateque.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
It's France. You don't seriously expect that they will actually succeed with this, do you?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
In the last, ooh, five years, there have been just two films I've thought good enough to see at the Cinema. Well, three, but Serenity lasted a fortnight where I am, and I didn't get the time. Bloody stupid timing that..
I bought all three films on dvd too. Most films I just wait and see what the reviews are like and buy the dvd when it's come down from the high price they charge at first. That can mean well over a year for some films.
Honestly though, they shoot themselves in the foot. It's not a privilege to see a film on the big screen, it's a choice.
If dvd's cost £3.00 initially I'd have a regular order coming in every week, and they'd make a fortune off me. As it is the price of films goes up and down in a rather stupid way. One week it's a tenner, next its five again, and back up again if people buy it.
I know it's not a film, but the firefly series was £12.00 when I bought it. Then a couple of months later it was £35.00. Eh? That's the sort of thing that pisses me off about the whole movie/dvd industry, their only consistent trait is wringing money out of a messed up business model.
This article is FUD.
While I don't doubt they are looking at all sorts of ways of controlling P2P traffic, this law is insanely unworkable. For a whole list of reasons, ranging from cracked WiFi, to identifying the what's illegally shared and what isn't. For the 100 millionth time, not all P2P traffic is illegal, not all movies and music are protected by copyrights.
If they do this it will open up and unworkable legal mess, tying up courts time for years sorting out what's legally downloadable and what isn't. Nope, FUD, sorry.
Giving customers what the REALLY want right away would eliminate one of the industry's profit models. (i.e., the cinema) I assume it's currently a profitable method for the movie makers, or they'd be releasing movies on DVD sooner to recoup costs sooner. Also, before the DVD's out, there exists a temporary, 'copyright enforced' monopoly on the film that can actually be maintained to some extent despite P2P. If you want to just see the movie, sure, you could do that really quick via bittorrent. But, it'll be some guy with a camera. If you want a quality viewing of the film, you'll have to pay for it. But, only until the DVD's released. Once that's out, people will upload the DVD (or better) quality version of the movie. At that point, their competition model changes drastically. Until the delay stops being profitable in one sense or another, it will exist. As P2P keeps getting more and more popular, and the 'sharing generation' displaces the older population, the companies will need to fight harder and harder to maintain what profit models remain, and the 'temporary monopoly' on quality content will be the focus. that, or they'll stop profiting, and stop producing.
"this is not a proposal by FNAC."
Yes it is. Mr Olivennes redacted the claims that were incorporated in the proposal verbatim.
The idea is to give warnings before the internet connection is shut off (2 I believe).
There is also the principle of tagging and publicly shaming "offenders".
"To those saying just pick random wifi hotspots, I can assure them that if people were to receive one of those warnings, they would start thinking about securing their access point. Internet cafés are in trouble though."
Yeah right. Your typical DSL subscriber is light-years from distinguishing between their PC having been 0wned by a bot, and their wireless box having been cracked. I would bet most of them would blame their own kids or reinstall Windows for the umpteenth time, rather than think about switching from WEP to WPA2 or VPN.
Maybe we deserve this world ?