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French Senate Passes Anti-Piracy Internet Cut-Off Law
An anonymous reader writes "The French Senate has approved a three strikes law for Internet users who download copyrighted entertainment media without paying for it. If, after two warnings, a person continues to download pirated music and movies, the internet service providers would cut off access for a year. Quoting: 'The legislation passed with a massive cross-party majority of 297 votes to 15. Only a handful of conservatives, centrists and socialists voted against, while the Communists abstained. In passing the bill, the senators rejected an amendment proposed by senator Bruno Retailleau of the right-wing MPF party replacing internet cut-off with a fine. ... The bill sets up a tussle between France and Brussels. In September, the European Parliament approved by a large majority an amendment outlawing internet cut-off."
We discussed the introduction of this legislation several months ago.
I'll take the cynical stance and say that this is a good thing. We need fewer people on the Internet. We need to return the 'net to the state it was in circa '92.
Palm trees and 8
This is akin to if you'd murder someone with a knife for the third time, they'd not let you cut your own bread for a year...err, actually you wouldn't be able to cut your own bread for far longer than a year, seeing that you'd be in a maximum security prison...but anyway.
That really was a horrible example, someone want a car analogy?
The article is short on details. How will they know that the downloader didn't have permission to download the copyrighted work? There are movies, music, and video games that are copyrighted but freely available. Does French law require that copyrighted works be paid for rather than distributed at no charge?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Seems only fair, eh? :-)
So now you know who in your government was willing to sell out, and who wasn't ( or had a higher price then the industry was willing to pay ).
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"The French Senate has approved a three strikes law for Internet users who download copyrighted entertainment media without paying for it"
So, if I download entertainment media that's A) copyrighted, and B) released for free by the author/owner, I'm breaking the law?
Okay, the law can't be that ridiculous, but in practice how exactly do the ISPs tell the difference between legal and illegally used content? It doesn't sound very practical from a technical standpoint. Either they're going to cut off all traffic for certain protocols, throwing out legitimate content with illegitimate, the filter process is going to bog down everything, or false positives are going to be numerous. Then what?
It may be easy for French legislators to write a magical "copyright infringement" filter that categorizes all data reliably and efficiently, but it doesn't exist, especially because you can't really assess whether something is infringing unless you consider the end use (e.g., how do you determine whether "fair use" applies?).
Worse, imagine the repercussions if you get rickrolled more than 3 times.
A fire which they started to justfiy Internet2. I'm not a music studient, though I attend a college with a music class and department. A friend of mine were practicing with our "violent axe" (a homemade quasi 8-string guitar half-violin we made). We have a synthesizer arm we made for our robotics class that we have strum the guitar with songs that would not strain a man's hand if he tried to recite the same without robotics. A principals assistant, hearing the music, thought we were running copyrighted sheet music through OUR instrument. We dprogrammed the thing directly, and don't have any "paper" to show so they get the dean on me. This happeneded at a California University in Long Beach.
I am absolutely sick of unqualified people makin dertmations on our work. I've been listening to Alex Jones a bit because a friend said my favorite Willie Nelson has been talking alot on there. Even Jesse Ventura was on their of many times just two days ago. They all say the same thing: it's a criminal govenment inspiring people nag and mis-report events to spread jurisdiction determinied by all these lobbying of corporations. Even Jesse Ventura said all of them just need to be voted out, but I don't think that's possible. What really caughy my ear from Alex Jones about Internet2 is that he can't get his SYNDICATED station to and website to qualify for Internet2! He's selling inexpensive FM micro-repeaters for shortwave re-transmit, but that is only so far a dated ancient method. Is the FCC mad? Is the music recording companies mad? What is going on here?
First time on Slashdot. Thanks for the replies for me to read about.
Jenny
So for every 3 comments you read on Slashdot, your access gets cut of for a year? Each comment is copyrighted and you never paid the copyright holder.
And who says you have downloaded something in the first place? This would be the perfect moment for all big media to branch out into webdesign and similar as they can effectively wipe out all competition be declaring the filesharers 3 times.
-- Put crudely, the world is an extremely large problem instance. (Russel/Norvig Artificial Intelligence)
Some people should release some 'copyrighted' material they created then lure some of the political figures to download it. Once a couple of people get banned from the net, that law will disappear quickly.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
works too.
A censored internet will look nothing like the free net of '92. It will look like broadcast TV because the same people who censor that will be deciding who gets kicked off.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I'm going to blackmail all the IPs from france that I share with on utorrent.
Passing a law against What everyone does is a risky affair. Sure, legislators have to go along with the concept that recorded media is property. As in the idea that a corporation can actually own a song or a movie, which is quite absurd, although accepted. A slight change in a note makes a different song, a minor re-edit or re-filming of the same plot makes a different movie. Which according to the bizarre theory of corporate ownership of 'intellectual property' creates an entirely new piece of property.
Add to this strange notion that everyone has the means to quite easily break this so-called law, since computers and telecommunications are ubiquitous, and you have a situation where it is easier to break a law than it is to obey it.
Which is not a stable situation. The law enforcers must either ignore the law in general, focus its enforcement on a specific minority group, or enforce the law equally against everyone. Enforcing against everyone changes the conditions that law is supposed to protect and is almost never done. Choosing between non-enforcement and selective enforcement is often a matter of culture. I would believe that the French law enforcement will not enforce this law against French citizens, only against foreigners and then only when the foreigners break other laws (or act outside of French cultural norms) and this law becomes one more weapon that can be used to make them conform.
Americans on the other hand are basically punitive people. Laws like this are specifically focused on targeted minorities for the specific purpose of incarcerating them for profit into private prisons, to steal their property, and to destroy their political clout. An example is the use of the drug possession laws being used to re-enslave the African-American non-middle-class youth. Each year the drug penalties get harsher and more focused on Blacks while White youth are given warnings and probation for the same 'offenses'. In America, copyright laws will be primarily used against young people who protest against any government actions.
These laws are perfect for that purpose. They can be widely broken with no ill effect to society as a whole (like the marijuana laws), and still be enforced brutally against specific individuals and groups. As long as the mainstream of people can continue to download music and movies without hassle, they will accept harsh punishments for the same downloading activity against young people who demonstrate against the government.
If McCain is elected, expect the criminalization of file downloading and harsh penalties applied against only the people who actively oppose government policies. This is the American way of doing things and there are many historical precedents for using harsh laws against harmless activities in this manner.
The worst part is that this doesn't really require any evidence. It's "three warnings", not "three convictions". There's no due process.
Also, cutting people off the Internet is a way disproportionate punishment. For me, this would mean:
- Not being able to participate in the work of my political party of choice (The Swedish Pirate Party, if you're wondering..)
- Heck, it will cut me off from lots of vital information that I need to practice my democratic rights.
- Not being able to pay my bills without going to the bank regularly.
- Not being able to make phone calls (I use Skype as my home phone)
- Not being able to check my school schedule
- Not being able to check my school assignments.. or hand them in.
- Even if I could get a friend to print the assignments for me or something, I'd have a hard time programming without access to online documentation.
And those are only the ones I could think of in two minutes.
The Internet is a vital part of participating in modern society. Even if you're a supporter of current copyright law, you can't allow alleged copyright infringement to interfere with people's access to information.
The lawmakers don't understand the importance of the Internet. There is no way they would ever even consider banning someone from the phone networks.
In France, a law has to be examined by the higher chamber (senate) and the lower chamber (national assembly) before it can be enforced. The national assembly has not yet examined this law. That means that the law which has been approved by the senate is not yet in its final form, and might undergo deep revisions before it is enforced.
I'm against illegal download of copyrighted content.
But this legislation is a shame. And in clear violation of European law.
The warnings are in fact optional.
Once again, the punishment is overkill. I don't think they understand all the implications in today's society.
With this law, if your internet is cut-off, then you can't do anything about it.
Oh, my bad, yes you can contest. But if you do so and can't convince the judge that you're innocent, then you face a fine of 300000â and 3 years of prison.
And of course, everyone who use your connection are impacted, you have to continue to pay for your lost connexion, and you are referenced in a database so that every ISP knows that you can't subscribe to an internet access.
So now the gears are turning to cut us off from the internet if we break the law, just as the internet is becoming important to the point we would individually suffer without it. Next, our interactions on the internet become more important than the ones offline because we will be interacting with electronic devices wherever we go through RFID chips, and being cut off from that internet would be just horrible. Later, mind virtualization, The Matrix, you can dig it. But people never believe that silly stuff...
If I obey the law and send a letter the customer won't need my bandwidth any more...
No sig today...
Liberte ... mon derriere!
This law was mainly pushed by Vivendi but there are powerful backers from all across the spectrum:
* Telecoms firms that want a mandate to filter all Internet traffic so that they can block all P2P, and then VoIP, and then video streaming and then anything which competes with their monopoly products.
* Large ISPs, because these are now all owned by the telecoms firms.
* Vendors like Cisco because they want to sell loads and loads of expensive filtering equipment.
* The music industry, because it still thinks it's going to sue its way back onto the right side of history. Stupid kloten, when will they learn?
* The movie industry, because they've drunk the music industry koolaid.
* The TV industry, because they want to sell more DVDs and because their distributors in the digital age are, of course, the ISPs.
* And finally, certain software firms, because the only way to implement this law, finally, is to use a fully locked down operating system that only runs authorized software, so no Linux.
The French tried so hard to get this same law pushed through the European Parliament, but that seems to be saner.
There are similar legislative pushes all around Europe, at the national level, and for the same reasons.
The Internet is, really, under attack from concerted and powerful forces that hate what those free packets represent.
My blog
I heard there will be extra penalties if the downloads weren't in French...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
"well you have been warned 2 times son, good bye!"
..." BEEP BEEP (hangup tone)
"But I haven't received any warnings! Plus, my WiFi router only supports WEP, easy to crack and
That's funny. Back in my highschool in Huntington Beach UHSD, Westminster HS teachers would only delete off their computers non-study music. If anything unapproved, they hold it until end of class if it interrupted their teaching. Biology 101 teacher of mine always copied classical orchestra music he recorded live, and played it low durring class; all of it reworks of public domain sheets. I wonder how that works when somone replays an exact rework of Beethoven, without anything added or taken from it, and not distinguished from the original. They wouldn't tribute family heirs, so carpetbagger musician companies would sue you I suppose.
I got on Alex Jones a couple times. Mostly listen to World Wide First Amendment Radio, and they said a long time ago that no independent stations qualify. Al Franken, Rush Limbaugh, and Phil Hendrie wil get their sites and allowed to stream on Internet2. I heard that Howard Stern moved to Sirious/XM and is getting the non-legislated restrictions imposed on him early. No way will anyone allow Alex Jones' prisonplanet and infowars on Internet2. Back on Googl Video and YouTube, his free videos get up in top-10 for views (Terrorstorm and Loose Change) and they get reset and deleted by somone working in Google despite reaching over 15 million views each within 1 week).
If it can't be lobbied, they throw their Service and Privacy Terms at you in court. We are sold down the river since 1871, by the second Organic Act to creat United States inclusive to District of Columbia, and separate from these United States.
Let's compare this with a danish politician (I'm from Denmark).
http://www.computerworld.dk/art/42432?a=newsletter&i=1393 says (my translation from danish)
"Enhedslistens"* candidate for the parliament, Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen, thinks tha file sharing should be legal, and digital rights management, DRM, illegal
"I think it's an illusion to believe that it's possible to stop copying. I amounts to sticking one's head in the sand. The politicians have to realize the necessity of forming a committee that will address the question of how artists can be compensated for their work."
*"Enhedslisten" is the leftmost party in danish politics, left of The Socialist People's Party. I'd guess they compare with the greens; the environment is also one of their big issues, they're all for taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
I remember them branding themselves as the Robin Hood party one time, but I don't recall them using that term again. If they get into parliament, they often hold around four seats out of 179, which is the smallest possible amount (less than 2% of the votes and you don't get in).
Be aware that this statement was during election season.
I hope this gives you nutrition for cognition :)
I'd release my stuff as freeware with a EULA that said that politicians weren't allowed to use it, then go after only them. Nobody reads EULAs if they can help it.
What if someone's computer got a virus, which then downloaded pirated content to no fault of their own? Oops! Strike three! You lost your internet to a virus. :) GENIUS!
Politics and governments don't know jack about the interweb and how it works and they need to leave it the hell alone.
I have heard of filesharing cases being brought against grandma's, mentally disabled dead people, single mothers who had never used a computer, and on and on, but I think that this is the first time that I have seen somebody argue that they were going to be used to target minority youths. Please, do elaborate, perhaps with the help of a real life example or something else resembling evidence.
By the way, although your rhetoric about re-enslaving black people in the US was quite vogue in the 1990's, I like to think that the fact that we are potentially about to elect a half-African president pretty thoroughly debunks that. Drug laws in the US are broken, drug laws do hit poor people unfairly, but they are not a racist conspiracy.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
'The legislation passed with a massive cross-party majority of 297 votes to 15. Only a handful of conservatives, centrists and socialists voted against, while the Communists abstained.
Actually the 297 against 15 wasn't the actual vote, it was just an amendment trying to substitute the disconnection with a fine. The final vote for the law was unanimous, every political group voted "for" except the communists who preferred the abstention.
That was a sad day.
See the report from the advocacy group LaQuadrature:
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/graduated-response-will-france-disconnect-europe
From the article, I get the impression that it's the ISP who does all the decision making here. "That person is downloading illegally, cancel his service." "This person is not, allow him to continue", etc.
So, does the person who's internet has just been cut off still have to pay? If so, then what a scam, I'm not even going to go there.
I assume that the person who's internet was just cut of does not have to pay for the service any longer. But this means that the ISP's will be deciding to lower their own revenue... which is not good business in my opinion.
How long until the ISP's start turning a blind eye to rule breakers in favor of keeping their books in the black?
-hps
The pure bullcrap law was voted *unanimously* by all the political groups of the senate who expressed their vote (right wing, socialist, centrist). Only the communist group abstained (*sic*). There wasn't even *one* courageous senator to vote against! Let's hope the same won't happen in the National Assembly, which members are directly elected (which is not the case for the senators) The author probably messed the score for the final vote with the public record vote for Retailleau's amendement, the only one published on the French Senate website (where 15 persons voted for after the executive branch felt it could easily pass, suspended the exam and made a few phonecalls). Look at http://www.laquadrature.net/en for more details about the vote, and soon a translation of the most disturbing parts of the law (help needed ;).
Be also aware that Nicolas Sarkozy's plan is to spread such a mechanism to the European level!
Every European shall take action on his Member State's government, so Bono/Cohn-Bendit/Roithova's amendement to Telecoms Package remains into the Council's position! (more infos soon)
Those quotes are from the 1930s. Try to develop some link between modern drug policy and racism if you want to make a point.
"The bill sets up a tussle between France and Brussels. In September, the European Parliament approved by a large majority an amendment outlawing internet cut-off."" If this does conlfict with the EU amendment/directive then this will be thrown out by the ECJ whe it comes before them, simple.
All those objections have been raised. I know personally the people at the main advocacy group opposing this nonsense, and from what they tell me, they are in complete in denial. They are impervious to the technical arguments. The entertainment industry feeds them their talking points, and that's good enough for them.
But the technical aspect is just a part of the whole problem; constitutionnally, it's on grounds just as weak. And the European Parliament, backed by the Commission, has shot it down premptively.
It doesn't make any fucking sense.
It's raining a little, so I'm just looking through some websites. //(also, you might wanna get a free account, even if you just post anonymously. Lock in your user-number today, they're only going to go up!)//
I used a C stamp and this is programmed by how we think it should sound. A wormdrive and servo to hold on the neck, and a robotic hand that is set for hitting a string is all it does. It is about 3 notes per second, nothing like Zakk Wylde, cowboy. :p. Can't control the rate well, and it sounds more like the slow mood of a renaisance fair. We have it tuned properly, but wouldn't no what chords we were hitting. It plays by our ear.
Jenny
PS: I would only register if Slashdot has a Personals section. 130lb SWF-24y, longhair-brown. Maybe someone could meet me to talk about programming and other things.
Seems only fair, eh?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Thanks, I needed that.
Heh....fair.....
For make no mistake -- corporations are merely updated feudal lords. For they have gathered power and exercise it for profit. And now they wish to enforce it by ritual excommunication.
Just say that this is great to protect all the American music and movies. In about 20 seconds it will not stop the law, it will be a requirement to at least download 1 movie per week, wether you have Internet or not.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
From TFA: Companies and other enterprises where multiple computers have access to one network however, would instead be required to install firewalls to prevent workers from illegal downloading.
You mean they have the technology now for a computer to be able to tell if you bought something before? I guess then they can tell that I've already got a license to use the MP3 codec, so now when I download a program that tries to sell me an MP3 license, they can automatically discount it from the price, or automatically enable it in the referred program!
Twinstiq, game news
Only a handful of conservatives, centrists and socialists voted against, while the Communists abstained.
What happened to the good old days when the Communists at least had the courage of their convictions?
This law isn't against downloading copyrighted files, it's against using tools that "can" lead to piracy. When you will be accused of piracy, you will have to "prove" that you weren't pirating anything at the exact time (up to 6 month behind).
For example, seeing torrent traffic out of your internet connection will be enough proof to charge you of piracy, whatever you will be downloading. The law also include the fact that if you watch too much 'illegal' videos on youtube, you are a pirate.
If someone get an access to your internet connection and to something illegal, your internet will be cut off. Well, it won't really be cut. Your access will just stop working. You'll still be a client of your ISP, and you will continue to pay it, unless you want to break the contract (and pay); which is good because in France many phone lines work using the internet.
Also remember that the law was passed in emergency, and that the ones responsible for it don't even know what they are talking about. For example, if you own a free wifi hotspot, and that someone used it to do piracy, you will be able to identify him with... his IP (the one your DHCP gave him). They don't know any technical think about what they are asking. For an ISP, it should cost about $15 per client per month to log everything you are doing on your internet connection.
They tried many times to achieve their goals by procedures like this before. But since each time they don't even get information about what the world really is; they fail. And they will fail again this time.
... if the French Senate has an open WiFi connection I might borrow for a while.
Have gnu, will travel.
First of all, even if the second chamber does approve the law it also has to stand the test in the Court of Cassation (Cour de cassation). If the law is deemed unconstitutional there it will have to be changed.
P.S. Vi har ikke noe liknende i Norge, vi "tester" ikke om lovene er konstitusjonelle eller ikke på samme måte. Det er mer likt det amerikanske systemet hvor man også kan utfordre lover i Høyesterett (føderal).
slashcode sucks and produces mojibake when I input proper UTF-8 content. Slashcode sucks.
The French seem to be following the US example, and in this case it doesn't seem like a good idea...
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Just use "EUR".
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Whether it be a rules designed to stop folks from stealing media, violating their monthly transfer cap, or even using a competitor's VoIP package, they are all susceptible to malware attacks. Given an interesting enough malware that doesn't seek to steal your data, but rather use you as a conduit, we all finally have plausible deniability.
Every time they get into this, there is an assumption that I am in complete control of my hardware and software. History has clearly shown that even with tightly-controlled systems, including those with TPM (Click to read about cracking TPM), a compromise is easy for a determined individual with even limited cracking skills. And what if there's malicious hardware (Click Here for PDF)? Anything can happen.
We may have the hardware sitting on our desk, but every security guy will tell you that physical access is everything. They'll probably try and turn my computer into a multitouch kiosk, but they'll leave a USB or serial port open on the back for bootstrapping. They may dumb computers down, but somebody has to be smart enough to build them, and some will be left to write malware that allows not so honest folk to channel their black market traffic through otherwise unsuspecting innocents who will take the fall for the infraction.
Do this a few times and courts around the globe will rule the laws an unenforcable leaving us with more trash computers and companies with too much power to see into our private lives, which is what this is partly about anyways.
Go ahead, Britain. Keep leading the way.
Just use "PERIOD" instead of "." ...
Nazi-douchebag Sarkozy had his government use "emergency" procedure to pass it, so it will only be discussed once in each chamber.
Of course, just the mere fact that they claimed it to be an emergency is yet another proof that those assholes are just doing Vivendi's bidding.
As was once upon a time said by a soon-to-be headless lass - a thing should could no longer do herself, what without a head to eat.
It's the FRENCH, people. This is what they do !!
BEROT, Hermann
France also had one of the worst anti-cryptography laws worldwide... until they gradually replaced them with saner laws in 1996 and 2004.
So is that a reason for the French to be optimistic? No. Relaxing the anti-crypto was done for the sake of equalizing laws with other countries, while tightening the screw on file sharers is just one way to kowtow before the almighty WIPO and their representatives like IFPI, RIAA et al. So things are probably going to worsen rather than improve. France have been dragging her feet in crypto matters, while nobody else was willing to go along; now she's running ahead of everybody else... and I'm afraid other countries will be all too eager to follow her lead.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
The French consumer should see a price decrease in movie DVDs and Blu-Rays as well a price decrease in CD music. Am I right?
Can I bum a sig?
I don't agree with France's new law, but it's upsetting to see the EU eroding the sovereignty of member nations.
I notice this story has a 'Crown' icon. Did.t the French get rid of their monarchy in 1789 ?
Maybe its time for another revolution, Ne cest pas?
France is worse than the US for "protecting intellectual property", see the LVMH vs eBay. In which the court sides with the intellectual property holders, even when there is perfectly valid fair use arguments. What I see happening here is the france music gestapo shutting down the small amount of stupid bittorrent users (eg the ones that download new stuff instead of buying it.) Which in turn that person doesn't buy any internet services, or music/movies/etc because of the harm done to them.
Sueing the customer is, and always is a bad idea. Any action taken against a customer is a bad idea, if that customer otherwise makes you money in any way. Now on the other hand, ISP's might willingly shut down the internet of bittorrent freeloaders that cost them money without a second thought, you know the ones that download everything and cost the ISP money in bandwidth fees.
Sorry if I repeat someone else's post:
* This is not law yet * and probably never will.
The Senate can vote on anything they want, it has to be *also* voted by the National Assembly, in similar terms.
We're used to that here in France. The french Senate is *known* to vote crazy things that will never become law. Senators tend to be very conservative, meaning try to maintain a "status quo". It's is actually *designed that way* by the constitution, to provide a counterbalance to the more crazy, modernist, assembly. Traditionally senators are old (the average age is > 70 if I'm correct).
I didn't need to know you were on your period >.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
You read "If McCain is elected..." and proceed to launch into a huge partisan rant. But you completely missed the point, which is that McCain specifically would extend the DMCA regime. Clinton and Lieberman are not running in this election. The Democratic party, as an entity extending back to the founding of this nation, is not running in this election. Barack Obama and John McCain are running. Go ahead and blast Obama -- God knows he can handle criticism. Just spare us the nonsense about Democrats and Republicans being immutable and identical.
Unfortunately as Lawrence Lessig has pointed out repeatedly the laws concerning IP are increasingly whatever various media and other entrenched "rights" holders want to impose to maximize profits. The "laws" are not even run through a legislative process but may be enshrined in software code and hardware that "laws" are then passed for us to be forbidden to even look at. What seems simple on the face of it is actually very complex. Who claims I violate who's rights and are those claimed "rights" valid and what best serves the people including the creators of the content?
In the face of corrupt or lagging legislative processes the people do what they think best for them or simply what they wish. Do we really want to yank their access to what is increasingly the connection to most communication, knowledge, computation and access to variety of non-state/corporate controlled information and opinion on the basis of so shaky a charge and without defense? How is this remotely just? How does it remotely fit the "crime" of downloading a few tunes without paying the media middlement by so draconian a punishment?
> you cheated the community
I'm sorry, I'm confused here.
The community got cheated how again?
From here:
One day, Abdullah Jaffarov, the secretary of the Copyright Holders' Association reprimanded Nasreddin Hodja for downloading music recordings off file-sharing networks:
"This is unfair, Nasreddin. These musicians, they are working hard, and you're listening to them playing without paying. You know, they also need to pay their bills."
Nasreddin contemplated Jaffarov's argument for a while, then told him: "You are quite right, what I have been doing was unfair to all those musicians. How can I right my wrong?"
"Oh, that is no problem," responded Jaffarov. "you just pay the Copyright Holders' Association, and we shall distribute your payment to all the recording studios and they will pay the musicians."
Nasreddin Hodja immediately agreed to this proposal.
The next day, when Nasreddin Hodja went to the bazaar to buy some groceries, he asked his friend to record a video of him paying the vendor. "Why do you want me to record how you pay?" asked Nasreddin's friend.
"Oh, I must correct a horrible injustice," replied Nasreddin. "I shall send the recording to Mr. Abdullah Jaffarov, so that he can distribute it to all the studios he represents. See, it is only fair that if I can listen to the recordings of their musicians playing music, they can also watch the recording of me paying money."
Nazi-douchebag Sarkozy had his government use "emergency" procedure to pass it, so it will only be discussed once in each chamber.
Of course, just the mere fact that they claimed it to be an emergency is yet another proof that those assholes are just doing Vivendi's bidding.
This bill is being rammed through faster than the patriot act on 9/12..
This WILL become law, and when it does I expect a great wave of refugees to come spilling into germany, britain, and quebec.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
With this law, if your internet is cut-off, then you can't do anything about it.
Oh, my bad, yes you can contest. But if you do so and can't convince the judge that you're innocent, then you face a fine of 300000Ã and 3 years of prison.
And of course, everyone who use your connection are impacted, you have to continue to pay for your lost connexion, and you are referenced in a database so that every ISP knows that you can't subscribe to an internet access.
And this is why there are NO isp's raising holy hell right now.
They're being handed an out-and-out license to commit en-masse consumer fraud, with severe penalties to anyone who attempts redress.
Why do I get the feeling this will not pass muster under the current french constitution?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
SSL encrypted accounts on offshore usenet services should provide the user's fill of illicit files without providing an identifiable IP to (insert enforcement company here).
The only thing visible to the ISP is an encrypted bulk transfer.
The public adopted BT pretty easily enough, there are much friendlier newsreaders.
Yep.. newsgroups are suddenly no longer passe'
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Add up those %'s.
Pretty close to 100%.
How is that?
The GP is right. out of those who said "I filehsare", 47% of them were 16-24. You would then expect (because of rounding down) 6x0.5% (=3%) to be missing because of this rounding, giving you 97% as the total.
Add them up and what do you get?
97%
All you need is to be accused of it. Three times. Then, without having to prove a damn thing, you're off the internet.
Which is nice.
HunhWHA? Can anybody decode the meaning of this? Like, "speeding tickets are soo repressive. Don't you agree it would be much nicer of us to confiscate your car and take your family in sippenhaft instead?"
I beg to differ with your assessment of American DUI laws, at least in some parts of the country. As someone who's recently gotten into trouble with DUI, I can attest to the fact that the government in any jurisdiction that I'm familiar with (the Northeast U.S. and California) will no longer hesitate to take your license away for a first offense. A second offense now often means jail time and a multi-year license loss, and in some places is a felony, and having an ignition-interlock devices when you get your driving privileges back (driving a car without one or having someone else blow for you is grounds for a prison sentence in itself). A third offense usually means 1 to 5 years in pound-me-in-the-ass state prison and a felony on your record, not driving for the better part of a decade, and in some jurisdictions loss of your car. On top of that, the fines for even a second offense involved are often enough to bankrupt someone in the bottom half of the income spectrum.
All of the above assumes that there is no accident or other major moving violation (e.g. driving to endanger, driving with a suspended/revoked license) involved. An accident or major violation is an aggravating factor which can often mean jail time for a first offense. And if heaven forbid, someone is killed, you're going to jail for at least motor vehicle homicide (ranging from 1 year to up to 10, depending on the circumstances and state law) and potentially facing voluntary manslaughter charges and at least several years in prison, with the possiblity of 15 to 25. (Such penalties are also applicable for non-drunk driving accidents with reckless or dangerous driving involved, but DUI makes it more likely the prosecutor will pursue such charges and is considered an aggravating factor by the judge if you're convicted of them).
Your post may have been accurate 25 years ago, but drunk driving is considered a very big deal these days in the US. I'll go so far as to say that now the penalties are overly harsh to those with BACs just over the limit of 0.08%. (In my case, my BAC was considerably higher and feel that the penalties in play were reasonable).
Problem is that french deputies and senators are being lobbied
by vivendi. So we already got a law that taxes writable media.
Hopefully the european union is against the new law.
And France is more in debt than it should be according european
treaties. So I suppose that France will have to make some concessions.
Also, in France to be supposedly appled, the president must publish a application decree.
70% of the voted laws got no application decree .
Also the french constitionnal court can deem
the law inconstitutional.
Also we are a latin country, the is a wide gap between the laws
and what is done in practice. Indeed one need to setup a way
to apply the law.
It is easier to apply a new tax (like the tax on writable media)
than to enforce.
Finally the Internet must be like electriciy, cutting it should be
done as a last recourse if you receive many of your bills
thru it.
This law is as stupid as voting a law against gravity.
Once a sequence of bits is on Internet it is very difficult to remove it.
So eventually, one will be able to sell services, like the ability
to watch a movie on a very wide screen. But the movie itself,
will be free for all.
O'Reilly safari is a service who permit one to access online
books and it work very well.
Customers should not be penalized because the music and
movie industries failed to adapt to Internet. If they persist in their
current course they will eventually be made irrelevant.
A french frog.
Right, so I suppose that if this law manages to pass largely intact through the remaining legislative hurdles, the French govt, French businesses and, in particular, French banks will have to contend with the fact that at any given time a significant proportion of the populace will be legally barred from being online. And we were looking at a situation where 10-20 years down the line, near 100% of the population would otherwise have been accessible over the net.
I guess we shouldn't be expecting France to be much of a pioneer(*) in building the society of tomorrow then. Instead, 20 years from now we may all be using a French word for the term "brick-and-mortar" :-)
(*) - obBush: The French don't even have a word for "pioneer". (**)
(**) - obDisclaimer: snopes.com says that Bush never made the infamous entrepeneur statement.
sigs are hazardous to your health
I hope before slagging the French legislators, the mostly American readership will understand that all of us "free" states are under some pressure from the US at each economic summit to enact laws like this.
Quite apart from the fact that the copyright holders are mostly large American corporations, we must remember that all the files shared on the internet illegally come from Al Qaeda, and that every time one them is downloaded, a new martyr is cloned. Osama Bin Laden funds all his activities selling pirate copies of Windows Vista from a car boot sale outside Paris.
etc
Real happiness lies in the completion of work using your own brains and skills.
again we see french headstrongness, stubbornness and self centric behaviour.
for decades they have been trying to force their views on eu, hell, even the world. even french language. so far, not only they failed, but also alienated other nations to themselves. just imagine - they left nato's military wing decades ago, only to return to the military wing recently. what happened ? did nato flounder without them ? no. just they lost credibility.
excuse me 'mon frere's, but you have to wake up and be a team player.
Read radical news here
Just another threat of bodily harm from sockpuppet of M$ shills jwilcox154, macthorpe, dedazo, and willyhill.
--
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk
Friends do assist M$ addicted friends in committing suicide.