French Record Labels Go After Limewire, SourceForge

An anonymous reader notes that TorrentFreak is reporting: "French record labels have received the green light to sue four US-based companies that develop P2P applications, including the BitTorrent client Vuze, Limewire, and Morpheus. Shareaza is the fourth application, for which the labels are going after the open source development platform SourceForge. ... Putting aside the discussion on the responsibilities of application developers for their users activities, the decision to go after SourceForge for hosting a application that can potentially infringe, is stretching credibility beyond all bounds." SourceForge is Slashdot's corporate parent.

Comments

Pricks

[kramulous]

This scares me a little. I mean, we should sue the gun makers because guns kill people. We should sue the ore miners because they produce the steel that is used in the guns.

If the French have such a problem with P2P why don't they just block it at the ISP level? Why go after the FOSS developers who just write a program? Because you can't possibly blame the citizens who breach copyright.

This is coming from a country that were happy to set off nukes in the pacific because they didn't what to bow to international pressure. Pricks.

Re:Good luck ..

[Walpurgiss]

I believe the territory you are looking for is most of Europe.

Of course, that was quite some time ago, only 30 years or so after the US became a separate country.

Re:Juristiction?

[lysergic.acid]

that's because stupid is contagious. it's no big secret that other countries emulate the U.S. culture is our greatest export, and so what happens in the U.S. becomes a precedent for other nations. unfortunately, this also includes our political/legal culture.

the U.S. passed the DMCA in 1998, and soon other countries started getting their own DMCA-analogs. so it shouldn't be surprising the RIAA's legal shenanigans are being copied by their foreign counterparts. that's globalization for you.

Re:Good luck ..

[techno-vampire]

Yes. Thirty years after the US became a separate country with the help of France.

Re:Juristiction?

[dbIII]

OK - so you are seriously suggesting Europe is to be blamed for some weird broken US IP laws inspired by Mickey Mouse and submitted by Sonny Bono? It is such a weird situation that people can easily remember such things instead of convenient revisionism a decade or two later.

Nice urban myth you've got there, but it's not going to work on anybody over thirty or anyone of any age that has paid attention to the subject. Your IP laws are your nations own fault and even those countries that accepted them (eg. a watered down version implemented in Australia as part of a condition for a "free trade" agreement) could have chosen not to so they are also responsible for their own IP laws.

Re:the usa does plenty wrong in this world

[Haeleth]

Perhaps if the US had not spent the last 8 years riding roughshod over human rights a basic legality you might have a point.

So, to repeat your argument:

1. The USA has spent 8 years riding roughshod over human rights
2. ????
3. PROFI^H^H^H^H^H Therefore, the USA is to blame for every aspect of French law

I think you might want to work a little on filling that gap.

Symptoms of a bigger problem

[symbolset]

Copyright was created as a bridge between creators and the market to promote progress. It has mutated into a troll that prevents progress. Copyright is now a monster that must be slain.