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Trick Used To Pass French "Three Strikes"
Glyn Moody writes "France's 'Loi Hadopi' — better known as 'three strikes and you're out' — was passed by the National Assembly late last night when only 16 deputies were present (the vote was 12 in favor, 4 against). Most politicians had left because it was expected that the vote would take place next week. In this way, President Sarkozy has sneaked his controversial legislation through the French parliament — and shown his contempt for the democratic process. So now what?"
While my initial thought is "Shame on those people who subverted the democratic process" I can't help but think.. "Shame on the faulty system with such a stupid loophole." Did they subvert the democratic process? Kinda. But did they do things within the boundries of their law? Apparently so.
So shame on those living in France expecting anything different from their dumb system.
It's like having an insurance policy, and when the insurance company decides to be assholes and use their technicalities to avoid paying you, well, shame on you for signing on to such an obviously flawed contract.
(Please note, I'm not claiming my country is any better.)
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
Ever heard of Quorum? The French should add that to their rules/constitution to prevent that crap Sheesh
So now what?
revolution!
Sounds like sour grapes to me. News Flash: Politicians use these procedural tricks all the time, why do you think that said tricks exist? At someone point, some other guys slid laws through on the same deal. Look at the absurd things the US does - the Patriot Act, Obama's "bailout" plans, that nobody ever reads, but people vote on.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Don't forget: Shame on the worthless motherfuckers who stayed and voted aye. Sarkozy is a prick; but 12 people in that room last night were the ones who actually made a mockery of the process of representative democracy.
In a juster world, they would be hanging from the lampposts this morning.
As a Brit, I hate to have to defend our old adversaries, but I have to step in here, as I think you're being a little unfair. You say the French are lazy, but I can tell you that they are more than willing to work quite hard. As long as it isn't August of course. Or one of their many holidays. Or within 30 minutes of their official close of business. Or anywhere near lunch. And so long as they aren't on strike. But other than that, absolutely nose-to-the-grindstone tireless hard workers for sure.
Oh no... it's the future.
Unpopular legislation is almost always passed in such ways. And now the blame for its passing is limited to a select few. I have to wonder if these loopholes and subversive means aren't there to protect lawmakers from having to make decisions that would get them booted from office? That is to say, while they support the legislation, they wouldn't want to be on record as having voted for it... so they "look the other way" while a team of patsies come in to do the dirty work for them.
A country with a 577-member body that allows 16 people to constitute quorum? If that's actually the case, that country deserves what it gets.
Say it ain't so.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Like the UK.
Best Slashdot Co
Yeah right. Talking nonsense again, right?
European surveys have proved that French people actually work longer hours than Brits.
Don't believe me?
Check this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/mar/31/uk-long-working-hours
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/ewco/surveys/ewcs2005/index.htm
I have seen Brits and Swiss jerks leave their office at 5:00pm while I stayed at my desk until 10:00pm past. So that kind of "joke" is truly lame.
And yes, I work in France.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
If it's a three strikes law, use it to your advantage. Keep reporting all the incidents everywehere - Sarkozy hums a copyrighted tune? Report it. Flood the government or whatever bodies with reports on all potential copyright infringement by the members. After all, don't we already have proof that they do this? It should be trivial to just report that their children have broken the law as well. Keep reporting them and get their internet connections cut off.
Sort of like "work to rule" campaigns - you make the rulemakers suffer under their own rules as well.
Heck, bonus points for those who can get the Internet cut off at no only their personal residences, but also to government buildings also.
What this slashdot post needs is:
1. A description of the law that was passed. 'three strikes and you're out' isn't very descriptive. I'm assuming it has to do with file sharing and cutting off people's internet connections?
2. How many deputies were supposed to be there? 18? 100? 300?
Sarkozy has been using MGMT's wonderful song kids without permission. He did offer one euro to settle.
and I think my health suffered because of it. At first I was annoyed. Then I got mad. And then I was completely flabbergasted.
The opposition asked thousands of extremely well informed and technically pointed questions. There was at times a hundred time more people watching the video stream than usual. They got tons of emails, which their staff would parse, print and bring to them during the discussions. They mentioned that several times. The majority never ever did, just sticking to their ridiculous talking points or, towards the end, not even bothering to reply.
The law is unbelievable. Its entire purpose is to circumvent the judiciary and castrate any right to a fair trial, because as soon as a normal legal recourse is available, the sheer mass of defendants would topple the rotten thing instantly.
This alone explains the many bizarre provisions of the law. For instance, when you get (or not, there is no hard requirements of delivery) an email warning, it doesn't mention what you were allegedly (or actually, what your connection was used for) downloading. That's right, they don't tell you. They just say, on that date and time, your connection was used to pirate shit, make it cease now, and here's a nice list of legal websites.
The official purpose for this non-disclosure is because the download might be pornographic, and that might cause problems for families if, say, the spouse finds out. I'm not making shit up, that's what the retarded sponsor Frank Riestert (a car salesman) said, it's in the record. But the real purpose is so that you can't easily dispute the allegations. In fact, it's almost impossible to find out what's been reported against you at the "warning" phase, you can only do so when the decision to cut you off has been taken.
Furthermore, the law explicitly limits the possibility for the accused to find out who detected the alleged infringement and how. You get to know (eventually) the copyright holder, but not which private policing outlet it had mandated for that purpose. Obviously this aims to limit the possibilities of suing for libellous accusations, or at least delay so much as to make it useless and therefore remove the incentive for the victims to sue so that this is not a bottleneck.
Said outlets' employees will have to swear an oath to be truthful in their reports, but the law says nothing about any due diligence. In other word, as long as they don't blatantly lie, it doesn't matter if the evidence is as flimsy as a mere IP address being advertised in a Pirate Bay tracker. As you may know, it only takes *one* HTTP request to put *any* IP in there.
This whole thing is insane. It is extremely likely to be thoroughly censored by the Constitutional Council (~ Supreme Court in this case) but that doesn't mean the end result won't be a disaster. The only hope is in the European Parliament, and if they finally pass their anti-3 strike amendment, it's on the European Court of Justice.
Does anyone find it amusing that after all the ridicule the French heaped on Americans for electing Bush that they went and elected somebody even worse?