French Assembly Adopts 3-Strikes Bill

An anonymous reader writes "After lots of turmoil, including a surprise rejection and a European amendment against it, Sarkozy's 3 strikes law has just been passed by the French Assembly [in French]: 'The first warning mails ... should be sent in the coming fall. In case of second offenders, the first disconnections should start beginning 2010.'"

Comments

The French are in Full Retreat

[Anonymous Coward]

The French are in full retreat fleeing from freedom as fast as they can.

Fucking surrender monkeys...

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess its easier to just take away all rights. Then all you have to do is support prisons. Easier to make sure no one breaks the rules if they are in a cell all day. We should just imprison the planet and be done with it. So much easier to manage.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[gringofrijolero]

We should just imprison the planet and be done with it.

What makes you think we haven't? How far can you go without a passport?

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Anonymous Coward]

As near as I can tell, using only a car, I can go 6,121 km without needing to bring a passport. Seeing as it is before June I could probably make it to the south of Mexico which would stretch it a fair bit further but either way seeing as the distance I could travel in a cell is measured in feet I don't think it matters much. Why don't you go live in a cell while I drive cross country and see who has more fun.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[MrMr]

Which country has incarcerated the largest fraction of its population?

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[varcher]

The french presidential majority, you mean. Don't mistake the french with their politicians, or we could all think you're clones of G.W. Bush :)

The major problem of the 3-strike law is that it's a read-guard action that does essentially nothing (at worst) and completely ignores economic forces (at best).

30 years ago, in 1979, if I wanted to get a permanent copy of some content - say, a novel -, I would have to purchase a bunch of paper, some inks, find the appropriate tools (thank god, Xerox already existed), spend a couple hours preparing stuff, and would end with my copy of the novel. At the same time, a professional content copier - which I would call, say, a printer - would purchase paper at a discount compared to me, inks the same, have the tools ready for use, spend 1/1000th of the time I did per copy. Requiring the services of a professional content duplicator to make my copy of some content made economical sense.

Today, making a copy of some content involves about a milliwatt or so of electricity, a tool I already have, and 5s of my index or middle finger to do copy/paste. Using a professional content duplicator to make a copy of some content is an economically non-viable proposition, no matter how you turn around things. You cannot justify charging 15$ to make a DVD copy of a movie when I can make the same copy, at the same quality level, for one cent. And when I purchase your DVD, from my point of view, I am paying somebody 15$ for making a copy for me. That's good, if your DVD is a luxury item. But for a common economy good? Not working.

The profession of content duplicator is dead. Or dying. Like any profession that is no longer economically justified, it will go, like the hordes of people who slaved at hand looms to make cloths when Mr. Jacquart came with his automatic looms. They yelled, they ranted, they ran into the streets (hmmm, how many popular showings of movie industry people have we seen in the streets so far?). And in the end, they went, for no one would pay triple or worse prices for the same product.

The entire content industry is running in circles because, for good or worse, they all have hitched their cart to the profession of content duplicator. We still need people to create content (we call them artists). We still need businesses to find "good" content creators from the masses and advertise this content (we call them editors). We still need businesses to take the raw content, polish it, make sure it's well done (we call them producers). We even need business to deliver that content to us (we used to call them retail chains). What we no longer need is content duplicators. However, the whole content industry has decided (well, evolved) around the content duplicator. Why else are artists paid by the copy, if not because they use the content duplicator as the driver of their revenue. Everyone else in the industry does. Steve Jobs knew it when he was asked if he favored Blu-ray or HD-DVD: he said it didn't matter, because the idea of making expensive copies of content was already dying.

With that profession dying, they need to find out new methods of doing those services, and get paid. One segment of the content industry has already found it: the distributors. The guys who are delivering the content to the consumers are already there; they're called ISPs, and they charge people for the delivery of content - any content - and they're happy. They don't care if the content is subcription-based TV, iTunes songs, web pages, or BitTorrent P2P streams. They have found out the new business model of content delivery, and they're ready for the 21st century. The rest of the content profession still hasn't figured out, or, in the case of the old delivery channels will be dead. As usual when business models change, most of the old business go titsup and new business appear instead - only rarely will an existing business figure out it needs changing, figure out how it will change, and do it.

And when they have figured out how to live without the content duplicators, then HADOPI will become like all those laws that require you to keep your riding crop in hand when crossing another vehicle: something that's completely irrelevant.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[MrMr]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prisoner_population_rate_UN_HDR_2007_2008.PNG

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Jurily]

What makes you think we haven't? How far can you go without a passport?

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=worcester,+uk&daddr=p%C3%A9cs&hl=en&geocode=&mra=ls&sll=48.785735,9.39988&sspn=13.587171,28.300781&ie=UTF8&ll=49.21042,8.349609&spn=13.470776,28.300781&z=5

Big enough prison for me, thank you.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[gringofrijolero]

So, to paraphrase a famous person who didn't say it, *6,121 km oughta be good enough for everybody* That about right?

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Jurily]

Does that show historical values, like, say, WW2?

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[azgard]

Australia?

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Anonymous Coward]

Iceland's so poor, even the criminals have to live on the street.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Smidge204]

While I agree with the overall sentiment, there's one serious caveat in your example here:

"You cannot justify charging 15$ to make a DVD copy of a movie when I can make the same copy, at the same quality level, for one cent. And when I purchase your DVD, from my point of view, I am paying somebody 15$ for making a copy for me. That's good, if your DVD is a luxury item. But for a common economy good? Not working."

What you are doing is copying the data, not the physical DVD. It's the physical DVD that costs the bulk of that $15 price: The DVD itself (which is pressed, not burned onto a generic writable media as your version would be) with the silk-screened label, the plastic case and the outer jacket at a minimum. Even a blank DVD will cost you about 20 cents.

This is not to suggest the physical media market isn't obsolete - but if you're going to complain about the costs you need to at least compare apples to apples: When you buy a DVD, you physically have a DVD.
=Smidge=

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[plover]

I guess its easier to just take away all rights.

That's easy enough. Cardinal Richelieu said "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." By now Slashdot's full of at least "disconnectable" offenses, so let's start here.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[jammindice]

Of course it's the US we do EVERYTHING bigger and better!! (though that's reported prisoners) if you read the wikipedia article you would see that some claim forced labor camps in China to be "prisoners" and that additional population would put them higher than the US though not by much...


The Wikipedia article:

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world at 738 persons in prison or jail per 100,000 (as of 2005).[18] A report released Feb. 28, 2008 indicates that more than 1 in 100 adults in the United States are in prision.[9] The United States has 5% of the world's population and 23.6% of the world's prison population.[3]

The link and the relevant section is "Comparison with other countries"

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[nonlnear]

Except for the fact that the physical DVD is NOT "the bulk of that $15 price". Not by a long shot.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Fulcrum of Evil]

A physical DVD, including packaging, is close to $1.50. Now, you can copy a DVD, but can you produce the movie that is on that DVD? No, I didn't think so. Arguing that the only thing of value involved in DVD production is the physical medium is asinine.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[MrMr]

No, that's the current data.
If you really want to know about WW2: There were 80 million Germans; They incarcerated about 400,000 Germans citizens (and millions of citizens and POW's from other countries, but due to their efficient murdering methods never that many at the same time).
Incarceration rate for German citizens must therefore have about 500/100,000. For citizens of occupied countries the number would have been somewhat higher, but on average not more than 700/100,000.
So, in Germany the statistic has improved markedly since WW2.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Lisandro]

Great post - very well presented points!

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[scruffy]

That is an excellent post.

Given that ISPs are the distributors in this brave new world, and that anybody can duplicate, how does one ensure that the creators (and their owners) make enough to offset the cost of making the first copy? I think we might have to compromise on net neutrality for this to happen. Just like cable companies make deals with channels and then "lease" content to subscriber, ISPs will make deals with content providers and lease content.

Perhaps this won't adversely affect net neutrality much at all. At the University where I work, the library has online subscriptions to various publications, and they allow me to download based by checking my IP number. ISPs or some proxy could do much the same.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[JesseMcDonald]

When you buy a DVD, you physically have a DVD.

Obviously true, but that adds no value over the $0.01 data-only copy when all you wanted was a copy of the data. I think that's the point; even if the DVD was sold at cost--around, say, $1.50--that would still be $1.49 too much for what the GP considers to be the exact same good, the physical packaging being nothing more than unwanted junk.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[K. S. Kyosuke]

In 2004, about thirteen percent of the population of Pitcairn Islands were found guilty of sexual assaults and jailed.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Carewolf]

You do need a passport. Well, not need need, since no one is checking it at the borders, but if the police in another EU country ask for it you need to be able to present it. Some places a EU citizenship card doubles as a passport but they don't have those in the UK or eastern europe.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[The_R_Meister]

Ah, but which country should have the largest fraction of its population incarcerated?

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[pleappleappleap]

If it's a CD containing pictures of Sarkozy's wife naked, I doubt there's anything he could do to stop people from copying it.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[redbaritone]

Wow, we sure put a lot of people in jail here in the U.S. We must be incredibly uncivil! I suppose we could just shoot 'em. Isn't that what they do in a lot of those yellow countries in Africa?

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Jurily]

You do need a passport. Well, not need need, since no one is checking it at the borders, but if the police in another EU country ask for it you need to be able to present it. Some places a EU citizenship card doubles as a passport but they don't have those in the UK or eastern europe.

Bullshit. I've spent 8 months in the UK with no passport. EU law says if you have an EU citizenship, your ID is fully functional as a passsport throughout the EU. The only place they checked my papers from London to Budapest was the UK-French border, and even there the driver remarked that they're only doing that because we have a lot of dark-skinned passengers with an apparent genome line not originally from Europe.

Yes, racism exists, and it's based on experience.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Opportunist]

How far towards freedom do you get with one?

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Opportunist]

No, she'll serve that purpose quite fine. I mean... when you think about it... Ok, she's looking nice, but you have to know... Sarkozy was in there! At least, most likely.

Ewwwww!

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[uncle slacky]

My uncle (who enjoys making a scene in any case) used to travel around Europe with nothing more than a copy of the Treaty of Rome - though I imagine he'd get more hassle these days, at the UK end of things, at least.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[varcher]

how does one ensure that the creators (and their owners) make enough to offset the cost of making the first copy?

First, don't talk about copy. Content business will have to stop being about copies to survive in a world of ubiquitous cheap copying. Aside, that's the thoughie: right now, everybody in the content industry has its cart hitched on the per-copy model.

Each author gets paid by the (sold) copy. However, if you look at the copyright legislation, you'll see that's not a feature. There's nothing in law that dictates that an author must be paid by the copy. It's just that they (the authors) are used to that model. Heck, they even have evolved complex models to account for the correct number of copies for their payments - and if you dare miscount, why, they'll sue you. But there's no base law that requires authors to be paid so, it's just that it's "how it's been always done".

Do I have a solution? No. If I did, I would probably have started a content business of the 21st century. Someone will figure out a good model. Meanwhile, everybody tries to animate the zombie of the old model so they can get some useful work out of it. Will it cause a lot of people to lose their jobs? Probably - that's how every major technical progress did: previous business dies, new business with lower overhead rises instead. You get more jobs when you invent something that no one consumed before, but that's not the case here.

Some countries are readying themselves for the new models. I read someone speaking about China and the music business there. He said that artists based their living on performances, tours, private concerts, whatever. No one expected much money to come from recordings - every recording is going to be duplicated and distributed at close to zero cost, so they don't try to compete with the zero-cost non-professional duplication; they just make money otherwise. Your music recordings are treated as advertising. And that's they country we're trying to strangle with ACTA and the like, and force to move out from the 21st century business era back to the 19th century one under the various threats of commercial sanctions "if you don't copy our obsolete and unviable US models".

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[John Hasler]

> The french presidential majority, you mean. Don't mistake the french with their
> politicians, or we could all think you're clones of G.W. Bush :)

For the last eight years many of you have behaved as though you thought exactly that.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[pangloss]

A physical DVD, including packaging, is close to $1.50.

A physical DVD, purchased from a brick and mortar store in central Shanghai (the city with the highest cost of living in China, AFAIK) retails for 7RMB*, which approximately USD1.03. Of course this is a "fake" DVD, but it includes full color printing on the DVD itself as well as a full-color jacket insert. I'll grant that the quality of the printing is of lesser quality than a legitimate DVD, but factoring in rent, wages, payoffs, returns (yes, they accept returns for defective merchandise), I don't think the production of a physical DVD approaches USD1.50.

* I've seen as low as 5RMB and as high as 12RMB, but the former are from street sellers and the latter for shops that have a largely foreign clientele.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Depends on volume and location. I'm using highish numbers that you could expect to get by self publishing in quantities of 1000 or so.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[arkhan_jg]

they're called ISPs, and they charge people for the delivery of content - any content - and they're happy.

Personally, I'd say that ISP's are in the business of charging people for the delivery of content at extortionate rates and then failing to live up to their end of the bargain with FUP's and bandwidth restrictions. However, your point that distributors like valve with steam, apple with itunes, netflix streaming and hulu are the people with the new business model is certainly valid. Witness the scurry of the content companies as they realise that easy to use portals are beating their restrictive drm'd and overpriced ones into the ground. And none of them come close to matching the pirate bay for sheer range of choice and price.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Nefarious Wheel]

Is that you, Kilgore Trout?

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Meski]

I would have guessed the USSR, not current figures, but when Stalin was in power. Or possibly China and its 'reeducation' centres. Someone else can google, I'm leaving for the day.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[lightversusdark]

You can't board the Channel tunnel train without a passport.
You're stuck at Folkestone.
Much better to be in the Schengen zone if you've got no paperwork.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[spanky the monk]

they don't. is this such a difficult idea to accept? The idea of art-for-money is dead. I say GOOD! When money gets behind art, it is no longer art. citation: pop music.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[whereareweheadedto]

You're absolutely right. Not many escapes from Earth, last I checked...

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Fred_A]

How far can you go without a passport?

Get a boat and you can go all around the world...

No borders on the oceans.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Fred_A]

EU law says if you have an EU citizenship, your ID is fully functional as a passsport throughout the EU.

No it doesn't. And the UK isn't part of the Schengen Agreement.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Jurily]

No it doesn't. And the UK isn't part of the Schengen Agreement.

Meh. The EU abolished the need for a *passport*, if you have a valid ID. Schengen abolished the checks at the borders between those countries: if you're welcome in France, you're assumed to be welcome in Belgium, Germany, Austria and Hungary too.

And please don't cite me Wikipedia, I just did that trip.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[CapitanMutanda]

No it doesn't. And the UK isn't part of the Schengen Agreement.

Meh. The EU abolished the need for a *passport*, if you have a valid ID. Schengen abolished the checks at the borders between those countries: if you're welcome in France, you're assumed to be welcome in Belgium, Germany, Austria and Hungary too.

And please don't cite me Wikipedia, I just did that trip.

Not to UK, that isn't into Schengen

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Jurily]

I don't know how much clearer I could make this, but I will try.

I did NOT need a passport, in fact, I don't even have one.
I DID need an ID entering and leaving the UK, both flying to and from Hungary, and crossing the Eurotunnel.
I DID NOT need ANY identification crossing the France-Belgium, the Belgium-Netherlands, the Netherlands-Germany, the Germany-Austria, and the Austria-Hungary border. The only indication you're leaving a country was a sign, and the changing language of the advertisements along the road. There were no border checks at all.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Carewolf]

It was what I said in my first comment: You don't "need need" the passport, since no one is checking it, but that doesn't mean you are not required by law to carry it, which you are!

Some national ID's double as EU-passports now, but that doesn't mean an ID is enough. You still need a passport, sometimes it is just included in your national ID. The UK AFAIK doesn't have national IDs, and they in the Schengen area. So the passport ID will never be valid or provided in the UK.

Your personal experience is irrelevant, as you have just unhindered, but illegally been crossing national borders in the EU.

Re:The French are in Full Retreat

[Toy G]

I don't think you know what you're talking about :)

In the UK, a European citizen is NOT required to carry a passport, as he is NOT required to carry any ID by national laws (differently from France or Italy).

Whenever ID MAY be required, an EU citizen can provide documents issued in the country of origin (belonging to a certain subset) and they will be considered a valid form of ID. They don't need to be an international passport.

Since UK and Ireland did not join Schengen, they still patrol their borders and require an ID before you enter. That ID does NOT need to be a passport. You do NOT need (or "need need" or whatever) a passport, as any EU citizen has the right to live and work anywhere in the Union. I could take a boat from France to England, go my merry way without showing any ID, and still I would not have broken any law: I have the right to live there anyway, a right that trumps border control.

For a EU citizen, there is no such thing as "illegally crossing national borders", as you have the right to move freely among them. Which is why, for example, the UK cannot impose on EU citizen any sort of compulsory registration scheme (which they are doing for non-EU residents).

How much did it pay?

[Spatial]

We all know it wasn't decided on merit.

Re:How much did it pay?

[ionix5891]

In Soviet France Freedom Fries youz?

Re:How much did it pay?

[commodore64_love]

I prefer "pommes frites". It sounds sexier.

Re:How much did it pay?

[Vu1turEMaN]

And this is why I wanna move down south and get sweet potato fries, cause the damn soviets would never eat those....

Re:How much did it pay?

[Culture20]

I prefer "fried taters" said in a southwestern accent. It doesn't sound sexier, but it's got coolness.
For sexy, I'd say "Give me your tots". Women really seem to strongly respond to that movie. You never get ignored when quoting Napoleon D. It's a really polarizing piece of film.

Re:How much did it pay?

[oldfogie]

$0.99 / song

Re:How much did it pay?

[blackfrancis75]

the Poms are on the other side of the channel..

Re:How much did it pay?

[MBGMorden]

"Pommes frites" always confused me. From my high school French I learned that "pommes" means apples, and that potatoes was actually "pommes de terre", ie, apples of the earth, or ground-apples. That makes sense. "frites" essentially means fried.

So "pomme frites" means "french fries" but literally translates to "fried apples". That's weird.

Re:How much did it pay?

[Archwyrm]

It is only sexy if you have pommes frites and hot grits.

Re:How much did it pay?

[Anonyme Connard]

And, as a matter of fact, in french we simply say "frites".

(Not that I want to "fix that for you")

Re:How much did it pay?

[modecx]

Ground apples? Much better than road apples.

Re:How much did it pay?

[mdmkolbe]

But is "frites" just short hand for "pommes frites" like in English how "fries"(used informally) is short for "french fries" (seen on menus) is short for "french fried potatoes" (rarely used)? Or is "frites" the actual proper term?

A better question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

How long until offenders start using the easily accessible encryption to avoid losing their connections? This will effectively make it harder for rights holders who have legitimate claims to go after offenders.

Whenever you pull the pendulum in one direction, it always swings back in the other one.

Re:A better question is...

[calmofthestorm]

Tell me more about this encryption, and who I buy to outlaw it.

Is this a time to whip out terrorism? Muslims invasion of our culture? Or perhaps child pornography or French culture is the way to go this time.

Re:A better question is...

[CODiNE]

Then they outlaw encryption without a license.

Re:A better question is...

[El Jynx]

Encryption has some nasty surprises: you can easily maintain an I-didn't-do-it or I-didn't-know-it level of innocence. This is going to give P2P encryption techniques as well as anonymisation networks a HUGE boost. A LOT of french programmers are going to be quite pissed off, and rightly so.

Oh man, do I want to do a rant against the French right now. But it'll be allright, just another felix culpa. Die gedänken sind frei, plagiarism is built into nature and the French politicians are swimming upstream; they'll tire sooner or later. Unfortunately this will mean that some families will start using iTunes stores and such, and no doubt the Big Four will take and twist those statistics into an I-Told-You-So.

Re:A better question is...

[Jurily]

Whenever you pull the pendulum in one direction, it always swings back in the other one.

Or they could just make a law against encryption, like some countries did against owning big amounts of gold after they left the gold standard.

Re:A better question is...

[Annorax]

If my memory serves me well, encryption software is in great part illegal in France.

Re:A better question is...

[AmiMoJo]

It's a shame such systems are not already in widespread use in the west. On the far east, Japan and South Korea in particular, fully encrypted P2P applications like Share and Perfect Dark are more popular than BitTorrent. Both of those require high speed internet connections, with a high upload rate in particular, so perhaps that's why it's taking longer for them to catch on here.

Re:A better question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I break the law every time I use ssh. Wait, we all do it anyway.

Re:A better question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Plagiarism isn't the same as not recognizing copy "rights". To plagiarize is to take credit for some else's work as if it were you're own. Not recognizing copy "rights" means copy and distributing something that is in you possession, with no claims to authorship. The former is unethical and the latter is natural.

Re:A better question is...

[azgard]

I think you can. The encryption can be made so user-friendly that you may safely say that you weren't aware that the P2P application you have is using encryption. This is assuming encryption is wrong - you may just as well not care.

Re:A better question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought encryption was illegal in France...literally. You're only allowed to use hashing there.

Re:A better question is...

[ameline]

> perhaps ... French culture is the way to go this time.

I'm sure Sarko is thinking something along these lines...

Si la transmission est encryptée, n'est-elle plus en français, n'est-ce pas? Ceci diluerait la langue française sacrée. Ceci doit être proscrit immédiatement! :-)

Re:A better question is...

[calmofthestorm]

Vraiment, vouz comprenez la France.

Re:A better question is...

[lgw]

It would be quite easy and practical to outlaw encryption except where one end of the pipe was on a government-approved whitelist (banks, etc). A law against encryped P2P is only a matter of time - it's just a question of which nation leads the way into totalitarianism in the area.

Who will outlaw Freenet first - China or France? It's strange that those are the only two governments that the Freenet FAQ warns users about.

Re:A better question is...

[ameline]

To translate for those who can't understand,

If the transmission is encrypted, it's not in French, is it? This dilutes the sacred French language. This must be prohibited immediately!

Re:A better question is...

[ewanm89]

So you have no online shopping sites in france? Outlawing encryption is futile at best. US proved that with it's export laws.

Re:A better question is...

[loutr]

bands could say "fill up this bank account to $100k and we'll release our new album"

They already are. This french website allows you to listen to a new band/artist's music for free, and chip in if you like it. When it reaches 70,000 euros the artist can record and release an album. The people who put the money together are invited to special events like private concerts, and get payed if the record label (ie the website) makes a profit on the sales of the album.

That's an awesome business model IMO, and it works : the (previously unknown) singer Gregoire released a successful album on this label, and is currently touring France. I guess the majors are scared shitless by this kind of initiatives, hence their purchase of a new law.

Re:A better question is...

[argiedot]

I guess the majors are scared shitless by this kind of initiatives, hence their purchase of a new law.

That's a pretty neat way of doing things, but how would this law damage it?

Re:A better question is...

[loutr]

Because by arbitrarily cutting people off the internet and spewing FUD such as "The internet is a den of terrorists, pedophiles, and thieves" (I'm hardly paraphrasing here), "nothing comes for free, everything of value has a monetary cost", or "OMG if you keep on pirating, artists and music will DIE and there won't be any new music made EVER !!!" (paraphrasing slightly more but not by much), they are trying to scare the general public off the internet and alternative, more "open" business-models.

This law is all about repression. The only thing that will be done by this law to develop the internet-based music business is the creation of an official website referencing legal ways of getting music on the web. Given the ties between the govt and major companies, it's not hard guessing what offers will be advertised there... On the government-funded jaimelesartistes.fr ("iloveartists.fr", yeah right), the legal offers page doesn't mention mymajorcompany or any other similar website (to their credit it does mention a couple of "open-music" websites such as jamendo). OTOH, traditional major-approved websites are heavily advertised.

Lots of new or independent artists spoke up against this law, saying that there were ways of taking advantage of piracy and free music ; they were consistently ignored by the governement. But when popular, major-backed artists spoke in favor of the law, it was heavily advertised by the ministry and govt-friendly medias. They could have laid ground to a new way of (legally) distributing music, but they chose to try and hammer into our collective skull that the current way of producing and distributing music is the only possible way.

Well fuck them, their friends at the **AA and their sockpuppet "artists". I'll continue buying my music on emusic.com (not mentionned on jaimelesartistes BTW) and pirating the majors.

</rant>

Sarkozy

[Krneki]

I hope the Internet era will put a stop to this type of politicans.

I can't wait to see how this thing blows in his face.

Re:Sarkozy

[Quiet_Desperation]

I can't wait to see how this thing blows in his face.

Eeeeew! I can wait. Bleah.

Re:Sarkozy

[commodore64_love]

I don't understand the appeal of *those* kinds of videos. Ick. Nevertheless I will defend to the death your right to free speech and free viewing of them.

Re:Sarkozy

[oldhack]

To whose death?

Re:Sarkozy

[Metasquares]

The (mainstream) Internet Era has been around for some 15 years now and it hasn't yet.

Re:Sarkozy

[Krneki]

When the Internet was born I was there, hell I even saw his parents trying to connect us all.

We just need to bring everyone online.

Re:Sarkozy

[heatseeker_around]

I don't know if you are French or if you follow French politics, but you should understand that right now, no one can be trust in French politics. No one on the right, no one on the left, no one on the center.

And if no one emerges before 2012, even if laws like this one are passed, the day people will have to vote, they will vote for the less damageable person for the country with experiences in economy and immigration.
If the socialist party gives us a Royal choice, we will have little Napoleon again.

And do not forget that a lot of people don't care at all about this law. A lot of politicians too. Don't be fooled by the simile debates you saw at the Parliament. a lot of the left politicians against this law were in fact only against the government. They don't care and will not care about this effect of this law unless the people goes out in the street...
Good luck to persuade people of the danger of this law. The syndicates are not impressed: they will do nothing and in 2012, everything will be forgotten.

Re:Sarkozy

[Krneki]

And this is why I respect the EU. Finaly someone above the stupid local politicians bringing some sense in this world.

Re:Sarkozy

[Sir_Lewk]

Whoever's is nessesary, preferably the politicians though. ;)

Re:Sarkozy

[dwiget001]

"...I don't know if you are French or if you follow French politics, but you should understand that right now, no one can be trust in French politics. No one on the right, no one on the left, no one on the center...."

You could substitute "French" with "United States" and be correct as well.

Re:Sarkozy

[tsm_sf]

We have plenty of honest politicians here in the US, and it's easy to tell who they are. Their names aren't in the paper.

Re:Sarkozy

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

I wonder just how many people are going to be complaining to the ISPs providing personal internet access to the politicians that voted for this bill? What type of punishment is listed in the bill for making a false accusation? If it's something that's never going to be applied (like the DMCA's "I swear under penalty of perjury" clause) those ISPs better start hiring and training staff now to prepare for the onslaught. Even if the accusation is completely bogus, the ISP's still going to need to spend time and money processing them, and you know that's going to result in increased fees for everyone.

Re:Sarkozy

[Krneki]

According to EU this is a case of human rights violation.

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/07/1618247

Re:Sarkozy

[josiebgoode]

I hope the Internet era will put a stop to this type of politicans.

Not only to this type of politicians but also to this type of "artists" such as those old French ones who support hadopi. The most aggressive are the old, rich and famous who, for the past 40 years (!), were showered with royalties. They got already plenty (what have they done with it?) and as their talent dries out, they cling to their annuities and fight for their privileges. And they don't care how the law enforces their rights as long as they keep them. Anyway, hadopi or not, as they disappear from the p2p networks, they will disappear from the human memory.

Re:Sarkozy

[StikyPad]

People who don't agree with the principles in the Declaration and writings of the U.S. Founders should move to the E.U.

Yeah, because healthy disagreement is intolerable in a functional democracy...

What does that even mean, anyway? The "US Founders" didn't even agree among themselves, let alone present a unified platform for the rest of us to consider. They were not a borg collective. Many of the US founders advocated slavery, and almost all of them advocated gender inequality. Maybe you've heard of the Three-fifths Compromise? Maybe not. Should people who disagree with those principles and writings move to Europe too?

Reminds me of Christians who cite Leviticus' writings to vilify homosexuality, while ignoring its prohibitions against other forms of sex, let alone the forbidden food and clothing.

So I doubt you're actually in favor of slavery, or gun duels, or any of the other archaic practices that some of the founders believed in. You're not really advocating strict adherence. Rather, what you're really advocating is adherence to *your* interpretation of their collective principles, or else to the status quo. Neither of those are, nor should they be, immune from review or criticism.

Re:Sarkozy

[Opportunist]

I don't understand the appeal either, and I most likely won't watch it, but I'd really welcome it if it was being made, as long as Sarkozy stars in it.

Re:Sarkozy

[Opportunist]

Erh... you have been watching where it leads to?

Think back, if you can remember the "good ol' times". The internet was an exchange of information and idea, it was full of intelligent, witty people who connected and congreated to think up dreams that formed ideas which spun projects...

Then came AOL and the people that came with it...

Do I have to go on 'til we reach Web2.0?

Re:Sarkozy

[heatseeker_around]

He meant "trade unions". They are the one who make people demonstrate in the streets there.

thank you to correct the sentence. next: 99 errors to go...

Re:Sarkozy

[wvmarle]

It won't.

Not enough people care about it, and it will be a while before ISP's start disconnecting their customers: this will give them a bad name, I doubt it's good for business really, so they will be quite reluctant to do so - especially the first to disconnect customers will get a lot of publicity for sure.

People on the street... not likely, as the problem is that people disconnected "broke the law, and were stealing music/movies". That is the line at least, and because it's said like that it is hard to get large numbers to stand up and protest in support of the disconnected "criminals". Mind you: proof is not needed. Never. When you see written in the newspaper "Mr. X and Mr Y have been convicted of burglary and have been put in jail", do you ever doubt they did it? Of course you don't. It's written there, and higher authorities have found it true. Same will account for these copyright infringement cases. The proof that the person is guilty is simply the message from a higher authority that that person did it. It's all the general public needs.

Only when the perception becomes that copyright infringement is legal (that will be a while) or even should be legal (that also will be a while), or that the above mentioned higher authority can not be trusted anymore (in which case there is a much bigger problem than just some copyright losses), nothing will happen.

The only way a law like this can be overturned is if someone who is disconnected goes to court to have the disconnection overturned, and in the process has the law invalidated for being draconian or unconstitutional or whatever. And that is not easy, and will take many years at best, if anyone cares enough to actually step up, and put some millions on the table to hire the lawyers that can actually manage such a case.

internet only services?

[Anonymous Coward]

With more and more gov services being available on the internet, does that mean that those disconnected won't be able to use said services?

Re:internet only services?

[stephanruby]

That's right. The people disconnected will have to go check-in with their unemployment office in person. Everyone else will do it online.

Re:internet only services?

[twidarkling]

You are aware that there's a lot of offices (apparently California in particular) that won't do anything in person, anymore? And with the EU being usually more socialist than anywhere in the US, I can't see that being reasonably different.

Re:internet only services?

[gringofrijolero]

It's a great marketing opportunity for government authorized, or franchised internet cafes. Just swipe your government approved ID card, and instant access. Please, stay where you are. We'd like to have a talk with you. Please make your passwords available upon request. This is just routine...

Re:internet only services?

[twidarkling]

Sorry, just remembered, also, a majority of British unemployment offices are particularly bad for that, just to add to my point.

Vive La Nation

[berenixium]

After months of bullying and sneakiness, he finally got it through, and well done.

But I won't feel much sympathy when the cut-off peasants storm his gates holding pitchforks, hot pokers and rope.

Re:Vive La Nation

[discord5]

But I won't feel much sympathy when the cut-off peasants storm his gates holding pitchforks, hot pokers and rope.

Entertaining as the thought might be, both you and I know that this won't happen. The worst that will happen is another few cars getting lit up, which gives him another excuse to "get tough on crime".

It might be interesting to note that in the UK a similar proposal is rearing its ugly head, and ISPs are "opposing" it, although ulterior motives are more likely to be the true reason, as found in the bottom of the article:

He said that ISPs might be willing to consider a graduated response to tackling piracy if content providers were willing to pay distribution fees to ISPs.

The rough translation of that sentence reads as "It's not really our problem, unless you pay us to make it our problem."

I think the next couple of years are going to be interesting at the very least to see what our lawmakers are going to cook up to monitor our activities (if the whole ordeal doesn't get outsourced to the private sector), and more interesting will be the creative ways around those systems.

Re:Vive La Nation

[SailorSpork]

But I won't feel much sympathy when the cut-off peasants storm his gates holding pitchforks, hot pokers and rope.

You mean old motherboards with pointy edges, unshielded power supplies and LAN cables?

Re:Vive La Nation

[NeutronCowboy]

Entertaining as the thought might be, both you and I know that this won't happen. The worst that will happen is another few cars getting lit up, which gives him another excuse to "get tough on crime".

I don't know about you, but people who engage in bossnapping, manage to shut down the capital for a day or two and get away with it, wield a bit more power than people who don't.

The big question of course is whether this will get the same attention as privatizing Renault or EDF.

tit for tat

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you just wish that polititions were subject to three strikes too? Get caught three times in a lie, or claiming invalid expenses, or outright graft, and you get a life time ban on holding any political office ( or lobbying ), don't pass go, don't collect any of your pensions, just get the f*ck out of here.

Re:tit for tat

[twidarkling]

How about jail for incorrect expenses and graft 3 times. That's more than a mistake, that's fraud. Yet politicians get away with this shit way too often, regardless of country. Can anyone name a politician that was even *fired* for it, let alone charged? They're all allowed to resign, step down, or otherwise voluntarily leave office. I think that's wrong. Most jobs, you're caught pulling that stuff, you're escorted out of the building.

Re:tit for tat

[PeeAitchPee]

No . . . just one time should be enough.

Re:tit for tat

[Archangel Michael]

YES!!!

Then we wouldn't have any politicians.

Sounds great actually, doesn't it?

Re:tit for tat

[CherniyVolk]

I had a boss, who used to suggest with total seriousness that all politicians should be sent directly to jail after they serve their terms; without trial, without jury, straight from their table to their cell.

I just laughed at this as though it's a joke. But he never showed a joking manner with his opinion. It was often haunting, but the more he insisted on a poker face when saying the more I thought about it.

His claim is that all politicians are liars, and due to the gravity of their lies (in affecting the masses), their crimes have far reaching consequences and hence they should all go directly to jail after they serve for the rest of their lives.

I used to say, 'but we would have no politicians then', to which he said 'good'.

Funny though, he didn't seem to mind the man-behind-the-curtains, in the sense of the CEO of a locally publicly traded international business... who, he never voted for, nor even could identify by name or photo, having probably done more to influence his life than any politician has. For, the politicians he blames, were told what to do by Big Business.

It's only in light of this perspective that I would agree with my boss. Not on grounds of them lying, but more on the grounds they are supposed to serve the people, and not the companies. Since their fibs are a result of Big Business, and they choose Corporate spoils over the People.

I agree with my boss. They all should go directly to jail for not protecting the People.

Re:tit for tat

[interkin3tic]

In theory that would be great. Of course, in theory, the voters should already do this themselves...

Anyway, I have confidence in the corrupting influence of political power that all that would happen is that instead of the worst politicians being very effective at apologizing and convincing the electorate that they're reformed, we'd just have bad politicians that were more effective at covering up and obfuscating their misdeeds. Or just a very fast turnover of politicians, which means the same level of corruption, but more incompetence and mismanagement than we have now.

Re:tit for tat

[ChrisMaple]

James A. Traficant was expelled from Congress and sent to jail.

Re:tit for tat

[Tom]

Actually, lying and the other stuff would be hard to prove, but a much simpler and more objective rule would hold and eliminate 90% of our current politicians: If you've voted three times for a law later found to be unconstitutional, you're obviously unfit to pass any more laws, and out you go.

Re:tit for tat

[horza]

Or, like Chirac and Berlusconi, you just pass a law granting yourself immunity from prosecution.

Phillip.

Re:tit for tat

[swillden]

I had a boss, who used to suggest with total seriousness that all politicians should be sent directly to jail after they serve their terms; without trial, without jury, straight from their table to their cell.

Years ago I read a short science fiction story (don't recall name, author or even much of the story) about a planet where the system was structured to personally reward politicians for removing regulations/crimes and in which the successful passage of a new law was finalized by the execution of the politician who proposed it. The idea was to design a legislative system such that only laws that people really *care* about can be passed. Indeed someone has to be willing to give their life.

Extreme to the point of silliness, of course, as the author intended. But still, food for thought. Is there some way a system could be structured to provide a deterrent for limiting rights, yet still provide a means for government to do what's really important?

Actually, that's one of the things I really like about the original, long-forgotten model of the United States: given a federal government whose role is restricted to the areas outlined in the Constitution, the bulk of lawmaking is done by the states, which enables citizens who dislike the laws of their current state to simply relocate to a state whose laws they like better.

But, alas, we gave up on that idea some 80 years ago when FDR bent the Supreme Court to his will and they dutifully "decided" that the Commerce Clause grants unlimited authority to the federal government.

Re:tit for tat

[Opportunist]

How many people did he have to kill 'til it couldn't be covered up anymore?

France vs. EU

[DoofusOfDeath]

So is this France's rejection of EU sovereignty in these matters?

And if so, will consequences might France experience for rejecting an EU ruling?

Re:France vs. EU

[varcher]

The consequences will be simple, and depends on how fast the Telecom pack legislation passes in Europe

1) The Conseil Constitutionnel gets mandated to have a look at the law, and the Telecom pack is already there. It will throw the HADOEPI law back to the parliament as incompatible with the EU legislation, and hence invalid. And it's all much ado about nothing.

2) The telecom pack gets delayed, and the law proceeds without major challenge (the selfsame Conseil might also invalidate the law as being incompatible with key elements of the french constitution itself, go to step 1). The telecom goes in force, and France gets X years to put his legislation back into conformance (i.e. geld the HADOEPI's extra-judicial powers) or face punitive damages.

3) The Telecom pack gets brute forced AGAINST the wishes of the european parliament, which will simply demonstrate to all europeans that EU isn't a democratic institution, and needs bigger reforms than the last treaty, and the french presidential lobby is happy, and can wield a big ban stick to cover their abnormal business model based on luxury-levels professional content duplication (in an era where anyone can duplicate any content for less than an euro cent, paying any service to create a copy of a content for you is an economic aberration)

Re:France vs. EU

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as "The EU Army". The EU is more like a council of countries and is nowhere near a central government. Yet.

Re:France vs. EU

[MrMr]

The EU parliament has reverted the proposal to the secret meetings where the first version was created. At the moment there is therefore no EU rule to reject, and everybody can make up legislation for the highest bidder as usual.

Re:France vs. EU

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

There is no such thing as "The EU Army".
Well, the French need someone to surrender to. Are there any Germans available?[/snark]

Re:France vs. EU

[chrispugh]

Technoviking's available, and they can surrender to him without looking too stupid.

Re:France vs. EU

[commodore64_love]

>>>1) The Conseil Constitutionnel gets mandated to have a look at the law, and the Telecom pack is already there.

This is what we need in the U.S. Every time Congress passes a bill, and the president signs it, it must first be passed through the Supreme Court before it becomes law. It would eliminate a LOT of bad laws, like the Patriot Act. We should amend the Constitution.

And of course, even if the three branches of the U.S. says "okay", then the 50 state courts still have the power to nullify it, and basically kick it back to the Supremes, just like now.

Re:France vs. EU

[swillden]

The EU army will declare martial law and march on France, same way the U.S. army marched on the rebellious southern states circa 1863. That's how a central government gains ultimate authority over its member states. Through force.

The parent was modded flamebait, but I wouldn't be surprised to see something like that happening in 100 years. The EU doesn't have as much authority over its member states now as the US federal government did in 1789, but it'll grow and it's not at all unlikely that it will eventually reach the point where EU member states are forcibly deprived of the opportunity of secession.

Re:France vs. EU

[plasmacutter]

The EU parliament has reverted the proposal to the secret meetings where the first version was created. At the moment there is therefore no EU rule to reject, and everybody can make up legislation for the highest bidder as usual.

[citation needed]

Re:France vs. EU

[jln]

IANAL but it seems to me this law [and any other like it] runs contrary to the UDHR.

To wit, article 19 states:

'Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.'

[source: Wikipedia - my emphasis]

According to the same Wikipedia article 'The International Bill of Human Rights consists of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [...] in 1976 [...] the Bill took on the force of international law.'

So they're up against not only EU law but international law as well.

That said, it's still going to be an uphill battle to get reconnected once you're cut off...

Re:France vs. EU

[commodore64_love]

The EU army will declare martial law and march on France, same way the U.S. army marched on the rebellious southern states circa 1863. That's how a central government gains ultimate authority over its member states. Through force.

It also helps to threaten the Supreme/Constitutional Court judges, to force them to declare clearly-unconstitutional laws as "okay" or else face the consequences - as the president did in 1935.

It's too bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Sarkozy was elected. Seems to be the worst thing to happen to France in a long time.

Re:It's too bad

[elashish14]

Indeed, worse than World War II even.

Note the careful evasion of Godwin's Rule.

Re:It's too bad

[idontgno]

Godwin'd by puppet state proxy

Sad.

[Tikkun]

We've built a network designed to share information across vast distances very cheaply. This is a very good thing.

Being able to share your movies with people across a continent the same way you would in your living room is a feature.
Allowing people to share books with one another and learn from them is a feature.
Letting people remix content from artists and share it with the world is a feature.

Telling people they cannot speak, read, listen or watch because they're part of the future and not part of the past is a bug.

Re:Sad.

[HunterZ]

Where are mod points when you need them!

Dispute resolution?

[javacowboy]

I didn't RTFA.

Is there a dispute resolution mechanism if I happen to be a Frenchman who's been falsely accused three times (I'm not French, and I haven't been accused of filesharing, I'm just curious).

Re:Dispute resolution?

[Colonel Korn]

I didn't RTFA.

Is there a dispute resolution mechanism if I happen to be a Frenchman who's been falsely accused three times (I'm not French, and I haven't been accused of filesharing, I'm just curious).

You could take it to the courts, but AFAIK there's no built-in tribunal for disputes. You might have trouble once you're there, since the law gives authority to cut your connection after three accusations by the industry, not three proven cases of infringement. If, for instance, you were to write publicly about the issue in a critical tone, the industry could say, "I don't like you" three times fast and you'd be disconnected with no clear means of recourse. They don't even have to tell you you've been accused - the warning notes are optional.

Re:Dispute resolution?

[commodore64_love]

No. After your Highspeed connection has been terminated (without due process of law i.e. a jury trial), you're forced to go back to using the telephone lines for your internet (50 kbit/s dialup). Yay.

Re:Dispute resolution?

[javacowboy]

You could take it to the courts, but AFAIK there's no built-in tribunal for disputes. You might have trouble once you're there, since the law gives authority to cut your connection after three accusations by the industry, not three proven cases of infringement. If, for instance, you were to write publicly about the issue in a critical tone, the industry could say, "I don't like you" three times fast and you'd be disconnected with no clear means of recourse. They don't even have to tell you you've been accused - the warning notes are optional.

So basically, I could:

1) Write a really bad poem in a text file called HOT_PORN.txt.
2) See to it that said text file is on a shared folder of a P2P program that logs whatever files are uploaded (ex LimeWire).
3) Run P2P program for a few minutes and ensure that file is downloaded.
4) Accuse the person with that IP address of ripping off my file 3 times.
5) Profit!

Oooops, I forgot, I'm not a major corporation, so I guess the law doesn't work in my favour.

Re:Dispute resolution?

[Mondoz]

Is there a dispute resolution mechanism if I happen to be a Frenchman who's been falsely accused three times (I'm not French, and I haven't been accused of filesharing, I'm just curious).

But have you ever been accused of being French?

If someone accuses you of being French three times, you get to pass unfair laws that no one wants.

Re:Dispute resolution?

[wvmarle]

Trial by jury is, also in the US, typical for serious crimes, such as murder/rape/etc. I hope you don't suggest that copyright infringement should fall in that category.

Re:Dispute resolution?

[commodore64_love]

>>>Trial by jury is, also in the US, typical for serious crimes, such as murder/rape/etc. I hope you don't suggest that copyright infringement should fall in that category.

Termination of your access to the national online community is as serious an offense as turning-off your electricity or phone (needed for emergencies). A person should have recourse to challenge the decision in a court.

Does France even have baseball?

[Omega]

Really, I want to know. I know it's the "American Pasttime" but is the metaphor of "three strikes" even used there?

Re:Does France even have baseball?

[ArsonSmith]

Of course they have it there. They don't call it the "World Series" because it's limited to the Americas~.

Re:Does France even have baseball?

[geekprime]

No, in the US to date the content companies WANT 3 strikes laws but none of the state legislators have been bribed enough to pass a law that will be struck down by the courts anyway.

Re:Does France even have baseball?

[whargoul]

They don't call it the "World Series" because it's limited to the Americas~.

Of course we would, our arrogance knows no bounds.

Re:Does France even have baseball?

[frenchbedroom]

Yes, there's baseball here. There's even a national federation of baseball and softball But no, we don't use baseball metaphors, here in France the law is refered only as "Loi Hadopi" or "Loi Création et Internet".

Re:Does France even have baseball?

[Talderas]

"Loi Création et Internet"

Translation:
Lol, create the Internet

Did I get it right?

Re:Does France even have baseball?

[Arthur B.]

No.

It means Creation (as in artistic creation) and Internet

Hahahah

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't hold the imgainary moral high ground against the rest of the world can you now ?

What?

[imrdkl]

Without being able to read French or refer to the previous writeup, there's no way to know what this writeup is referring to. How about a little context with my stuff that matters?

Re:What?

[Spatial]

How about a little context with my stuff that matters?

Suddenly the entire editorial staff burst out in a fit of riotous laughter.

Re:What?

[visible.frylock]

Editors?

Reading the comments? Oh, I see, 1.2M. You're new.

The French play baseball?

[DavidHumus]

Or do they translate "strike" as "coup" as in "coup de grÃce"? Which would make it "one strike" and you're out.

Re:The French play baseball?

[pwfffff]

No.

Re:The French play baseball?

[Opportunist]

Coup d'etat seems more fitting.

I doubt anyone had that in mind when they elected the gremlin.

Re:The French play baseball?

[John Hasler]

> I doubt anyone had that in mind when they elected the gremlin.

Careful. It's a crime to insult the president of France.

Re:The French play baseball?

[Opportunist]

Really? Wow, I should probably avoid going to France. Even more than I already intended.

Cant wait till they catch themselves

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

I should imagine that some French Government organization will be caught downloading allegedly illegal content. Then, of course, the government will have to follow the letter of the law and cut off its own Internet Service. That should be fun to watch. Or, someone will get fired, internet service will not be suspended and they will reference Nixon's famous quote, about if they do it its not illegal, or they will reference Bush, who followed Nixon's fine example of little emperorism.

Re:Cant wait till they catch themselves

[John Hasler]

In this sort of thing the French have been way ahead of us for centuries.

Re:Cant wait till they catch themselves

[josiebgoode]

hadopi will have to pay people for downloading content in order to verify that it is indeed illegal.

Re:Cant wait till they catch themselves

[Godwin O'Hitler]

L'Etat, c'est moi.

Not yet

[Anonymous Coward]

It has only passed the lower chamber. Now it has to be approved by the Senate with the exact same wording. In case a coma is changed, the assembly will have to debate, edit and vote again the law. Then it will have the pass the check of the constitutional council which could take down large chunks of the law. In other words, the battle is not over yet and the relief could come from Europe. Wait, fight, and see.

Re:Not yet

[o'reor]

Absolutely. Anyway, the first guy who gets his Internet service suspended because of this law can drag the case to a court, and the court will certainly make that law moot, since it does not abide by European directives.

Re:Obama

[Krneki]

This is only the beggining. Now we can see all the problems quicker and faster. Once we build better web pages we can finaly start to fix some problems.

it's a crime

[OrangeTide]

3-strikes makes it a crime to break the law too many times.

Re:it's a crime

[oldhack]

But how many times?

Re:it's a crime

[Krneki]

Still it would be nice for a court to decide when you did the first one.

Re:it's a crime

[OrangeTide]

My point is that you're being punished twice. Once for the crime and again for doing it too many times.

In California it's simple, you go back to the first violent felony you committed when counting for your three strikes. After that you can just count violent or serious felonies to add up to 3. The bar for the third strike is very low, you could commit non-violent grand theft(over $500 in CA) for your last crime.

In my opinion California has a 2 to 2.5 strikes law.

Re:it's a crime

[javacowboy]

3-strikes makes it a crime to be accused of breaking the law too many times.

There, fixed it for you.

Re:it's a crime

[hldn]

maybe you shouldn't have committed the violent felony in the first place. and after two strikes, it'd probably be a good idea not to do anything stupid, like stealing cars.

Re:it's a crime

[OrangeTide]

I've never met a criminal that thought he would get caught or punished for his crimes just before he committed them. And the ones that do think that are likely to get caught people who are committing crime out of desperation (like stealing for food, family or drug habit). The point being, habitual criminals probably aren't deterred by three strikes, and people who are desperate because the system failed them probably don't deserve a three strikes punishment.

Re:it's a crime

[erroneus]

I don't know about California's laws on domestic violence, but in Texas I was arrested twice for defending myself against my wife. (I was young and stupid... don't judge) The first time, I was restraining her wrists. The second time she was swinging a katana at me while I was holding our son. Fortunately it was before the felony charge became mandatory. I am not married to her any longer and haven't been for a very long time, but I have to say, the way the law is enforced is really very unfair and uneven. They did eventually arrest her for the assault with a deadly weapon but later dropped those charges... she wouldn't stop crying. What women get away with amazes me.

In any case, my point is that perhaps this first "violent felony" was a guy just like me or you who wanted only to prevent harm to himself where the assaulting party was a woman.

I can still see and hear the Irving, TX cops telling me "yes!" when I asked "was I supposed to just LET her kill me?" The whole experience was surreal...

Re:it's a crime

[CarlDenny]

3-strikes makes it a crime to break the law too many times.

No, being accused of something isn't a crime. If there were trials and evidence and judges, this would be a whole different matter. This law punishes people who are accused too many times.

Re:it's a crime

[iron-kurton]

Parent: No. The 3-strikes law doesn't make any convictions
GP: No. The 3-strikes law doesn't make anything a crime.
GGP: No. You cannot be punished for a crime without first being proven guilty of it.

So - the 3-strikes law allows a private company to act on the repeated accusations its customers are breaking a law (by disconnecting your internet connection).

This is akin to the electricity company cutting off your electricity because your neighbor called the electricity company 3 times to say that you are using electricity for illegal things.

Re:it's a crime

[HuguesT]

Thanks, I believe you, yet this is incredible.

Give them what they want

[Todd Knarr]

We've all seen the cases where the big media companies have been caught using people's copyrighted content without permission. There's the case just recently where Sarkozy's own party got caught at it. So, if they want three-strikes, give it to them. If you see one of their political parties using your content without permission, report them. If you find one of the big media companies there using your content without permission, report them. And demand, loudly and publicly, that the law they were so bound and determined to get, that they so loudly demanded, be followed to the letter. If it's "three strikes and you're out", then it's three strikes and they're out too.

Re:Give them what they want

[Allicorn]

Sadly, unless you're part of the cartel of industry organizations which bought and paid for this "legislation" - your complaints will be ignored.

It's not the words on the paper that define the law.
It's the money that paid for them.

Guys,

[Coraon]

Start e-mailing links to copyrighted material and get the government's internet shutdown, and if they don't shut themselves off then start suing and having them charged with corruption until they force them to repeal their bill.

3 strikes won't last 1st year of Sarkozy successor

[leftie]

It'll last about along as torture lasted into the Obama White House. France is going to have as many neo-con Presidents as it's going to have Hungarian Presidents.

Oh noes! What to do?

[durrr]

Okay so you lost internet. How many minutes does it take you to figure out that letters full of 16gb microSD cards actually have higher bandwidth than your connection? Quite abysmal ping though, but there's public acess points for the latency critical applications.

Re:Oh noes! What to do?

[atraintocry]

There was a time when most concert tape trading was done via snail mail. But nowadays it's mostly moved to torrents, and in order to find the few people that will still mail you some CDs, you need to have access to the web forums they frequent.

Re:I feel sorry for you, french people

[calmofthestorm]

Yeah I'm glad I live in the US, where our government would NEVER sell us out to business interests!

  At least they have better wine and cheese.

Defining legal authority

[Demonantis]

No one has explained the process in entirety, but it should be running through the legal system. I hate people suggesting to give ISP their own legal authority because they aren't interested in following the letters of the law. If it is running through the legal system, it will get so bogged down under the workload that they will have to suspend many of those cases for a very long time.

only grandmothers will use internet?

[tandr]

Or internet cafes will become REALLY popular places.

as for granmas... since they like to click on all these "fix your computer" and "you won" stuff, (not to forget about grandchildren that would be happy to use granmas computer), it is just a matter of time till someone will bombard the France with trickery ads that will download some easily trackable music. Once more then some percentage of population (say 15-20% ?) will not be able use internet from homes, then or the ISPs will put a blind eye on it (they losing customers), or new amendments will have to pass. Or they will create go the way as auto insurance does -- you can connect, but the fees are prohibitive.

just speculating...

Bot nets

[future assassin]

So what would happen if someone used a bot net to get half of France banned from the internet.

Re:Bot nets

[drinkypoo]

So what would happen if someone used a bot net to get half of France banned from the internet.

Freedom!

Re:Bot nets

[Kjella]

French: The new amish.

France already had one neo-con president

[quanticle]

I don't know. There's a pretty strong xenophobic bent in France and Germany (quite understandable, given that the "native" population is undergoing negative growth). So, given that, the French populace might be willing to accept someone who says that they're going to "preserve French culture", and view this sort of thing as collateral damage inflicted in the course of a greater good.

Second, you can't ignore the power of selective enforcement when it comes to these kinds of things. I mean, who's to say that the average Frenchman/Frenchwoman won't feel the effect of this legislation, while an immigrant to France will have to face all sorts of rigmarole to get their Internet service reconnected after they've been accused of illegal file sharing for the nth time. All the while, the police agencies are going to trumpet the fact that the immigrants are stealing French content and depriving hardworking French writers and artists of their due.

As I allude to in the title of this post, France already has had one neo-conservative president (Sarkozy), and the French public is fully capable of electing another.

Go Dark!

[Bob9113]

I am not a supporter of copyright infringement. I am, however, a passionate supporter of due process. If they will not abide by due process, disappear.

Start building your darknet, today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet_(file_sharing)

Don't use it for copyright infringement, that would be illegal. But use it to make everything you do on the Internet much harder to detect. If they are going to use our openness against us, we must stop being open.

It's a little hard to set up a darknet right now, but it will get better if we all work together. Now go forth and start the hard work of remaining free.

Re:Go Dark!

[Bob9113]

For urban dwellers, we can also set up city-wide off-internet wireless mesh networks (for example). Fuck the ISPs, if projects like this achieve critical mass, we'll have our own local networks with thousands of anonymous peers.

Excellent point. I often forget to mention mesh as the other leg of going dark. Going dark is only half the answer if they decide to kill encrypted comm between two non-corporate / unlicensed / unauthorized / free accounts.

Re:Go Dark!

[John Hasler]

Ok, that takes care of .001% of the population.

Re:Go Dark!

[Bob9113]

Ok, that takes care of .001% of the population.

Correction - .006% of the population. I'm going to help my brother and some of my less tech-savvy friends get hooked up.

I'm also thinking to do some documentation on what it takes to get them up to speed, so maybe .017% of the population. Maybe a YouTube video if it goes well, so perhaps .028%.

Will you help? That might get us to .043%. :)

Easy solution

[Thaelon]

There's an easy solution to this.

Disconnect France from the internet until they stop this nonsense.

Re:Easy solution

[flonker]

No need, they're doing it to themselves.

Re:Obama

[Touvan]

Doh! I didn't log in first...

A question for the French /.ers

[geekprime]

So,

How long do you think it will be before someone figures out a way to use/fake Sarkozy's IP addresses (or all government IP's?) for obviously illegal P2P and get them knocked off the net?

Re:I feel sorry for you, french people

[Dan Ost]

I was told that once they were required to pasteurize their cheeses, that the cheese selection in the EU was basically the same as what we get in the states.

Anyone with personal knowledge care to comment?

Re:Obama

[Anonymous Coward]

Consumers spending more than they earn doesn't make it right for the government to do so. Deficit spending is rarely a good thing.

Also, the government should never have a hand in the redistribution of wealth. It's, quite frankly, immoral.

"three strikes"

[meuhlavache]

Here in France we call it: "next time i'll not vote for this naboléon*" * Mix of dwarf & Napoléon

Re:"three strikes"

[mister_playboy]

/. hates your attempt at correctly rendering your language.

I find it endlessly ironic this "nerd" site can't properly render Unicode.

Re:"three strikes"

[meuhlavache]

Il fÃt un temps oà l'affichage des caractÃres spéciaux était inexistant.
Ãa a changé maintenant mais pourtant ./ ne doit pas connaitre l'UTF-8... Une véritable honte.

(hey man, forget about google translate this)

Re:"three strikes"

[lgw]

Sadle, this nerd site was written in Perl, which was a write-only language oddly popular in the 20th century. Perl scripts cannot be maintained, so they'd have to write Slashcode over again to add UTF-8 support (or add it back, didn't Slashcode support it briefly?).

Re:"three strikes"

[wvmarle]

It was supported for a while, but then trolls started to include left-to-right tags to mess up the layout of the site. And more of that kind of text flow tags exist in Unicode that can thoroughly mess up the site. Some examples exist, and are quite funny to see. Use google on the topic or so, shouldn't be that hard to find.

IIRC basically /. had a few options:

1. let the trolls have their way. Not a good idea.
2. blacklist: filter out all the offending unicode characters. Typically after the act.
3. whitelist: allow only "safe" unicode. Even more work than 2.
4. switch back to non-Unicode and mess up some non-English languages.

The last option of course was the easiest, and didn't mess up too much (after all English doesn't use those accented letters and so). I'd also like to see Unicode supported for the occasional odd character but I do understand /.'s decision to revert to the old way.

Re:"three strikes"

[lgw]

The Unicode standard includes a database (trivial to parse in Perl) that allows one to filter "safe" characters with the greatest of ease. There really is no excuse here, other than "we can't maintain the code".

Context?

[GigsVT]

What the hell is this about? 3 strikes for what? One link is in french, one doesn't really say what this is about, the the other only mentions "downloading protected content"...

So this means DRM is illegal in France? Couldn't someone write a summary that actually explains what the hell this is about?

Re:Context?

[enzooo]

2 minutes ... and the first illegal download will be one of Carlita's song ...

Re:Context?

[gowtah]

Easy, they don't. The HADOPI authority harvests IPs from swarms, and the warnings are sent on the basis that your ip being there means you are a thief. Of course, as an added bonus, you cannot argue with them, unless you have installed a gov. spyware to 'secure your connection'. Oh wait, you still can't argue with them, you have to take it to courts, after your internets have been cut off. Actually, I'm not even sure you have any right to find out where or when your IP was sniffed. I, for one, heartily welcome the latest addition to our Great French Police State.

This means you punish an entire household...

[thewils]

..for one member's transgression. If little Fabien is downloading stuff in his room then the punishment is meted out to everyone in the household who is sharing that connection. Doesn't seem right to me. Does this mean if Sarkozy's family does the crime, he should do the time also?

For the Love of Bruni

[Louis Savain]

I think that Carla Bruni, Sarkozy's wife and model/singer, is the real author of the bill. In fact, the two first met at a official function where Bruni had come to promote copyright enforcement and authors' rights. IMO, Sarkozy is just acting out of love for his wife. The man is dangerous.

Re:For the Love of Bruni

[elefantstn]

On the other hand, I find it impossible to blame him.

- Community-owned network

[janwedekind]

I think it's about time to seriously start working on a community-owned mesh network. Like Eben Moglen says:

In the 21st century, we must make the equal right to communication an engineered fact.

(full transcript)

What about spoofed IP addresses?

[thue]

Given

a) How easily it is to spoofe an IP address (as described for example at How To Frame a Printer For Copyright Infringement
b) That there is no review involved before disconnection

I wonder how long it will take before all members of the Assembly who voted for this are kicked off the net for copyright infringement...

Which nicely illustrates one reason why this is a silly law.

Re:What about spoofed IP addresses?

[John Hasler]

I take it that you have never heard of selective enforcement?

Encryption doesn't do much.

[TerranFury]

Encryption cannot solve this problem. For filesharing to work, peers who have data must somehow advertise this fact. It doesn't matter if that data is encrypted; you still know what it is and who has it.

There are only two things filesharers can do:

1. Try to restrict the people that they advertise to so that they are not caught by the authorities. Here, there are conflicting goals: In order to have lots of data available, you want the largest network possible. But in order to keep things secure, you need as few people in on it as possible. So the more pressure the copyright groups put on the networks, the more the equilibrium shifts towards smaller (and less valuable) networks.

2. Give data to intermediaries who pass it on. Either this is done with something like onion routing, or sites like rapidshare are used as the intermediaries. This relies on being able to trust the intermediaries to whom you are adjacent. There also must be some incentive for the intermediaries to pass on your data. In the case of onion routing, the incentive is that other people's traffic serves as "noise" which your own traffic can "hide" in. In the case of Rapidshare et al, it's simply cash, through a combination of paid memberships and advertising revenue.

Neither #1 nor #2 are encryption, really, though #2 may involve some.

Re:Encryption doesn't do much.

[JesseMcDonald]

Either this is done with something like onion routing, or sites like rapidshare are used as the intermediaries.

These are completely different approaches. Both use "intermediaries", but nested encryption is inherent in onion routing (and similar protocols as used e.g. by I2P), and there is no need to trust those adjacent to you, since they never know who you're communicating with or what data you're transferring. A site like Rapidshare, on the other hand, can see the content being shared as well as the IP addresses of both the uploader and the downloaders, and is thus fully capable of betraying all those involved.

There is also an additional incentive to participate in some onion-routing networks beyond the benefits of "background noise": the more bandwidth you make available to others, the better your own transfer rates become. (At least that's how I2P works.) It's rather similar to the incentive for seeding in BitTorrent itself.

Re:Encryption doesn't do much.

[Mathiasdm]

Indeed, with rapidshare, you can still easily be 'sold out' when the French government requests IPs from the rapidshare hosts.

By the way, we're already noticing the effect on I2P. The new router count is getting a huge boost today.

Bless the French

[damburger]

Someone finally has decided to take a little of the heat away from the UK as the YRO punchbag. It is good to know we aren't the only nation in the western world gleefully demolishing the institutions of a free society.

I still keep thinking to myself: How the hell did Sarkozy get elected? Nobody in France ever seemed to really like him.

Re:Bless the French

[o'reor]

I still keep thinking to myself: How the hell did Sarkozy get elected? Nobody in France ever seemed to really like him.

As a Frenchman, it seems to that Sarkozy has won on two accounts :

• He reaped on what Jean-Marie Le Pen has sowed before him: racism, hatred against ethnic minorities and against foreigners in general. He also baited working-class voters with promises of "reinstating the values of hard work", which is pretty hilarious from someone who only cares, as G.W. Bush did, for the "haves and have-mores". Now that these workers are being massively laid off with Sarkozy not even blinking, some of them are opening their eyes on what they really voted for...
• His opponent, Ségolène Royal, was presented by the Sarkozy-leaning media (owned or directed by friends of him) to be inadequate as a presidential candidate.

Re:I feel sorry for you, french people

[jawtheshark]

Pasteuriser nos fromages? Non! Mais quels barbares ces Américains!

(I'm not French, but Roquefort is not pasteurized.)

Vive La Revolution

[nobodylocalhost]

In France, we use the guillotine!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution

adding my 0.5 cences

[jabjoe]

I guess this means French file sharers will be moving to anonymous p2p programs like FreeNet, GnuNet, etc and darknets. This is silly, bring it all out in the open, money can be made if the price is low and service good, for example allofmp3.com. No rubbish about the artists will be cheated, they are badly cheated in the existing system:

Trent Reznor : "One of the biggest wake-up calls of my career was when I saw a record contract. I said, 'Wait - you sell it for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it and then you own it? Who the f**k made that rule? Oh! The record labels made it because artists are dumb and they'll sign anything'

Lets make a new system and pay the artists the lion share and let them own their music. Where an artists work can be got from multiple competing vendors. The artists and their fans is the more important thing. These fat middle men need to go on a slimfast diet and get the hell out the way. As for TV, Mark Pesce told the world that in 2005 http://www.mindjack.com/feature/piracy051305.html. Movies the same, plus we are still going to go to the cinema.

There are many ways this could work, but the world has changed and law makers legal world offers a tiny fraction of what this new world has to offer. Are they just too old fashioned? Still struggling with email let alone file sharing and hooking up the TV with the computer...

Re:adding my 0.5 cences

[achbed]

How long before using a darknet or using encryption is defined as automatically infringing copyright (for purposes of accusation anyway)? You know that's the first reaction that Big Media already is planning... that would kill all the darknets and P2P really fast.
I'm actually looking forward to this, because I'm sure that once half or more of the country is banned from the Internet, you'll have all sorts of riots (primarily because everyone who *would* be home pirating things and consuming Big Media's soulless product don't have anything better to do without the Net).

Re:adding my 0.5 cences

[jabjoe]

They can't stop computers talking to computers. Every time they block a method, a new one will be found. So your ISP only allows port 8080 with HTTP, fine, there'll be a p2p standard that converts every packet to look like a HTTP packet and send/receive them via 8080. They next step would be to allow only IP connections to IP address in a approved list. At which point people would give up on the normal internet and create some kind of mash up wireless web like can be done with OLPC.

It's just not possible to stop file sharing. They can only slow it down for short periods. People want to share, and that's what it boils down to. These people aren't stealing they are sharing, the clouds wouldn't work if everyone was taking more than they where giving.

Re: and caught it in 3...2...1...

[BForrester]

If we use big media's definition of illegal piracy, it's already occurred:

"MGMT to sue Sarkozy for music use"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7912423.stm

Fuck, and they just installed my 50mbit fibre too.

[Eunuchswear]

Ah well, just have to think of some other use for it. :-(

Ha ha ha!

[Hurricane78]

And funnily, as I said before, the first one to actually lose his first strike, was Sarkozy himself: http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE53R1V120090428

I also proposed how to make him take his medicine own the two other times too. ^^

Anonymous Coward guarantees not worth much

[leftie]

Feel confident enough in that statement to put an I.D. behind it?

Re:Obama

[lgw]

What do you think is more important - limiting the difference between the rich and the poor, or increasing everyone's standard of living? You do realize there's a trade-off between these two goals, right? If you can only do one, do you want to live better, or just make that rich bastard live worse so that you're better by comparison.

These are honest questions, not flamebait. Personally, I wish everyone well, and would like eveyrone to live as well as they can manage. But it seems a great many people are offended by others living better thna they do, regardless of how ell they live themselves, and would be quite happy to cut off their noses to spite their faces. Which camp are you in?

The BBC version

[zefrer]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8046564.stm The BBC version of this story, in english

Re: Great post indeed

[neutrino38]

These are very good arguments ...

I was more or less in favor of HADOPI (not the police side of it but the fact that it was a way to punish minor offences without going the full trial / fine even prison stuff). Now I must agree more or less with the parent post.

By rejecting HADOPI, this means that copying digital music, pictures and text is legal as long as it is released to the public.

- One alternative business model proposed was the global licence.
- are they others?

You have to be aware of the very deep consequences of permitting free copy of existing work as long as it can be digitalize. What limit should we put to this new freedom?

If we do not put any limit:

1- for artist, they will be bound to make live performances to earn some money which is a good thing. However to be able to live, a large chunk of them will "sell" their services to advertisment copanies or marketing companies. Music will become either a free art or a marketing addons.

1a - iTune music store may lower the price but not disapear as it provides a distribution service but a Deezer and other free alternative will become dominant.

2- Classical music hum ... fewer symphonic orchestra

3- what about painting and photograhies? This mean that digital copies of pictures.

4- How will be movies financed if they can be legally leaked to the Web? Is a global licence enough to cover this? Does it mean that the movie producers will be directly paid by the government?

5- Software will be able to be duplicated for free. No Microsoft anymore. Great for Linux fans but what about the general public? Software product will disapear. SaaS and Open Source + paid service will become the dominant model as this will the only source of revenue.

6 - newspaper will dies more quickly. Is it a problem?

I still beleive that there must be some limit to this copy freedom. But which one?

Reaction from the Portuguese culture minister

[seasunset]

This is the reaction of the Portuguese culture minister (another EU country):

It seems a project adapted to the French political and legal circumstances and to the country past, but I don't think it will be followed by other EU countries. ...
We (Portugal) are a country with a specific state and legal framework. We lived 48 years under dictatorship and we do not easily understand solutions that can be seen as censorship

I hope this thing won't take root in the EU. Furthermore lets see what the European Human Rights court (if somebody takes this there) says.

Encryption

[pleappleappleap]

I'm not sending encrypted traffic... I'm sending meaningless random gobbledygook. How will they tell the difference?

Please read the *whole* post before responding!

[jonaskoelker]

can you produce the movie that is on that DVD?

Had you read your parent's full post, you would have discovered this:

We still need people to create content (we call them artists).

He also says some words about editors, producers and retailers near that bit. I suggest you read it, it's quite interesting.

It puts the whole "DVDs should be cheap" bit in perspective.

Re:Please read the *whole* post before responding!

[nausea_malvarma]

can you produce the movie that is on that DVD?

Had you read your parent's full post, you would have discovered this:

We still need people to create content (we call them artists).

He also says some words about editors, producers and retailers near that bit. I suggest you read it, it's quite interesting.

It puts the whole "DVDs should be cheap" bit in perspective.

Artists won't go away just because they get paid less. Speaking as an artist myself, I can testify that it's a calling, and most artists would keep on doing what they love, even if they didn't get paid. Of course, they'd have a smaller budget... but good things can still be made on the cheap. Audio equipment and software has become so cheap that ordinary people on a shoestring budget can produce an album surpassing the typical audio quality of major bands, and the way things are going, movies will become just as cheap and easy to make.

The notion that art will somehow stop unless the MAFIAA gets total leeway in prosecuting pirates is a widely propagated myth.

Hadopi Law: Spyware Provisions

[boombaard]

For the more shocking news, read this:

An element of Hadopi which hasn't received much or enough attention as yet, is a section which specifies steps that can be taken by computer users to ensure that they will not be found liable under the new regime. The following is a rough translation of the relevant sections, taken from the text of the law in its current state, as found here. Bear with me, it is torturous, some explanatory notes are added in bold...

Art. L. 331-30. â" After consultation with those developing security systems designed to prevent the illicit use of access to a communication service to the public online (internet!), or electronic communications, people whose business it to offer access to such a service (ISPs) as well as those companies governed by title 2 of the book (Intellectual Property Code) and rightsholders organizations (ie SACEM etc), the High Authority will make public the pertinent functional specifications that these measures must comprise so as to be considered, in its eyes, as valid exoneration of the responsibility of the access subscriber (internet user!) as defined in article L. 336-3.
At the end of a certified evaluation procedure, and taking into consideration conformity with the specifications set out in the previous paragraph and their effectiveness, the High Authority will issue a list certifying the security software whose use will validly exonerate the access holder (internet user!) from their responsibility under the terms of article L. 336-3. This certification will be periodically revised.

Mmmh. So what the law intends is to set up a meeting between consultation with security software vendors, antipiracy organizations and ISPs to decide what software you need to install on your machine, so that they can be sure that you behave yourself. If you don't fancy installing their device, then you'll just have to swallow any liability consequent to someone else using your machine or accessing your connection.

Art. L. 336-3. â" The access holder to an online service of communication to the public (internet!) or electronic communications is obliged to ensure that thus access is not used for purposes of reproduction, display, making available, or communication to the public, of works protected by copyright or a neighboring right, without the authorisation of the holders of those rights set out in books 1 and 2 (of the Intellectual Property Code), where required.

Failure to satisfy the obligation set out in the preceding paragraph can result in a punishment according to the conditions defined by article L. 331-25.
No sanction can be taken regarding the access holder in the following cases:
1. If the access holder (internet user!) installed on of the security systems appearing on the list mentioned in the second paragraph of article L. 331-30;
2. If the attack on the rights set out in the first paragraph of the present article is the work of a person who has fraudulently used the access to the online communication service;
3. In case of force majeure.
The failure of the access holder to the obligation defined in the first paragraph will not have the effect of imposing criminal liability.

Apart from finding the last paragraph a bit puzzling â" the list of exceptions exempts from all liability, the coda refers only to criminal liability â" and the language atrocious, it's obvious the whole framework is mad and unacceptable. Imposing such strict liability unless users agree to install spyware, almost certainly connected to remote databases, is intrusive as well as dangerous.
How can this not amount to a wholesale surveillance of online activity? Who will have access to the data collected and transmitted by these 'security systems' (sic), and how will that access be managed? Will the security systems be transp

Re:Hadopi Law: Spyware Provisions

[Opportunist]

So, essentially, to increase my security (after all, that's what this is about, riiiiiiight?) I should install spyware?

I was always wondering in what world some copyright proponents live, now I know: In Bizarro world.

Re:Hadopi Law: Spyware Provisions

[Meski]

So, essentially, to increase my security (after all, that's what this is about, riiiiiiight?) I should install spyware?

Right. It can go on my sandbox.

Swap club.

[w0mprat]

So what? If P2P declines people may go back to piracy by swapping hard drives. Bittorrent et al has been successful for the convenience of kicking off downloads coming back a later and they are all done. Before bittorrent the majority of stuff was shared on writable CD/DVDs. All the while portable storage has been going up in capacity and down in price. We're a few years away from cheap thumb drives and flash cards in the 100gb and 1TB range. Suddenly your collection of blu ray rips is going to get a lot more portable.

Do not underestimate the bandwidth of carrying a 1TB external drive in your pocket.

The first rule about Swap Club is you don't talk about swap club...

Mass Disconnects?

[achbed]

So who's gonna be the first to send complaints about the entire *.fr domain for copyright infringement? And send it repeatedly? If it's 3-strikes you're out, we could get all of France kicked off really damn fast... Wait, Handbrake comes from there. Could this be related???

Yeah, but...

[jonaskoelker]

How many minutes does it take you to figure out that letters full of 16gb microSD cards actually have higher bandwidth than your connection?

To

Gottfrid Svartholm
The Pirate Bay
Bergmansgate 11
101 23 Stockholm

Yo, Anakata. Which torrentz u got? Please give me all your CSI: Miami, and some anime, and Call of Duty, and some Metallica.

(five weeks later)

To

Jonas KÃlker
Fupmagerstræde 42
1234 Ugyldigt Postnummer

Here you go. Had to deal with the other 100,000 people who wanted a slice of my time.

Note how I left out "yo, what torrents you got?", and a hefty postal fee for sending hundreds of sheets of paper with a torrent list.

Having a global index of stuff is really nice; it means I don't have to wait for data to propagate through the "wants to share" edges in the global friend graph.

Doing it while spending very little time is also a nifty thing.

(TPB's address is made up; my own translates as "Con-man street 42, 1234 Invalid Postal Code")

Can this be enforced?

[shiba_mac]

In France, do you have to give your social security number to get an internet connection? Or pay by direct debit from your own bank account? If not, what's to stop people signing up with a false name and paying in cash?

Re:Can this be enforced?

[John Hasler]

> In France, do you have to give your social security number to get an internet connection?

I would guess that you must show your government ID card. What's the difference, though? Looks to me as though it is going to be effectively addresses that will be banned, not people.

> If not, what's to stop people signing up with a false name and paying in cash?

I believe that using a false name is a crime in France (though I would not mind learning that I am wrong about this).

Back to inquisition?

[Opportunist]

The inquisition trials were, essentially, no different from this. No, not because they were religiously motivated.

The core feature of an inquisition trial is that accuser and judge are the same person. Also, the accuser can (actually, has to) operate without an external accuser, whenever he considered something worthy of opening a trial on his own account. There is also no external or independent investigation, everything was supposed to happen during the trial.

Now, I doubt that any fact finding will ever be done. It seem a "WITCH!" call from the IFPI would be enough to accuse and close the verdict.

Now, back in medieval times the inqusition trials might have been a step forwards (from judgements of God or such), today they feel a little ... well, self serving. And we know how much good the practice has done to the esteem the church was held. It lingers 'til today. "Inquisition" still has a very bad ring to itself, we identify it with torture, false confessions and predetermined verdicts.

While this was anything but true for the (Roman) inquisition (not the Spanish, ok?), I guess that shoe would fit quite nicely to this modern form.

Re:Obama

[Touvan]

The question is, which outcome will lead to a stable and prosperous society. Best evidence shows that humans decide whether they are prosperous based on their comparisons to their neighbors. The gap between the super wealthy and the very poor, therefor is the problem - especially as the middle and working classes continue to get poorer, while the very wealthy throw toga parties.

You did raise a false choice, based on some invalid conclusions. History has shown us that when the middle and lower classes prosper, so do the upper classes. That stands in stark contrast to the conditions that arise from an imbalance in the distribution of resources like the imbalance that exists today - hunger, homelessness - instability, violence. Check the news, we are solidly on our way.

I don't wish to live in a third world country, one like the state of things during the gilded age, with sweat shops and child labor. But that is where we are headed based on the evidence (high unemployment numbers, lower and decreasing median income numbers against inflation, low debt free homeownership, high personal debt rates, violent attacks on police and other random acts, etc.) of recent years - even before the economic problems of recent months (though that did accelerate already worsening problems).

The working and middle classes have been pretending to be prosperous, utilizing large amounts of credit card debt (that bubble is next to pop by the way), in addition to the obscene amount of housing debt they had been collecting. The reality is, they couldn't, and still can't afford to live that kind of life. The funny thing about credit - it's a loan, and it costs money. People were naive to believe that a loan or a credit card made them more wealthy.

More of the same is more of a shift in wealth to the already wealthy while the rest of us get poorer, and lose out homes (again, the evidence is clear here). The fix is easy enough, we just need to will to do it. Spread the wealth around (the opposite of what is happening now) through fairer compensation laws - no need for handouts. And we even have history to show us how well that works - take a look at the New Deal (a deal put in place to stave off socialism, not to encourage it - gotta get with the history!). More people prosper in that situation - including the very wealthy.

Also, I couldn't care less about their perceived money problems, just to express my actual anger at these people and their greedy entitlement mentalities. ;-P

Also, also, I appreciate the moderate tone you took with your comments. We could use more of that. The yelling is not productive. :-)

Re:I feel sorry for you, french people

[John Hasler]

Unpasteurized cheese is readily available in the USA.

Re:I feel sorry for you, french people

[josiebgoode]

I guess they would, but they won't. A local gastronomy label, called AOC ("appelation d'origine controlée" or "controlled term of origin") helps to maintain the present diversity.

Large European milk processing companies such as Lactalis tried to impose pasteurized camemberts under the original gastronomy label AOC reserved to the raw milk version. But they failed!

According to Le Figaro, in 2007, Lactalis, a large European dairy company, stopped all production of raw milk cheese pretexting that such cheese sold by one of its concurrents, a small cheese maker from Normandy called Reo, were laced with listeria. Reo produced contradictory reports, lost some money but survived. So, Lactalis did it again in March 2008. Again, Reo produced proof otherwise. Alarmed, the small local dairies organized themselves and imposed the AOC label for raw milk cheese. This was confirmed by decree in January 2009.

Some have called for lincensing Internet access

[John Hasler]

These are the first steps in that direction.

Re:Once your banned

[Voice of satan]

You are banned for a year. And in the original version of the law you have to pay your isp for your non access during that year. I don't know if that part has been lifted.

And a brand new dual use for a botnet opens up..

[gwait]

Oh great, some smartass with a botnet could get all of France banned from the internet..

Re:I feel sorry for you, french people

[jawtheshark]

In that case the original posters theory falls apart, doesn't it? I was just pointing (with a bit humour) out that unpasteurized cheese exists within Europe. You point out that it exists within the US (and is most likely also imported into the US, so it can't be an import restriction. I cannot imagine that Roquefort isn't available in the US). Conclusion: it's not pasteurisation.

Re: Great post indeed

[Fred_A]

I was more or less in favor of HADOPI (not the police side of it but the fact that it was a way to punish minor offences without going the full trial / fine even prison stuff).

The main problem of this law wasn't the concept which in my eyes was more or less ok as well, but the fact that it didn't involve the judiciary system at all.
Therefore the "punishment" was dealt without process of law (for reasons of efficiency I presume). This bit is also what made the EU reject it.

I believe there is some sort of office to be set up to deal with complaints and balance the whole thing. I'm not sure if that will work.

Simple solution

[Karem Lore]

Ban all distribution of copyrighted material, legal or otherwise, over the internet...Then the music companies will have what they want but at a cost that will hurt them. Let's see if they are will to pay the price...

Yay for surveillance

[Peaker]

Yay for surveillance society in order to enforce copyrights!

Re:Obama

[lgw]

History has strongly shown that when the government attemps to redistribute wealth, the economy grows slower. We did the experiment, worldwide, for decades. American-style sort-of-free market results in economic growth about 2% higher than socialism, and totalitarian communism results in basically no growth (though it's hard to measure the black markets).

2% a year is huge. That doubles your standard of living in 36 years. So you can get ahead for a generation or two with weath redistribution schemes, but your grandchildren will really suffer for your free ride.

Factually, the American standard of living has been on a huge and steady upswing since WWII. The growth in standard of living due to technology dwarfs any effect from concentration of wealth, and the wealth of Gates et al is the carrot that drives that investment in technology. History is full of societies where breakthrough technological ideas went no where because there was no great reward for risking your wealth on some new idea.

Also, there's nothing that legally prevents you from becoming wealthy. I grew up in a trailer park in the mountains. In my late 20s I was $40K+ in debt. Then all that changed was my understanding, and now I have substantial net worth, and despite the current economic mess I might still retire at 50.

Seriously, assuming you're willing to work (and get enough education to contribute usefully to society: I didn't finish college, but I learned enough), all you need to do in America to become one of those rich bastards is to think correctly about money, wealth, and possessions. There's no secret conspiracy to join, you don't need to choose the right parents, or have political influence. That's the greatest thing ever - let's not mess it up.

Re:Obama

[Touvan]

You started with a false choice again. I don't want socialism, or authoritarianism, or any other ism. There is a vast middle ground, and my position falls between socialism and capitalism, where there is also a vast range (both of which are economic systems, neither of which can be "authoritarian" - that falls within the realm of the political system). Western European countries, the US, and Japan are all examples of countries who's economic systems are mixed markets - where government has some control or influence in some areas, but stays out of others. We've always been that, it's just a matter of applying that power appropriately, to achieve the outcomes you desire.

I'm suggesting that we slightly alter some of the rules, to reverse the existing redistribution of wealth from the rest of us to the wealthy, which is what has been going on for decades, to a system that simply makes sure funds are being utilized and shared more fairly. That always increases national wealth - every time, and I frankly don't care if the very wealthy have to wait twice as long to double their money - they already have plenty to start with.

Also, another bad "fact" - my generation has not seen the benefits you espouse with your 2% a year figures, or your assertion that there is a rise in standard of living - in real dollars, after a generation that flattened out, our generation is the first to make less than the previous generation. That is a direct result of the redistribution of wealth from the rest of us to the wealthy. The evidence is there - we just need to put our ideology away, and take a look at it.

Your last points border on silly, and don't seem to have any basis in data, but here goes - legal limitations aren't the only limitations, there are systemic economic limitations too - right now the markets we have favored investment, which means you must start with something to invest. Working people, and even the middle class, who earn a weekly, or bi-weekly salary, don't often start with money to play around with, to risk on investments. Those classes can't even get in the game.

I'm glad the social safety nets, and the institutions that gave you the opportunity to succeed were in place when you were younger- they have not been in most places for a while now - schools are underfunded, healthcare is out of reach, and lacking in quality anyway, and on and on. The evidence is clear - fewer people are making it, more are falling through the cracks. The data simply doesn't support your assertions that we the working and middle classes in America (or Europe for that matter) are any better because of the system that has been in place - the system where wealth has been re-distributed upward, toward those who already have more than their fair share.

If you think it's the money guys, the investment guys, the derivative guys that are going to innovate us out of this economic mess we are in, please re-evaluate. We need doctors, teachers, inventors and scientists, and they can't be concerned primarily with how to keep a roof over their heads. They must be focused on doing their jobs the best they can. These problems are easy to solve. We just need to pay people more fairly for their work - and stop pretending everyone can be an investment banker. That kind of thinking doesn't lead to a more prosperous, better society - even if a few (an increasingly few) people can become very rich.

Finally - most of that wealth you mentioned turned out to be derivative and default swapped vapor. That's not even wealth - that's fantasy.

The bill is a disaster

[HuguesT]

The bill is a disaster. It will rely on honeypots for P2P traffic set up by big media. Competent "pirates" have already started using VPNs, they will never get caught.

Inevitably there will be mistakes made by big media just like there were in the case of *IAA in the US. There will be big sob stories, appeal to the European court of justice and someone will have to pay compensations, all for the pityful download of a few music tracks. Years down the track this bill will have to be overturned.

A complete waste of time. The only good thing is that about 40 MP from the majority abstained from the vote, indicating that even the majority has serious misgivings about this. Hopefully this will help cause Sarkozy lose his reelection.