Slashdot Mirror
French Elections Could Affect HADOPI, ACTA
bs0d3 writes "From having a position in the development and support of ACTA, to implementation of HADOPI, to imposing an internet tax to pay for music; France has been at the forefront of anti-piracy legislation. This week, it has been announced that current President and anti-piracy advocate Nicolas Sarkozy is unlikely to win the next election. His leading opponent is a man named Francois Hollande. Hollande has in the past opposed both ACTA and HADOPI (France's 3 strikes law). Hollande believes that ACTA, 'originally intended to combat counterfeiting trade[,] was gradually diverted from its objective, in the utmost discretion and without any democratic process.' At the same time, Hollande is also strongly against piracy. 'Piracy has been costly,' Hollande said, 'but I do not think that law enforcement alone is the answer to the problem.' Will internet issues be of concern to the voters in France? It certainly is to the rest of us internet users."
Considering Sarkozy got only 1% less of the vote than Hollande in the first round, it's far too early to call it. All the folks that voted for other candidates will pick 1 of the 2 in the next round, and considering the massive amount of votes that went to Le Pen...we might very well be seeing more of Sarkozy.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
If only Germans would get rid of Merkel and Dutch of their freaky Wilders things in Europe would already look a lot different and imported ideas of "freedom" from USA including SOPA, CISPA would be laughed at and rejected with an ease. Soon...
Confusing France and Nazi Germany is just fucking dumb.
(+1, Disagree)
What a bold idea.
I believe he says that repressive measures in general are not the ultimate answer... At least I hope.
"will you convert? No no'
'Will you confess? NOnoi'
Well then
BRING ON THE NUNS!!!
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
Huh? How'd this make the front page? French internal politics? And such a narrow, parochial viewpoint, too. "A man named Francois Hollande"? That's the best we can do to characterize the man? How about this snippet from The Wikipedia, the Source of all Knowledge: "On 16 October 2011, Hollande was nominated to be the Socialist and Left Radical Party candidate in the 2012 presidential election." Funny how his party affiliation is omitted from the summary. What, it's not relevant?
And not a word about how his #1 rival for the Socialist candidacy, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was very conveniently removed from contention from the French race by being arrested in New York on the shocking charge of rape. Let's quote The Holy Wikipedia again: "On June 30, 2011, the New York Times reported that the case was on the "verge of collapse" because of problems with the credibility of the alleged victim, who had, according to sources within the NYPD, repeatedly lied to the police since making her first statement.[57] According to prosecutors, the accuser admitted that she lied to a grand jury about the events surrounding the alleged attack." Had this rape accusation not happened, DSK would be the nominee going against Sarkozy and not "a man named Francois Hollande."
Hey, I'm not saying socialism is bad. It's been a good influence on Western culture in general. Pretty much every item on Marx's Communist Manifesto has been put into law in all Western countries as well as the United Nations. I'm saying let's put the party affiliation right up there where everyone can see...instead of referring to Hollande purely by gender as "a man". Is there anything to be ashamed of?
I'm also questioning the relevance of some random country's internal politics for a Slashdot front page story, even couched in terms of internet freedoms. And the "from the strategic-surrender-in-order-sometimes dept." part of the story is just a cheap shot. America wouldn't even be an independent republic without help from the French. We'd just be a constitutional monarchy like Canada, with a foreigner as our Head of State. What the hell, Slashdot?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
<diabolical scare chord>
No-one expects the French Inquisition!
CDs have been known to hold songs, so everyone who buys cds must be forced to pay tribute to Hollywood! This is so weak. I use CDs to backup my code, but I still have to pay off the RIAA/MPAA because they legislate.
God spoke to me
Well... Marshal Pétain did it, and a lot of others besides.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
What has what a politician says in opposition got to do with what they'll do if they get into power?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Confusing France and Nazi Germany is just fucking dumb.
You reckon?
You mean a group of organisations which don't shy away of using lies to see the law passed is better in your eyes, eh? After all, SS was equally a "protection squad"... even if the subject of protection was not quite the interest of the part of the German society that preferred democracy and freedom of expression... Besides, you know?, shit will happen when the things are rushed by organisations showing little respect for due process.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Sarkozy on the other hand is as genuine as it gets, and he will always have my admiration for being able to render an islamic activist speechless during a television interview (those guys usually won't stop babbling). Sarkozy is the guy that ordered the woman in charge of budget cuts to downsize her own team - that was awesome. He tried to open eyes in France to
as appalling as your admiration for this guy's virtues is, you have a point in that it is actually this kind of mindset what motivates most voters, and that this bullshit is what democracy turns out to be all about. very sad.
the danger of having insanely generous social programs (ask the Greeks)
so we should ask the greeks about their "insanely generous social programs"? funny guy.
The reason for France being at the forefront of anti-piracy things is Vivendi SA. And it won't make the slightest bit of difference whom is elected president. Vivendi are still there, and still in the pockets of anyone they need to be.
Of course it had nothing to do with the Greek government not actually collecting any taxes.
so we should ask the greeks about their "insanely generous social programs"? funny guy.
Yes, you should. They drove the country to the very brink of bankruptcy.
greece has never had any "social programs" worth to mention whatsoever. they just had massive state employment. but that they have had for decades without "driving to the very brink of bankruptcy". they are almost broke now, thanks to political corruption and financial speculation and incidentally germany and france had plenty to do with it, not to forget goldman sachs.
I think you're confusing "massive defrauding of governments on social programs" with "insanely generous social programs".
They have shit like islands with almost ten percent of people being registered as legally blind. It's simply widespread fraud that's become the "way of the land". It has little to nothing to do with social programs themselves and everything to do with massive corruption and self-centred cultural issues.
Sarkozy has a tendency of burying himself in debates at least as much as eating his opponents alive. He has a sharp tongue, and it bites him back quite often.
Let's just conveniently ignore Spain, shall we, and invalidate any argument by calling in Godwin's Law?
Not to the brink. Greece is actually bankrupt, having defaulted on it's debt.
Not to the brink. Greece is actually bankrupt, having defaulted on it's debt.
greece hasn't defaulted yet. second "rescue" plan avoided that for now.
it seems you guys really do not only read just the same shitty mainstream media, but don't even understand what's written there.
am I the only one who read 'french erections ...'
There is nothing wrong with "flipflopping". One of the most successful chancellors of Germany is often quoted with "What do I care about my chitchat from yesterday?".
If new information changes the situation, if one gets convinced that the own stance was misguided, why not make up your mind and change your opinion? People unable to react if circumstances change and old concepts cede to work should not be the masters of our fate.
Actually, his father is hungarian, and his mother, while french, is of jewish-greek origin.
> Sarkozy is the guy that ordered the woman in charge of budget cuts to downsize her own team He is also the one who increased the president's salary by 50 %. A month after he got elected. Nice, ain't it?
and incidentally germany and france had plenty to do with it, not to forget goldman sachs.
You're blaming Germany and France? Really? Also, blaming Goldman Sachs is like blaming Visa for your high credit card debt. Sure, they are evil enablers, but it's your own stupid fault.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
greece hasn't defaulted yet. second "rescue" plan avoided that for now.
Did investors take a 'haircut'? Then it's a default, no matter what else you want to call it. They couldn't pay their bills and needed to restructure.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
They understand using nuclear power and do it well
SAECM is better than NTSC - tv standards
They were bright enough to go with the Chunnel, despite it taking longer than one election cycle
They do not support Donald Trump for President
They gave the USA the Statue of Liberty and were critical in the Revolutionary War
Maybe they can help in the fight with the RIAA
CDs have been known to hold songs, so everyone who buys cds must be forced to pay tribute to Hollywood! This is so weak. I use CDs to backup my code, but I still have to pay off the RIAA/MPAA because they legislate.
Hmm, you must be Canadian.
On the other hand since you have already paid tribute, I presume you can copy all the songs you want.
Greece's social programs are pretty pitiful. Scandinavia, now there is somewhere with generous social programs. Greece doesn't even have free universal healthcare, and its unemployment insurance is a joke compare to the norms in Scandinavia.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Evil enablers - think about it this way - is a single evil doer more evil, or is a evil enable that encourages 100 people do evil, more evil?
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
If you make a deal with the devil, who is the stupid one, you or the devil?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Did investors take a 'haircut'? Then it's a default, no matter what else you want to call it. They couldn't pay their bills and needed to restructure.
No.
A negotiated restructuring is not the same as a default.
No matter how you slice it or play at words, it isn't the same.
That said, what the Greeks did was a defacto orderly default.
But because they got everyone on board, they don't have to call it one.
Greece is the perfect example of:
"If someone owes you $10 bucks, they have a problem. If someone owes you $1,000,000,000 you have a problem."
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
During this campaign, François Hollande sent many contradictory signals regarding Hadopi, the anti-piracy legislation. At the beginning of 2012, he said he would abrogate this law. Later he said he would just modify it. Finally he published a letter where he stood aside of the rights holder against pirates, and claimed he would "gather everyone around a table", a trick he used on many topics he wanted to evade. So, even if Hollande is elected (he probably will), no one knows whether he will actually change anything.
Now, on a sidenote, on why French internal policies may have their place on headlines:
* France and Germany are the most influent countries in Europe and a shift of their positions could change the European ones. And since Europe is the first economic power in the world and gathers 27 countries, international treaties and regulations are worthless without it. Here is why such a topic may be of importance.
* If USA's internal policies are on the headlines, why not other countries? Not all of the American policies reported on Slashdot matters for people outside of the USA (95% of the world, the rest of us).
So, yes, a shift in French position regarding the Internet regulation would matter and should be on Slashdot. This news, however, I don't think so.
And they also work more hours per year than people in the USA, the UK, France or Germany. But who cares about economical facts as long as one can go with sterotypes and urge us to look at Greece to justify anti-social, anti-taxes and anti-regulation programs?
A negotiated restructuring is not the same as a default. No matter how you slice it or play at words, it isn't the same.
Either way, you can't (or are unwilling to) pay back your loans, and your creditor loses money. Details of what you want to call it are unimportant.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You're making it sound as if these politicians have an epiphany and change their opinion for good reasons. What really happens is that they look at polls, realize that the position that they had been arguing for/against doesn't chime that well with the voters (for instance because, after primaries, they now have to appear to the median voter and "moderates"), so they shamelessly switch positions and now argue as vehemently the exact opposite of what they had been saying before.
When you have been on both sides of an issue and back and the guiding principle seems to be which way the wind blows, you're not someone who is good at adapting to new circumstances. You're just a cynical liar.
The amount of hatred she gets directed against her is impressive, But almost all of it is from white men, including members of her own political party. For every "backward" Muslim in the UK, I suspect we can produce at least 10 equally backward white Brits.
You would think that demonising the Muslims would take the pressure off the Jews, the previous candidates of people like the GP for planned world domination. But in their minds it's simple - white people of nominally Christian background should naturally rule the world, so anybody else is a threat. At least, unlike the USA, in this country you can be openly gay or an atheist and still get elected to political office.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
It already exists. Some research suggests that Ecstasy is a gateway drug to more socially liberal attitudes. Why do you think so many politicians are so afraid of it?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
No he didn't. Learn some history. In WW1, Pétain alone of all the commanders was horrified by the loss of life and did his best to reduce the exposure of soldiers to trench warfare, even rotating much of the French army through Verdun so that nobody would have to spend too long at the Front. He made peace with Germany in WW2 because he did not want a repetition of the destruction. Pétain never supported the Nazis; he tried to minimise their impact. After the war he was vilified by the Resistance, which was understandable, but he seems fundamentally to have been a good man who did his best for France as he saw it. Unless you have taken the trouble to study WW1, especially Verdun, I don't think you should aim casual smears at Pétain.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
No.
A negotiated restructuring is not the same as a default.
No matter how you slice it or play at words, it isn't the same.
Greece first passed a law lowering the trigger value for their collective action clause (CAC) from 95% to 66% in best Star Wars fashion: "I've altered our deal. Pray that I don't alter it further" then a few days later activated their CAC to force the participation from 83.5% to 95.7% - the remaining 4.3% was in foreign jurisdiction where they couldn't do this money grab. The result of this is that all rating companies declared this as a default because:
As we have previously stated, we may view an issuer's unilateral change of the original terms and conditions of an obligation as a de facto restructuring and thus a default by Standard & Poor's published definition
In short, Greece did not reach a voluntary deal. They changed the deal without the consent of the debt holders. The credit default swaps (CDS) were triggered. Nobody that matters (and hint: Greece doesn't matter) considers this anything but a default. In fact, they probably made it worse for themselves and any other country with national debt. Don't like the deal? Pass a law and make a new one...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
doesn't chime that well with the voters... so they shamelessly switch positions
Why shameless? After all, they are there to represent the will of the people, so changing policy to match popular opinion seems not only sensible but a morally good thing to do.
You absolute fucking retard. Seriously. You are so scared of boogeymen conjured up by the media you can no longer think for yourself. What a waste of a brain.
If I go to a customer with my concept of a solution, and the customer comes back to me with some changes he wants, I will incorporate them in my concept, if possible or feasible. It does not mean that I am "flipflopping" about my concepts. It just means that I listen to my customer and will provide him with a solution as optimal as possible fit to his needs.
But if a politican goes to his electorate with a concept how to govern, and the electorate (via polls) comes back with some changes, he should be barred from changing his concepts? Don't we want politicans who listen to the people? Do we really want stubborn executors of some pre-stabilized ideology instead?
Only in Germany so far... wait at least 'til all of Europe had a few elections, I don't really remember a lot of elections recently (that weren't just personal elections like prez elections where being third is just being second loser).
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Well, let's put it that way, if a sizable portion of the money Greece gets as bailouts has to be used to buy submarines from Germany and frigates and helicopters from France, I cannot help but wonder if there has been an ulterior motive for the whole deal...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Scandinavia's are definitely higher, but it's not really "nothing at all" in Greece. Denmark collects about 50% of GDP in taxes, while Greece collects about 30% (that's more than the U.S. collects!).
The bigger problem is that Greece's GDP per capita isn't that high, because the economy is disproportionately small-time industry and agriculture. Scandinavia has Lego, Maersk, IKEA, whereas Greece has thousands of tavernas, shopkeepers, and shepherds. In a global capitalist economy, Maersk beats scrappy small businessmen, no matter how scrappy they are.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Well, if the Greeks WOULD pay their tax, it might be different. :)
But I don't mind our tax (I pay about 50% given my income), as long as I get something back from it. And when I look around myself, I can't help but agree that it's well spent money.
Retirement? Covered. Unemployment? 6 months of getting my current paycheck, then getting enough to survive on. Sick leave? Indefinite, with payment, and all medical expenses (ok, safe a few bucks participation) covered. Injury/health? Covered, no limit. Crime? Lowest in Europe (yes, despite 10% immigrant rates, dear xenophobes). Unemployment level? Around 5%. Public transport? 6 minutes intervals during the day, 15 minutes during the night (at least in cities > 200.000 people). Roads? In perfect repair (though I have to pay extra to use highways). Power/gas/water? Very affordable. Food? Basic food (bread, butter, milk...) is subsidized, you can survive on 3 bucks a day if you really have to (no need to kill old grannies for their purse, even if you have nothing at all). Education? Free until university level, then it's about 400-1000 tuition fee a year.
Should I go on?
And all that on a tax level that the average US citizen would have revolted long ago.
But tell me, who's better off? Me, or a Greek?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
He just anticipated the inflation he planned.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Well, I'd still prefer a talking head who doesn't know what he wants to a talking head who knows what he wants and it's exactly the opposite of what I want. At least there's a chance he might flip-flop on my side from time to time, compared to never.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For the record, Adenauer (the "flip-flopper" in question) was about as die hard conservative as they come, he'd make Bush senior look like a liberal leftie in comparison.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
He could be European too, the same shit comes down in most EU countries.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
... has not been a radical party for over a century. It's /always/ been to the right of the Socialists.
I cannot help but wonder if there has been an ulterior motive for the whole deal...
There is. German and French banks are among the biggest creditors of Greece. So a large part of it has likely been to keep the French and German banks from collapsing. The also locked Greece into a stricter deal, which says on their new bonds, they cannot default, unlike their old bonds. I'm not sure how likely they will be to enforce that, though.
Also, over recent months, the European central bank has been loaning money cheaply to regional European banks (ie, French and German), who then loan the money to indebted governments of Europe. The point of this exercise is to give free money to the banks in interest payments. Eventually the whole thing will collapse, but it won't be the first time, or even the second, and we will survive.
It would be interesting to know how much France and Germany pressured Greece to not make cuts in defense spending. They do have medium-warm conflict going on with Turkey.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."