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French Court Levies First Fine Under 3-Strikes Piracy Law
itwbennett writes "In the first trial resulting from the controversial three-strikes copyright law, a French court on Thursday fined a man €150 for failing to secure his Internet connection. His negligence led to the illegal download of files, including two Rihanna songs that were downloaded by his wife."
Apparently in France, it is a man's responsibility to police the behavior of his wife. After all, women are property.
France, out of nowhere, is suddenly showing surprising competitiveness in the "Passing dumbass laws so the rest of the world can see what a bad idea they are" department.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
Either marriage is very different in France or this is a bizarre ruling.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
The fine wasn't for her copyright violation, it was for his negligence.
Here's a more appropriate analogy:
In my state, you're required to have an emergency exit for every bedroom. The apartment I used to live at, before my roommates sued, had a bedroom with only one exit. This would be equivalent to punishing the landlord had my roommate fallen asleep with a lit cigarette and been killed/injured in the fire because he couldn't escape easily due to the building not being up to code.
The appropriate thing to be outraged about is not that he is being held responsible for his wife's crimes -- they're saying he was negligent and that's a pretty well accepted concept. The thing to be outraged about is that they've decided that having an open wifi network is negligent. I intentionally disable the security on mine...what would they call that? Conspiracy? Aiding and abetting?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/11/1740241/8th-circuit-upholds-220000-verdict-in-jammie-thomas-case
In the USA it's $9250 per song. In France it's â75 ($190 US) per song.
The penalty in France seems to me to be proportionate and sane. The person penalized did, or allowed to be done, something illegal but not especially malicious or very damaging. They face a penalty which will certainly be unwelcome and which will probably encourage them to act within the law. No huge court case, no lives wrecked, no lawyers riding the gravy train. *This is how a legal system is supposed to be.* That is the difference between "The Rule of Law" and "The Rule of Lawyers".
No, it's advocating violence against men - which, my political correctness compass tells me, is absolutely fine.
150 euro fine, in fact.
Give them time... they only sent out 1,000,000 warning letters so far... there'll be some poor sap who downloaded a Disney movie and he'll be on the hook to bail out Greece...
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Downmodded because: 1. you can't even spell "faggot" and 2. the only people who use "faggot" as an insult are those that are too stupid to think of anything else.
Now, kindly piss off and get back to doing your homework. Those fractions aren't going to denominate themselves! Before you do go, since I'm not all bad, I'll even help you with your book report; the dog gets his red ball back then goes to rabbit's birthday party.
I also wish for a pony.
Rare, medium or well done?
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Well, it's not very rare, definitely not well done, and I don't think it can tell the future.
it's not a troll to tell someone that advocating violence against women is wrong.
The problem is that you have made the leap from telling a joke about domestic violence to seriously advocating violence against women. That is a flawed argument. People make jokes about all sorts of subject, but it doesn't mean that they are making serious comment about the issue. For example:
Q: What does NASA stand for?
A: Need Another Seven Astronauts
Does anyone who tells this joke really advocate murdering astronauts, or blowing up space shuttles? No. It is just using a tragic event for shock value. Mel Brooks once said "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die". That is basis of a lot of comedy. It is precisely what is happening when people laugh at the Darwin awards.
Here's another one.
Q: What's the biggest difference between 9/11 and the Oklahoma City Bombing?
A: Foreigners once again prove they can do it better and more efficiently.
Is that joke OK? If so, why is a joke about hurting one person not OK? If it is not OK, what is? Perhaps you could provide a list of the acceptable topics for jokes. Or maybe you think we should just eliminate humour completely?
On the same topic as above, let's have a go at another group of vulnerable people:
Q: Why didn't Superman stop the planes from hitting the Trade Towers?
A: Because he's a quadriplegic!
It is a shame that it wasn't Linda Carter who broke her neck, because we could have added a sexist element to that joke too. If there was such a thing as a black, female superhero then we could have had the entire set, but given that female superheros must show 90% skin then it is obvious why there are no black ones. They would use up too much ink!
I seem to be going further off topic, but I hope you get my point. A joke isn't real. You can always tell comedy that tries to have a PC message, because it tends not to be funny. The best thing to do if you belong to of a group that is the butt of a joke is to just ignore it. Irish people do it, blondes do it. Even Australians do it (to their sheep). I say that last one as an Australian. Here is what I am talking about:
A ventriloquist visiting Australia walks into a small outback village and sees a local sitting on his porch patting his dog. He figures he'll have a little fun, so he says to the Aussie: "Hey, mind if I talk to your dog?" ...?! )
Aussie: "The dog doesn't talk, stupid!"
Ventriloquist: "Hello dog, how's it going mate?"
Dog: "Doin' all right."
Aussie: (look of extreme shock)
Ventriloquist: "Is this your owner?"
Dog: "Yep"
Ventriloquist: "How does he treat you?"
Dog: "Good. Walks me twice a day, feeds me well and takes me to the lake once a week to play."
Aussie: (
Ventriloquist: "Mind if I talk to your horse? "
Aussie: "Uhhh..."
Ventriloquist: "Hey horse, how's it going?"
Horse: "Cool"
Ventriloquist: "Is this your owner?"
Horse: "Yep"
Ventriloquist: How does he treat you?
Horse: "Pretty good. He rides me regularly, brushes me down often and keeps me in a nice warm barn."
Ventriloquist: "Mind if I talk to your sheep?"
Aussie: (in a panic) "The sheep's a liar!!!"
My sheep and I had a really good laugh at that one!
Funny, that's about the ratio for health care costs in those two countries as well...
You're clearly hysterical. Violence is always funny.
DATABASE WOW WOW
There are no search warrants in France. The police (and especially the Gendarmerie) is allowed to enter any building, any house, any property, within certain conditions (for example, they're not allowed to wake you up before 6AM)
They still need a Commission rogatoire delivered by a judge, which is almost they same thing as a warrant. The exception is the flagrant délit, when a policeman just witnessed a crime. But I bet that it is the same in other country: if you kill someone in front of a policeman and then hide in your house, in what country the police needs a paper to arrest you?