p2pnet - rss feed: France goes to war against file sharers
p2pnet news | P2P:- France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy, a self-avowed lover of all things American, has declared war on p2p and file sharers.
His new policy, described by the Financial Times as “ground breaking,” would use a ‘three strikes’ rule to, “reduce the illegal downloading of music and movies,” says the story.
Sarkozy will endorse the plan in a speech today to, “put France at the forefront of the battle against internet piracy,” it goes on.
And, “The music and film industries, internet service providers and the government are all likely to sign up to the plan,” says the story.
In exchange for the “clampdown on illegal downloading,” the music industry has, “agreed to make individual downloads of archive French material available on all types of players by dropping digital rights management protection. The French film industry has agreed to release DVDs more quickly after a film’s first cinema screening, reducing the delay from 7½ months to 6 months.”
However, the FT goes on, “consumer groups and even some of Mr Sarkozy’s own members of parliament on Thursday attacked the proposal for a new internet policeman as a threat to civil liberties.”
Denis Olivennes, meanwhile, chairman of the powerful and influential French entertainment retailer Fnac, wrote ‘Free is Theft,” a book which argues that piracy, “stole funds from French culture by reducing the money raised by levies on cinema takings and pay-television,” says the FT, adding:
“The book accused ISPs of exploiting an abundance of pirated material on the web to recruit new subscribers. ‘It is a little like . . . big store chains putting out free stocks of stolen CDs and DVDs to attract new customers into their shops,’ he wrote.
“Mr Olivennes appears now to have persuaded internet service providers to help the authorities police their own users more effectively.”
If he Sarkozy plan is to go into effect, ‘legislation amending copyright, data protection, telecommunications and consumer protection laws, with a vote in parliament as soon as spring 2008, adds the Financial Times.
Also See:
Financial Times - France plans to cut off internet pirates, November 22, 2007
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November 23rd, 2007 at 8:03 am
Uh….didn’t they already legalize filesharing in France?
November 23rd, 2007 at 9:43 am
Filesharing wasn’t legalized.
We have an exception named “private copy” that allow us to exchange cultural product in a private circle (family, friends), in exchange we pay a tax on blank cd dvd medias, and now also external hard drives and memory cards (they are now talking to tax game console with hard drive).
There is the translation of the wikipedia article:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Ffr.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FCopie_priv%25C3%25A9e&langpair=fr%7Cen&hl=fr&ie=UTF-8
There is no Case law about p2p in France, mostly that Internet is not in the private circle.
There was a Case Law about the dvd protection allowing it, but I’m not sure what really is the case law. Someone was willing to copy Mulholland Drive DVD on a VHS (legal in private copy) and couldn’t so he made a law suit, he won in first lawsuit and appeal but the decision was broken.
Currently, we are paying more and more tax (or should be paying, because lots of people by their medias abroad and don’t pay the tax, although they should tell it) for a something we can nearly only do illegaly.
There is no secret in France that Sarkozy take money from the poor to give to the rich.
He said also this this morning :
“There are also emergency measures to be taken to enable the music industry to survive and give him time to adapt to the new model that emerges.”
It’s only their fault if they are not already adapted !
November 23rd, 2007 at 12:10 pm
To M. Clavel:
My French is poor, so I to not understand the details of the proposal here:
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/actualites/index-olivennes231107.htm
How would the ISP determine if downloading was legal or not?
If just by the quantity, how would the ISP know if it was business-related??
Merci d’avance pour votre aide !
November 23rd, 2007 at 2:34 pm
From what I understand , ISP would use a database of prints and the fingerprinting or watermarking of the files.
The database would be created by the owners of the music/movies (Big 4…).
So for p2p, if communications are crypted, the only way to know willl be to download as a peer and test the file, it would impossible to know other way if the download is illegal. For youtube like, they can test before they share, what they are trying to do currently.
For the business part, ISP can’t have a clue, it’s a cop job.
I know that from the first ideas, to the submit laws, then assembly talk and vote, and publishing of the law (when it becomes effective) there are lots of changes and many times the result can go directly to trash, as for most of the DADVSI law, adopted in the beginning of this year, from a 10 years old european directive.
November 23rd, 2007 at 2:45 pm
M. Clavel, I would be happy to discuss this further with you, if you are willing, by e-mail: jwalker46 (at) gmail.com
November 24th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
What is funny is that the guy who wrote this law is the CEO of Fnac, which is the biggest retail store chain for CDs and DVDs in France. Such distributor is totally useless in this digital age, where artists should be able to sell their music directly to the consumers.
What’s also funny is that the Bush-friendly extreme right french president Sarkozy wants to disconnect people from the Internet, put people on a nationnal database and not allow them to sign up for another ISP, then fine users up to 3 million euros and put them in jail even. This is so ridiculously funny ridiculous, putting the kids and other young people in jail, fine them, ban them from using the Internet just because they are not accepting to pay intermediaries like Fnac for a service that is absolutely useless to both artists and consumers.