France to Legalize File Sharing 446
quenting writes "In the debate around the anti-piracy bill, the French Parliament voted yesterday into law an amendment to the DADVSI bill that allows free sharing of music and movies over the internet, considering the downloaded files as a private copy. This decision goes against the French government and the music industry's recommendations, who argue the deputies only wanted to show their independence from the government. The initial bill's detractors who pushed for this amendment want a tax for author rights to be paid by everyone on the ISP fees." The French government has vowed to fight this decision (babelfish link).
I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours! (Score:3, Insightful)
Serves them right for pushing their luck. (Score:5, Insightful)
It will not pass. (Score:5, Insightful)
And if by chance the amendments are still present when the law is voted at the parliament, it is going to be cancelled by the Senate.
Welcome to democracy folks. This is just an advertizing "coup" from the opposition party. In the end, we'll get DMCA too (possibly a worse version of it). I know. I'm from there.
What to call this law? (Score:5, Insightful)
Could've been said better? (Score:3, Insightful)
Eh, isn't Parliament part of government? Anyway, it's the National Assembly we're talking about here. And it wasn't "voted into law," it was simply passed by the Assembly. The chance of this becoming a real law is zero, this is just political gaming in French government.
Re:Bad idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the absence of copyright law, what does 'proprietary' mean?
I thought the GPL was a legalistic hack to protect the ethical right to share information. If the government goes and legalises that, then the GPL becomes almost, but not quite, entirely redundant.
Sacre Bleu! 519 members still have to vote? (Score:1, Insightful)
This title is misleading, if the measure was passed by only 2 votes and 90% of the members still have to vote, I would say the title should say that France may legalize file sharing? Or maybe I just don't know the French government very well.
Last night's amendment would allow someone having bought a song from one of those sites to share it with family or friends.
Who needs a law to do this?
Re:Serves them right for pushing their luck. (Score:5, Insightful)
The French Parliment over-reacted here, but it's good to see that the kind of ridiculous measures requested by record companies and their ilk are resulting in equally ridiculous responses from those who disagree.
I like to think of it more as glimpse of the future the music and movie industries will face if they keep treating all thier customers as potential theives. Eventually they'll piss off so many people that no amount of money will protect them.
Re:Who would have guessed it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but a couple weeks ago we learned that all it takes to capture Paris [wikipedia.org] these days is sticks and rocks. One sufficently angry record exec with a 2'x4' with a nail through it should be enough to reverse the legislation.
Re:France are weird (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes.
Am I allowed to do so with every other product? (Score:2, Insightful)
Then why should music be different?
The current system was introduced only at the beginning of the last centurie. We survived millenia without it. Do not think that just because currently the law has made for an industry were none of the normal rules apply that this has to remain the same for eternity.
Finally a copyright law I like (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, tell them about the EU constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a backlash going on with the voter not taking it anymore. I am not that familiar with france (language barrier) but I do get the impression that it has much the same problems as holland. With a cultural elite (media and politics) having put themselves in ivory towers where they can keep telling each other everything is alright while the real world is going to hell.
Holland had Pim Fortyun and Theo van Gogh and their murderers who upset this carefully constructed fantasy world. France had the recent riots and the continuing rise of extreme right.
With the EU constition it became painfully clear that the politicians were totally removed from the real world. They just could not get that the voters were not going to vote it through just because they told them to.
I think this "protest" vote is a sign that even certain circles of goverment are beginning to realize that something is wrong.
To dismiss this as simply a publicity stunt is cheap. It is like calling the EU constition rejection a cheap stunt by the voters, no this is a way to tell the direct leaders of a country to get their act together. The NEW rules proposed are bad for the public and this was one way to make it painfully clear that there is resistance. Sometimes you have to shoot people in the face to get their attention.
Of course the problem is that the media who are supposed to tell us about these kind of things are the people behind the whole DMCA and similar crap.
But still it is good to see some resistance. I think this battle is far from over. If your leaders got a brain they will not want to have another disaster like the referendum. Of course if they had a brain none of this would have happened in the first place.
Re:Bad idea... (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe, but it will all be free software. You wont be able to exploit it commercially without following the terms of the GPL. Just as you wont be able to exploit (sell) commercial software or music or whatever, without following those terms.
This seems reasonable to me. So what if the GPL loses some of its wind. If copyright laws are less powerful, the GPL does not need to blow so hard.
Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product? (Score:2, Insightful)
I support filesharing as a means of distribution and hate the RIAA, but that was a terrible argument.
By offerring people sugar from that which you purchased, you are giving up your own use of that sugar. The company from which you purchased it does not need to take your word for it, there's no way you can still have the sugar if you gave it to someone else.
Likewise, offerring rides to hitchhikers is in no way comparable to copying and distributing a CD. If you instead compared it to letting a friend listen to a CD while you do, then it might have been an appropriate comparison to make. But last time I checked, noone ever got in any trouble for that, at least on the scale that could be comparable to providing individuals with rides in your car. Playing the CD at a public event is another issue, but that's not what's being debated here.
If people who made arguments like yours, clearly not having any grasp of he situation, would just shut up, we might stand a chance at giving a unified, logical, sensible argument that could stand to be heard by those in power to make a difference. But perhaps I'm just too optimistic.
Re:Who would have guessed it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Or Britain.
Or Germany.
Or Canada (Well, the non-Quebec parts, anyway).
Or Russia.
Or for that matter, any other country. You seem to forget that NO ONE likes France except the French (And maybe the folks in that suburb next door, what's it's name...Belgium!). Just because the US has recently eclipsed France as the Most Hated Country in the world shouldn't obscure France's long tenure at #1, and it's current solid position at #2 (there's a bad pun in there, somewhere)
Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours (Score:3, Insightful)
"...The initial bill's detractors who pushed for this amendment want a tax for author rights to be paid by everyone on the ISP fees."
Frankly, this is dealing with the devil to pay Paul before curiosity killed the cat
Look, I'm all for "sticking it to the man", but this is a fine, fine example of playing off a hot issue to make easy money. I feel sorry for anybody who actually supports this legislative spam in France, thinking it's a good deal or they're "sticking it to the man" when they're in reality sticking it to themselves and their friends.
Re:Oh, tell them about the EU constitution (Score:1, Insightful)
Mod parent troll (Score:2, Insightful)
The US doesn't spend any money on making us dislike France.
Hahahahah, ohh, ah thanks man, that made my day...
France has got making us dislike them pretty much covered.
And how did they do that, denouncing the illegal invasion of Iraq, which lead to the current ongoing train wreck in said country? How dare they, the gall, the nerve, the brass of the beggars! Don't they know they owe their very existence to the Yooo Esss? Why its not like they ever helped the US [marksmission.org] in any way [loc.gov]... Heheh...
Re:Bad idea... (Score:2, Insightful)
Your ethical right to share your own information has never been in danger. You could always release to the public domain. The GPL prevents you from taking the shared information, using it, and distributing it but not sharing the result. OSS certainly benefits from the GPL, but it does not require it.
But the article only mentions music and movies, so I'm not certain the GPL would be impacted. They are not talking about repealing copyright; they are talking about expanding fair use. It does not sound like it would be legal for me to take a movie, replace all the credits with my own, and release it to theaters or sell it on DVD. Not having read the proposal itself, I would assume that sharing means a non-profit/p2p sort of thing, not a for profit/selling movies and music online sort of thing.
Re:Huh? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Wording?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh, tell them about the EU constitution (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Am I allowed to do so with every other product? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure you can. Just the same way as you can lend out or sell your entire CD collection to your heart's content.
However, you are not allowed to set up a manufacturing plant and produce identical copies of that car that you bought. Nor are you allowed to buy an Aeron chair and sell an identical copy of it, or buy that brand new John Grishma novel and print and sell your own copies of it.
Allowing the absolutely unrestricted distribution of music is the exact same thing as allowing people to print and sell as many copies of any book they wish. The fact that one is via computer has nothing to do with it. You can't set up your own print house and produce and distribute copies of bestsellers just because you feel like it.
US was hip-deep involved in Iraq's oil sales (Score:3, Insightful)
Far be it for me to shed some reality on this nationalistic rhetoric, but if you research the issue, you'll find two interesting items about that oil for food scandal: (1) US companies made far more money on the corruption than did companies of any other country, and (2) the US gov't was very aware of Iraq's violations of sanctions in selling oil. The US even tacitly approved the breaking of sanctions by Iraq exporting oil through Jordan and Turkey since it helped two of our "allies" and would have had an adverse economic impact on them if the smuggling was stopped.
Or perhaps their ongoing (since 1975) campaign to outlaw the use of English words in french advertising and government and scientific papers, like the word "email" because it's too English?
The Canadian province of Quebec has a lot of bizarre laws regulating the use of French in commerce, specifying the size of French text vis-a-vis English on billboards, etc. So what? Why should I care what language the people of another country speak?
The way you portray this is as if it's a human rights violation -- they're regulating commercial speech, not torturing people...
Re:Mod parent troll (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell me, have you travled so much as to be able to render these valid opinions?
Yup, more and wider too. Additionally I speak a half dozen languages, two of which are asian, and a smattering of a dozen more. You see I like to immerse myself in different cultures, to try to completely understand them. Thats why you won't catch me staying in a hotel; I'm the guy living in a hut halfway up a mountain in the triple canopy jungle.
have you spent time in the US
No, I choose to avoid countries that treat me like a criminal by fingerprinting me before I set foot inside their borders. And I do believe I am a member of a very large and growing club on that one.
still didn't treat me like dog dung for simply being American
Two words, "freedom fries". Oh and by the way you are aware that the term french in french fries is describing the method of cutting them, not country of origin? I mean that by itself says it all. As far as I can see, no one made the US invade Iraq. So remind me, who started looking down on who first again?
Re:Bad idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh? Did you mis-write that? Did I mis-read that? Or did you actually claim that sourcecode is somehow NOT information?
Under the OP scenario, copyright no longer exists as a force to make me open my sourcecode up under the terms of the GPL.
True, but it is expected that that would be far less of an issue. Pretty much all commonity software would be open source. There is very little incentive and ability to produce closed source versions (as people could redistribute the binaries anyway), and trying to go with a closed derivative of an open project would be really lousy. Either you are stuck with that version and no bugfixes or improvements, or you have the huge labor and delay of repeatedly merging all of the changes from the open version into the closed project and of hunting down any bugs that introduces into the closed version.
Or at least that is the reasoning.
So I think even ESR would be satisfied with that system of universal freedom, even though it meant that freedom to keep sourcecode secret. The GPL sourcecode requirement is mainly to keep the open ecosystem viable in the face of the overwhelming current legislatively enforced zero-freedom ecosystem.
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Re:Bad idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
In the absence of copyright law, what does 'proprietary' mean?
No source. I suppose you could hack on the binary all you want; knock yourself out. Smart vendors would tie their code to their stuff, so you couldn't run it without buying it.
Re:"get their act together" IS a cheap stunt (Score:3, Insightful)
Most people had no idea what the constitution document entailed
Indeed, and this would have been reason enough to vote against it.Re:Oh, tell them about the EU constitution (Score:2, Insightful)
So to your comment that people voted on it without understanding it, I say you go read some French newspapers from that time period. Or is Fox News taking up too much of your time?
Re:Bad idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
> And the system used in America has been proven to work pretty well for nearly 300 years, and traditionally hasn't had anything like moral rights. Moral rights are crap. Utilitarian copyright is where it's at.
Thank you very much for your reply, so much helpful to show the inherent flaws of copyright logic :
1) Your system has been working since mankind exists, because it amounts to jungle law : the powerful can kick the crap out of really creative people, bribe them, starve them, nobody gives a f*cking shit about it ; hence, this is not *law* as a means to create social balance.
2) If copyright was utilitarian, why the hell the end consumer would not be entitled full distribution rights on something he utimately paid for ? Well, it doesn't, because copyright obviously favors captation of the rights by industry, therefore it's not a true capitalist law, but a legislation of unbalanced privilege.
In fact, this is exactly the reason why french authors did revolt and forced the adoption of our intellectual property laws under the leadership of Victor Hugo.
Re:Abortion Legality (Score:2, Insightful)
What Roe v Wade decided was that a woman has a constitutional right to an abortion, and therefore the government has no power to prevent her from having one in most cases. It struck down state laws outlawing abortion as un-constitutional, and thus abortion became legal by default. States can (and have) try to restrict abotion in other ways, but outright banning of it has certainly been declared un-constitutional.
The decision said nothing at all about it being the Federal government's job to decide. In fact, it said it was nobody's job except the woman herself. That's why in order to outlaw it again, pro-lifers need to either get a constitutional ammendment making it illegal, or have the SCOTUS revisit the decision and decide they were wrong the first time, there's no constitutional right to an abortion. To do that, however, would probably *also* overturn our dubious "constitutional right to privacy", since the Roe v Wade decision was based on that right in the first place.
-- Dave
Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the fair thing to do would be to copy some French cheese and wine. (You do realize that copyrighted works aren't the same as physical objects, don't you?)
Re:I hereby suspend my France-Bashing for 24 hours (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, all of the religions spawned in that place and at that time are fanatical. Why is this surprising?
Let's compare the Old Testament, shared by the other main religious competitors:
From Numbers:
31:9 And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.
31:10 And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire.
31:11 And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of beasts.
31:12 And they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan near Jericho.
31:13 And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, went forth to meet them without the camp.
31:14 And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.
31:15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
31:16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
31:18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
Hmm...sounds pretty freaky and fanatical to me. In fact, sounds downright genocidal, in addition to any squickiness about stealing away all of the virgin girls for sex slavery.
Re:Oh! Yea Right! (Score:1, Insightful)
File swapping is something else and as the state is the sole authority who is giving the (record) authors _any rights_, they are as well quite qualified to restrict those rights.
Usual record company bullshit.