France Seeks To Push 3-Strikes Law Across Europe 265
quanticle writes "As you may recall, France previously threatened to cut off broadband access for file sharers. However, after lobbying by the public, the legislation failed in the National Assembly. Now, the government of Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to revive the the measure by pushing it as an amendment to the pan-European Telecoms Package. This amendment has the potential to impose 3-strikes across Europe, not just in France."
Well, this is why France is not the United States. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:so we can hate the french again? (Score:5, Interesting)
Most French don't like him either (and no, not just because of filesharing).
As a brit living in France for the past 12 years or so, this is one of the most annoying traits of the French vox populi. They forget very, very quickly that most of the French actually voted for him. His politics since he's been in power aren't that different from what he announced, and certainly not that different from his opinions in previous government positions. Short memory, and quick to criticise, the French - they did pretty much the same thing when Jacques Chirac got a landslide victory when most of them couldn't be bothered to vote and so Le Pen got to the second round.
Re:For fuck's sake (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:so we can hate the french again? (Score:2, Interesting)
From what I'm told by the few French citizens I know, there are many that call Sarkozy Bush's lapdog. or poodle or something similarly flattering. As far as I know as a US citizen, being politically associated with Bush in any way is an insult. Here it's been something like the kiss of death in the current political circus atmosphere. One thing in Sarkozy's favor is his lack of airtime on Faux News.
I've been trying to figure out lately why it is that the neocons seem hell bent on protecting IP? Or at least that of the entertainment industries. I don't know if it's just a bid to regulate the Internet or something nuttier. Has anyone seen any tinfoil hat links for this?
Re:Well, this is why France is not the United Stat (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:This and G8... (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you have any particular reason why you think it wouldn't scale? I don't see any reason why it wouldn't, it works in Switzerland pretty well, and there are 7 million people (I suspect that you chose large city exactly for that reason). I would, for example, say that some human institution won't scale if it relies on bounded number of humans somewhere, or if the people cannot meet or know each other personally. But none if this is relevant in Switzerland.
I agree that not everything should be voted on, and I agree that voting should be about rules that hold for everybody (or everybody who has a particular behavior), and not a specific group or person.
Second, I also believe that very important and overlooked property of democracy should be reversibility, i.e. we can change the law back if we don't like the outcome. This is not a bad thing. People do learn by mistakes, and human societies are no different. This by itself prevents voting out some group of people.
Third, I think that competition of law systems is important. Switzerland has a rule that every law gets decided on the relevant level (federal, canton or local). That way some new law can be tested on small scale first and then, once the result is known, it can be (if people wish so) applied on the larger scale.
Re:The worst since Berlusconi (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Shamed of being French right now (Score:3, Interesting)
If it were simply a change in consumer habits, I'd happily say laissez-faire . If people are not interested in music anymore, let record companies disappear! Here, however, we are faced with a slightly different situation. It is not that people are not interested in music anymore, but that they have found a way to illegitimately acquire a perfect substitute without having to bear the costs that went into producing it. In other words, we have a free rider problem, and I'd argue that it will lead to societally sub-optimal outcomes
Currently, the problem cannot yet be felt. In the short-term, indeed, people will still buy CDs and legitimate copies of songs, partly out of fear, partly because they think it's their moral duty to compensate artists. As a result, record companies have an incentive to sign artists, who have an incentive to devote their time to music.
In the absence of copyright law, the amount of music created would not be the socially optimal one. Fewer people would choose a career in music (and, contrary to popular misconceptions, it is not true that genuinely talented individuals would play anyway -- you can be incredibly talented and motivated by profit, romantic myths notwithstanding), less good music would be made (since record companies would have less money to spend on new artists), etc.
The fact is that the new regime favored by some would be more restrictive than the current one. At the moment, each artist is free to choose whether he wants to release its works for free, or charge a fee. If this fee is too high, consumers can buy another, less expensive CD, or simply not listen to music anymore. The government's job is simply to make sure that everyone's choice is not violated. Nobody looses out because of copyright law: if you refuse to listen to a song because it is too expensive, you haven't lost anything!
If, however, copyright is abolished or file sharing legalized, the artist's freedom is threatened (since he cannot decide who gets access to his music). How is this an improvement over the current system in which the price of music, which can be equal to zero, is determined by supply and demand?
Re:This and G8... (Score:3, Interesting)
Or maybe they know that IQ is normally distributed - therefore the median and the mean would be the same :-)