EU Strikes Down French "3 Strikes" Copyright Infringement Law 271
Erris writes "Opendotdotdot has good news about laws in the EU: 'EU culture ministers yesterday (20 November) rejected French proposals to curb online piracy through compulsory measures against free downloading ... [and instead pushed] for "a fair balance between the various fundamental rights" while fighting online piracy, first listing "the right to personal data protection," then "the freedom of information" and only lastly "the protection of intellectual property." [This] indicates that the culture ministers and their advisers are beginning to understand the dynamics of the Net, that throttling its use through crude instruments like the "three strikes and you're out" is exactly the wrong thing to do.'"
How do you get membership? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish Australia was part of the EU. Perhaps this firewall business would disappear.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Because internet became a necessity for functioning in society.
The 'three-times-you're-out' rule would be the same as to prohibit rehabilitated thieves of making use of the road.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
"Effective" does not mean that it's not crude. Thanks in part to the "3-strikes-you're-out" rule, The US has the highest prison population (in percentage) among developed countries [wikipedia.org]. The latest figures indicate that more than 1 in 100 American men or women are in jail [pewcenteronthestates.org].
That's 10 times more people in jail than Germany, for instance. Hell, it even leads Russia on that turf. So much for the "land of the free"...
Re:Not completly good news (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Huh? Heu???? some precisions (Score:5, Interesting)
At the moment there is a EU directive in place that is contrary to the French proposal. This is not stopping the French government from going ahead with their proposal though. It can still become French law within a few short months.
Eventually it will be struck down through citizen's actions (suit to the European Court resulting in fines) or through a change of government. Governments can be very very stubborn.
The only hope in France is to convince a majority of French representatives that this is a bad proposal before it is voted in.
Re:France and Baseball (Score:3, Interesting)
I hate to say this, but the French have excellent:
- Chansons: Edith Piaf, Serge Gainsbourg
- Hip-Hop: FFF
- Techno: Air
- Lounge: St Germain (the artist, not the compilations
- Gypsy Jazz: Paris Combo
- Pop: Nouvelle Vague
And this is just my extraordinarily limited knowledge of French music. Granted, the pickings are slimmer than in the Music Export Top 3, the US, the UK and Sweden, but still there's a lot of interesting things going on there.
Same thing in Germany with people like Luna, the Notwist, Die Fantastischen Vier, Jan Delay. Then it's the same with Norway with people like Morten Abel, Kinny & Horne, Kings of Convenience, Röyksopp and in particular Madrugada. Hell, even Austria has Waldeck and Kruder & Dorfmeister.
With a name like Moses Jones I don't know where the hell you're from, but I suggest you extricate your head from your arse before you make such statements the next time.
And no, I'm not French.
Re:All countries take heed: Shows power of EU (Score:1, Interesting)
Those are simple answers to complex questions. You simplify away the fact that treaties are written as generalities subject to interpretation, by a court that is not French.
If the treaty specified that such a law could not be written, then the law would clearly not have been proposed. Or, the treaty not signed in the form it was. QED, the treaty limits the country in unintended and unforeseen ways.
The problem is that a formerly sovereign state is unable to enact laws. Part of me is shocked that it's made so light of - part of me knows it's intentionally part of the confidence game to present it as no big deal.
"3 Strikes" Law - revised (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How do you get membership? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How do you get membership? (Score:3, Interesting)
Prison is a pretty poor punishment, for the reason you pointed out...
When you leave prison, depending how long you've been there you may have completely lost touch with the world and suffer the stigma of being an ex-con which will severely hamper any hopes of moving on...
Instead, the only life you know and the only way to make enough money to live is crime...
You've spent the last X years in the company of criminals who could have taught you plenty of illegal things, and you're likely to have many new criminal contacts now.
Prison is basically a school for criminals, you weren't a very good criminal when you went in (not very good because you got caught), but after coming out you will have the benefit of pooled criminal knowledge and new criminal contacts.
Re:Not completly good news (Score:3, Interesting)
The EU doesn't have jurisdiction over every elements of members' law, but safekeeping democracy and liberties in all of its member states is part of its charter.
Which is ironic, given that the big decisions made at EU level are made by politicians who are not directly elected to those posts (and not infrequently, they are those who could not credibly remain in government in their own countries after the mess they made of things back home). Because of this, the EU is often used by national governments who want to push an unpopular agenda that they can't credibly do locally, by driving it through in Europe where there is no popular vote, and then claiming back home that they have to implement things because "European rules say so". Moreover, the EU takes a staggering amount of money from some of its member states to subsidise the others, but this direct financial support does not seem to result in any greater bargaining power for those states, and the EU hasn't managed to get its accounts audited and signed off for 14 years.
In other words, if you think the EU has anything to do with democracy, I'm afraid you're completely delusional. It happens to have produced one or two useful sets of rules on areas like human rights, but it's produced a whole heap of bad laws on just about everything else, and charged us a pretty penny for the privilege. It was never supposed to be a United States of Europe, just an economic agreement for mutual benefit, but the vested interests and empire builders at its heart have turned it into far more than that. The fact that the only thing that stopped the EU Constitution^WReform Treaty going through was the Irish no vote in a referendum, because no other member states' national governments would actually allow their people a referendum with the negative (for them) outcome so clearly predictable, tells us all we need to know of European democracy.
Re:How do you get membership? (Score:3, Interesting)
People defending the death penalty often seem to be under the impression that crime in the most cases is carried out because of lenghty thoughts and careful weighing of the pros and cons. It is not. And that makes the whole "deterrence" idea void.
You are jumping to conclusions, the magic words here are "no worse than". By applying the death penalty to rape, they made rape/murder no worse than rape. It's always a problem for the legal system to run out of options - even without the death penalty someone that's heading for life without parole (as in really life, unlike in Europe) already has no legal incentive. The only thing they can control is the probability of getting caught, not the outcome and so killing witnesses, destroying evidence, wild getaways that gives them better chances at getting away is "rational" in some fashion. Having the death penalty could at least provide some minimal incientive for people to only do jail time crime. The big threat is the escalation effect - if being a street pusher or a drug lord both get punished the same, there's no incentive against moving up in the system. It just doesn't help to threaten with ten consecutive life sentences (what an oxymoron), nor does it really help the RIAA/MPAA to threaten bankrupting people ten times over.
Merge w/chinese wall? (Score:4, Interesting)
If AU is going with a firewall, sounds like they may be looking to merge with China.
You can see those controlling tendencies expressed through Rupert's Media outlets in USA. 'Conservative' (exploitive) capitalists in the US and AU have more in common with the dictatorship in China than most EU countries, right now. Capitalists always look to flourish where they can exploit human capital. It's not clear that capitalism can flourish if it doesn't have some underclass to exploit.
Re:Can we get some of that in New Zealand? (Score:3, Interesting)
Get the minister's son/daughter indicted, convicted and sentenced to 60 days in a state jail.
Nothing repeals a law faster than that.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, you just have more crime due to vast inequality caused by unfettered capitalism. But don't suggest that to Republican voters.
Why "should" they, or why "do" they? (Score:2, Interesting)
Why should government enforce the rights of creators
Here's one big reason: Because in many of the countries in-question, they've buggered things up so badly that the majority of their exports are now "virtual" goods. All the physical stuff is for the most part produced in places such as China, India, etc.
The domestic markets that *do* product goods, such as the auto-industry and others, have driven into the ground by piss-poor management.
So really, these collective governments have about two choices:
(a) Start pushing to start *producing* quality physical products domestically again.
(b) Push idiotic laws upon your own citizens, and through foreign citizens through treaties, to prop up a model which treats virtual goods the same as physical.
Re:Better to be accurate than alarmist (Score:2, Interesting)