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France Moving Forward on Legalized P2P 194

Posted by Zonk from the riaa-gnashes-teeth dept.
Romerican writes "Over a month ago, Slashdotters joked about France's efforts to legalize P2P. Originally dismissed as a trivial coup by a small group, the French government continues to entertain the topic. News.com is reporting the French Minister of Culture will advocate P2P as a flat-fee service." From the article: "The draft law, which originally aimed to tackle online piracy, is backed by consumer groups in France but heavily opposed by such companies as Vivendi Universal, which owns Universal Music, the world's biggest record company, and a stake in film and TV company NBC Universal. French cinema and music trading associations together with rock stars such as Johnny Hallyday have spoken out against the law, arguing it would kill their work. "
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France Moving Forward on Legalized P2P More

France Moving Forward on Legalized P2P

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  • HA! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HolyCrapSCOsux ( 700114 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @04:30PM (#14637836)
    ...will kill their work...
    What, exactly IS thier work. I was under the impression that once a song was written, it tended to stay written. Thus the work is preserved.

    perhaps I am naive...

    • Re:HA! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by OctoberSky ( 888619 )
      What, exactly IS thier work.

      Work in the sense of music was once the artform, the recording, the tone, the whole atmosphere the work created. It was quite hard to define.

      Today it is much simpler: Work = Bank Account

    • Re:HA! (Score:5, Funny)

      by SatanicPuppy ( 611928 ) <Satanicpuppy@gmail. c o m> on Friday February 03, 2006 @04:41PM (#14637927) Journal
      Yup you're naive.

      If it weren't for the recording industry, there wouldn't even BE music. They and they alone make it possible for music to exist, and should they go away, or should their profit margins drop below 100%, all music will cease to exist. Radio stations will play nothing but silence and talk radio, and not popular, syndicated talk radio, but the crappy local kind. The world will be plunged into a musical dark age, worse even than the pre-alternative 90's. So for the love of music and all things musical, go out and buy a massively DRM encumbered CD today! Better yet, buy two...for the alternative is unthinkable!

      • DRM CDs (Score:5, Funny)

        by MS-06FZ ( 832329 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @05:21PM (#14638272) Homepage Journal
        So for the love of music and all things musical, go out and buy a massively DRM encumbered CD today! Better yet, buy two...for the alternative is unthinkable!

        The advantage of buying two is that it provides a practical way for two people to listen to the music, at the same time! You could even give the second copy to a friend, so that they may listen to their copy whenever they like: but under no circumstances are you to listen to their copy! Your best bet is to bring your own copy with you, and listen to that. This serves two goals. First, it will drown out the sound of your friend's CD, to which you do not have access and which he is not permitted to use as a public exhibition. Second, it will allow you to hear the music to which you otherwise would not have access.
    • I think they mean that it would kill future work. They think that the artists will no longer get paid to produce new music and thus will have no incentive to produce music. Rather than change the business model, they just freak out and say the internet is killing their music.

      Other artists are actually embracing the internet. Artists such as Phish, String Cheese Incident, etc. allow taping of their shows and actually encourage online trading of these live recordings. This is like free advertising for the
    • Not only that, with this law put in place there will likely be much more backup copies of their work available.
      Thus saving the poor artist's work from demising.
      It's a win-win situation!
    • They just mean that people will stop listening to them... because they will be more likely to find better music out there.

      Seriously, I pay for almost all of my music today, but I give most credit to Audio Galaxy for opening up my ears and broadening my tastes.

    • Re:HA! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by hackwrench ( 573697 )
      There is a growing class of people that the only thing stopping them from throwing pre-existing samples together and coming out with a pretty decent mix is the current music industry legislative mess. The scare they put into people prevents some from even trying.
    • If they are telling us that freedom of distribution would kill their work, they are probably right. But every new invention kills someone works. For example, in the past there were water carriers in the cities. Piped water killed their work. Nobody now need to pay somebody for binging busket of water into his home.

      Fate of music distribution industry would be same.

      As for rock stars, they are probably right too. These stars do not produce good music, they are created by advertising and support of recording in

  • Who controls the purse strings in these schemes? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SuperMario666 ( 588666 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @04:31PM (#14637844)
    Free p2p sounds great and all, but what's to stop the fee collecting agency from discriminating against artists in the disbursement of the funds?
    • It seemed to me that the RIAA/MPAA were doomed once the barrier to making perfect copies became so low. However if this becomes popular there will be a permanent tax going to these types of entities and we'll be stuck with them forever.

      It'd be tragic if truly free music ended up contributing to the cartels through p2p fee collection.

    • Did anyone else read this as "Daft law"? They will never come up with an equitable dispersal of the funds, so why even bother?
    • Since they could collect exact statistics on what was being downloaded most often, it wouldn't be too hard to set up a reasonable way to distribute funds based on popularity. What's the worry here anyway? That this agency would become another RIAA? As long as they can't censor what is being shared, this really isn't the same -- it's p2p, meaning the sharing of music is between artists and fans (or fans and fans), no stranglehold over distribution means most of the organization's power is eliminated. Sur
      • Unfortunately, just counting downloads isn't a very good way to do this, since those numbers are relatively easy to manipulate in various ways. Far better would be to survey x thousand people whose computers have been carefully checked for malware. Or to use "trusted computing" hardware to report reliable statistics from people's media players (how's that for an ironic use of technology).
    • Ah, I see you don't know French bureaucracy.
      Our so nice system would mean that for any artist to see any money, he would have to wait 3 years. Money would not be given according to popularity, no scientific data. It would be given at what most normal human would see as random, but some state employe could go at great length to explain you why it's not random and in fact a perfectly working system. And replying that your 2 years old daughter just got a check for a 1999 song would be answered by a "don't you
    • indeed, and how about the little guy? Ok I make games and not music, but maybe they will allow that too? I don't suppose I'd be losing millions of dollars, but I doubt the French government will track me down and send me a EUR 20 now and then, as my share of the trading of my copyrighted work.
      The future for online games, music and movies is for people to pay for a hassle free downlaod, without silly restrictions, but without making illegal copying too easy. this French scheme is insane.

  • p2p (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jonny_Madness ( 794455 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @04:31PM (#14637846)
    I think with all the contraversy about p2p -- I think want should be done is that the US government spend a couple million/billion and work with people in providing a free online libary and a free place where people can show off their work if they want. It would be considered P2P because that would be nessesary for that much storage and the government wouldnt have to buy tons and tons of servers because its p2p. Thoughts? I know it has flaws but I just thought of it. -Jonny

  • Proven (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 03, 2006 @04:31PM (#14637855)
    I believe it has been stastistically shown (take that with as much salt as you like) that if everyone pays a flat fee, and Nielsen-box equivalents are used, the Entertainment Industry would actually make more money by allowing unlimited downloads via any medium than they get through current means.

    In other words, well done the French.

    • Re:Proven (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Penguinoflight ( 517245 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @04:49PM (#14638000) Journal
      Well, it would certainly be a better model for driving content to users. The thing is, nobody said that the p2p service would follow traditional (usd) $20/album costs. It is indeed very possible that a p2p service would help the music industry, and without the record label costs, this might even be good for independent artists. Like many things, implementation will decide if this move is good, bad, successful, or unsuccessful.

      • "The thing is, nobody said that the p2p service would follow traditional (usd) $20/album costs."

        CDs are the US equivalent of $20 in France? Ouch. No wonder they want to do this. CD prices haven't averaged $20 in the USA in years -- the average price of a new release is now sub $13 here in the US.

        • It's worse. In many retail stores, it's closer to $30, same in the UK. The BEST discount price you can find is around $18.
      • No links I'm afraid, but the studies I've seen work more along the napster model (but cheaper), i.e. around $5 flat fee a month for as much music as you like. The price is low, but it scales - and there's a lot of people who only buy a couple of albums a year, so they actually end up paying a bit more, but for a lot more music. Tack it into the ISP bill as standard, with an opt-out, and the music business would probably make a vast amount of money. Flat fees have worked very well for broadcast TV companies,
    • . . . the Entertainment Industry . . .

      Indeed, but where would leave,say, the record companies.

      They do not make the music, they merely publish and distribute it.

      They don't give a flying fuck about "The Music," or even rights, per se. What they are defending is their business model which is entirely based on having monopoly on distribution.

      Rights are simply the primary tool to guaruntee that monopoly. . .until people can simply publish and distribute just as well all by themselves or with artist friendly outf

    • "I believe it has been stastistically shown (take that with as much salt as you like) that if everyone pays a flat fee, and Nielsen-box equivalents are used, the Entertainment Industry would actually make more money by allowing unlimited downloads via any medium than they get through current means."

      Unfortunately, a lot of songwriters and performing artists (the ones who are the first, essential step in producing the music) don't agree, or don't understand this. The breadth of the catalog offered by the

    • Rather than believing it has been statistically shown, you should post a link to some information or quote a resource so we can all believe it.
    • I have never heard of anybody making more money when there is more competition. Any solution other than the one from last century will mean that members of the RIAA etc. will make considerably less money. Local music will take over, why pay a publisher anything when you can publish direct on an international basis. You want more advertising, go direct to the new 21st century advertisers why pay a middle man to do it for you.

      As for the so called music artists, again there will be a flood, so that wildly eg

  • We are French. Fuck you, Americans, I don't care!
    • You don't frighten us, American pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person! Ah blow my nose at you, so-called "RIAA"! You and all your silly American Record Industry Executives!!! Ay don' wanna talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food-trough wiper! Ay fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries! Now, go away, or I shall taunt you a second time!

    • Re:I just can hear them now ... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Some of the staunchest opponents to P2P in France are French. Unlike the rest of Europe, ~40% of the market for music and movies in France is French instead of being imported from the US & England. So a lot of people see this as an attack of FRENCH products. Tu comprends, Ducon?
    • We are French. Fuck you, Americans, I don't care!

      So true. Every French person wakes up and the first thought they have is "how can I piss off America today?" That's just how they live their lives.

      /sarcasm for the humour impaired.

  • 'rock stars such as Johnny Hallyday' (Score:5, Funny)

    by GungaDan ( 195739 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @04:33PM (#14637869) Homepage
    So Hasselhoff was unavailable, then?

  • Originally dismissed as a trivial coup by a small group, the French government continues to entertain the topic.

    I figured that I would make one thread to contain all the bad jokes.

    I, for one, welcome our new pro-p2p occupying force. (Until the next group takes over, then I'll welcome them.)

  • Fee? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by voice_of_all_reason ( 926702 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @04:43PM (#14637943)
    I get my music and movies for free right now. Why would anyone support this?

    • Re:Fee? (Score:2, Troll)

      by cliffski ( 65094 )
      lucky you. Tough shit for the artists eh? I guess none of them have rent to pay right? And you only copy music from rich musicians, where you have checked their finances and ensured they can afford to be ripped off I'm sure.
    • I get my music and movies for free right now. Why would anyone support this?

      Because they're one of the thousand-or-so Americans getting taken to the cleaners each month for file sharing? Or because they're in the huge percentage of the population who aren't computer literate enough to find a good new p2p app whenever the previous one they were using is sunk? Or because they're in the 10-20% who refuse to download stuff because they think it's immoral?

      So that you can have an index of high quality versions

  • I pretty shocked by this but thinking about it seems like the right thing to do but there are still problems to be solved.

    There is no way that media companies are ever going to manage to stop P2P or piracy in general. Computers make it too easy to distribute content which has made the content worth a lot less than it was. They might as well accept that people want this and give it to them.

    The problem I see with it though is we will end up with a lot of medium quality material because no one will want to

    • The problem I see with it though is we will end up with a lot of medium quality material because no one will want to invest the effort and money to create good material

      Well, that'll be one step better than the low quality material they pump out these days, as they don't want to invest the time and quality to put out good quality material, when they can advertise and sell low quality crap.

  • From the article... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Everything we're hearing from the government is that it won't happen," said Geraldine Moloney, a spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association in Europe.

    Being French, I don't see "legalize p2p" anywhere near...

  • For the record. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MrShaggy ( 683273 ) <chris.anderson @ h u s h . c om> on Friday February 03, 2006 @04:50PM (#14638005) Journal
    In our northern province of Ontario, Canada. A few years back they decided that it was ok for women to go topless, as long as it wasnt sexual. Men can take off their shirts, so know women can too. Now of course the right-wingers were freaking out. We'd hear that these women would be walking through downtown with no shirts on.. and that the kids would be exposed to it. Not too mention the idea that all these women are going to be raped, not too mention the locusts. Now, none of this has come to pass. This is also the same rhetoric spwed over gay--marriage. Who cares?? Somehow they get all upset when they get married. Somehow they think that their rights are being violated. Not to mention the locuts, and that churches would be forced to marry these folks..Have I mentioned the Locusts ? We also have a system in place that allows the governement to collect a tax on blank cds.. (works out to maybe a nickel a cd maybe?). What that is supposed to do is go into the Canadian Musicians, that work hard to earn that. The idea is that they can go after copyrights here, because they are making some money there. There is another argumnet too be made about how little money the artists are making. The noises that the music industry is making because that is all they know. No matter how much you try to guide their hands they react out of the fear of the unknown. Maybe they need better terms in the contract over how the industry pays out these 'monthly' fees. Thats the big 'white elephant in the room' as it were. How do you determine the scale? Its a great idea, but thats what scares them. The idea of deciding who gets what is a big new thing. Of course the artist are afraid because tey think that they will get any of the money that will come from that. Anyone remember Courtney Love and her lawsuit?: She was filing after they got all that money from napster and others "in the name of the artists"? Nobody ever got dime. Did anyone see the locusts yet ?

  • Business Model (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RazzleDazzle ( 442937 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @04:52PM (#14638013) Journal
    What happens when a normal company's business model no longer works due to new technology or social/economical changes? You adapt or go under. What happens when a massively powerful organization's business model starts to fail like the RIAA or MPAA (or whatever else their respective counterparts in other countries are called)? They sue the pants off as many people as it takes to stop the change. Well not only are they hindering the advancement of technology they are attacking their customer base. Remember what happened to Napster - they turned "legal" and started offering a pay-per service. That is called adaption, it is what makes companies stand out from the rest. Maybe this specific proposal going on in France is not the most ideal method to go about but it, but that is not why there is opposition to it. They are opposing it because it will remove power and influence and force these companies to adapt, or more hopefully go away. They are against the fundamental principals not the methods.

    As for the argument of the artists losing money, etc. Well guess what, you're in the same boat. Adapt or learn a new skill. The internet is NOT going away any time soon and the entire purpose of the internet is to SHARE IDEAS. Guess what, your artwork is just an idea. If people want to share your idea with others then you should be glad, you are appreciated.

    I don't mean to sound cruel as I am not NOT giving the bird to anyone who complains. I understand some people are losing money but it is not the fault of P2P. It is the people who are not paying for the product/service when they should be. If by some miracle P2P becomes extraordinarily unusable legally or technically, something else more grandios will emerge. Sharing stuff on the internet will never stop. Get used to it.
    • I dont think many other industries have had to deal with their customers suddenly being able to get the SAME product (not a similiar alternative) for free because of technological change. The RIAA is suing people because whats actually happening is illegal, its copyright infringement anyway you cut it. The business model isnt failing because of competition with alternatives, its failing because the competition is exactly the same product with zero costs and zero investment for the 'producer'.

      You have n
    • "If people want to share your idea with others then you should be glad, you are appreciated."

      and how about my landlord, you think he will be glad to have a creative guy as a tenant? Nah, in my experience, he still wants me to pay the rent.
      You think big computer games, software, movies are all made at the weekend by bored teenagers living in moms basement?

  • Legalizing communication protocols... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Vexler ( 127353 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @04:53PM (#14638017) Journal
    Declaring certain protocols to be "illegal" is silly enough (just like the April Fool's joke of the "evil bit" and the CP80 project that requires labelling all p0rn traffic), but then they propose slapping a flat-fee on it, essentially saying, "We don't want you to do it, but we realize we can't stop you. So we'll at least try and make some money off you."

    Ridiculous.
    • then they propose slapping a flat-fee on it, essentially saying, "We don't want you to do it, but we realize we can't stop you. So we'll at least try and make some money off you."

      That reminds me of a schmuck in Texas running for office on the platform of slapping a $10,000 tax on abortions.

      -

  • Beware. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lynx_user_abroad ( 323975 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @04:56PM (#14638044) Homepage Journal
    But deputies, both from the ruling conservatives and the opposition Socialists, threw the planned law off course at the end of December by adding amendments that would legalize file-sharing in exchange for a fee to cover a licensing charge.

    Understand the mechanics here: If engineered wrong this will simply translate into a tax on internet access for everyone under French jurisdiction, which would be paid to businesses big enough to claim they represent content creators and nothing paid to the actual content creators themselves.

    For people who currently observe the law and do not download at all (or only download stuff the copyright owner has given away), this is a tax with no return.

    It weakens the rights of authors and hands tax money to the publishers.

    But follow me further, if you will: What happens if something like GPL'd software gets included in the definition of content that right now we think will only include songs and music? Would a French company be allowed to re-distribute GPL'd software in violation of the terms of the GPL by claiming this law frees them of the constraints of copyright?

    Compulsory licenses are a threat to the Free Culture movement. Copyright is not the problem, copyright violators are the problem.

    • Would a French company be allowed to re-distribute GPL'd software in violation of the terms of the GPL by claiming this law frees them of the constraints of copyright?

      Perhaps. Certainly if this idea were badly implemented that might happen. Now an optimist might instead think: "What if free/libre/open-source software gets included in this definition? Then perhaps that means that some of the tax money will necessarily have to be redistributed back to those who created the software." If OSS is included in

    • There is no question or argument about freeing anything from the constraint of copyrights, the issue here is that the french notion of "fair use" (the "private copy rights") is extremely large, and the debate is whether sharing/downloading media files from the web is part of the private copy rights bestowed by law upon the french citizens or not.

    • For people who currently observe the law and do not download at all (or only download stuff the copyright owner has given away), this is a tax with no return.

      What about the now-legal option of commencing to download free music? That's a pretty nice return! There are others too, like lower CD prices. The only losers would be people who want a net connection but have no interest in any cultural works whatsoever. The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few.

      It weakens the rights of authors and hand
    • For people who currently observe the law and do not download at all (or only download stuff the copyright owner has given away), this is a tax with no return.
       
      I guess you never heard of this whole "Welfare" thing...
    • Would a French company be allowed to re-distribute GPL'd software in violation of the terms of the GPL by claiming this law frees them of the constraints of copyright?

      This is a variation on the old argument that strong copyright is necessary for the GPL to work. The flaw in the argument is that the GPL is only necessary in the presence of strong copyright. If such a law permitted you to distribute any software without regard for licensing terms, then we wouldn't need a license that forces people to distribu

  • Once again... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xutopia ( 469129 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @05:04PM (#14638097) Homepage
    We joked about France being cowards telling us we shouldn't go to Irak.

    Reasons given by France were:

    1) no links to Al-Quaeda or 9/11
    2) it will cause havoc in the middle east and the rest of the world
    3) WMDs aren't present like they used to

    Today we still haven't found WMDs, it's clear that Bush and Co lied about Saddam Hussein's ties to Al-Quaeda and it did cause havoc and cost billions.

    France now fights for people's rights to use the music they payed for in ways they should be free to do so. They also legitimise the use of the p2p technology rather than attempt to make it illegal like some senators in the US.

    Sadly friends it seems the US is falling behind both on a freedom level and a moral level.

    So to all those people with their surrender jokes that aren't funny I say at least France isn't selling it's soul. It remains true to Freedom. More so in actions than in speech.

    • Re:Once again... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by bravni ( 133601 )
      Well said.

      There's a statue of Benjamin Franklin in Paris, not too far where I live. Here's what written on it: "The genius who freed America and shed torrents of light upon Europe. The sage whom two worlds claimed as their own."

      That's how we French like to joke about the US, sometimes.
    • And the French have tasty desserts to boot. Free music and delightful foodstuffs, what more could you ask for?
    • You, sir, are a troll, plain and simple. This article was not anti-French, it had nothing to do with Iraq, yet you decided to bring it up anyway. I opposed the Iraq war, as did nearly half of my nation, but it is irrelivent to the matter at hand.

      And, as for "protecting freedom", it would seem that you didn't read the article a t all. If "protecting freedom" means adding a mandatory tax to pay for media that I may or may not want, you have a very strange definition of "protecting freedom".

      What about Creative
      • What about Creative Commons? Now the license is completely pointless - just pay your tax and you are free to copy all you want!

        Creative Commons licenses are just attempts to reduce the harm inflicted by a ludicrously inefficient and burdensome digital copyright system. It would be far better to fix the law so that it works well for every work, not just those that are CC-licensed. Most of the people involved in creating the Creative Commons licenses in the first place would agree with this analysis.

        What if
      • You, sir, are a troll, plain and simple. This article was not anti-French, it had nothing to do with Iraq, yet you decided to bring it up anyway.

        The article wasn't anti-French, but the bulk of the comments were. Just look up. Part of the reason I read this discussion was to look upon in dispair at the "France surrenders" posts that predicatably turned up. This hatred for France is completely artificial propaganda, "Freedom Fries" anyone?

        I have NO ISSUE with anyone who points out the complete and utter h

    • I have to tell you that France is neither behind nor ahead on a moral level than any other country including the US, simply because it is VERY hard to define morals (as in whose morals).

      Also Chirac is a big fat asshole. Only because he is much smarter than Bush doesn't mean he is a nice guy. Bush comes across as a clueless nice guy that I wouldn't mind as a buddy, but that should never be in a position of power, whereas Chirac is a very corrupt smart power player. Now choose.

      I am from Germany and if I could
    • You have 1/3 of the items right.
      In a speech and in various letters released the reason Jacques Chirac and the French government gave were:

      1) Economic, France was losing around 70% formerly legal contracts.
      2) They were more focused on making peace between the palistians and Isreal. I am giving you credit for hte cause havoc.
      3) That renewed inspection could be achieved and UN Resolution 687 could be enforced by some other means. France believed that Irak had WMD but that they could be found by inspe
  • French cinema and music trading associations together with rock stars such as Johnny Hallyday have spoken out against the law, arguing it would kill their work.

    Yeah, right. As long as P2P is around nobody can sing a song, compose lyrics, record a song, perform at your local coffee shop, write a screenplay, make a movie, or do anything else creative at all. You're all dead in your tracks.

    • "Yeah, right. As long as P2P is around nobody can sing a song, compose lyrics, record a song, perform at your local coffee shop, write a screenplay, make a movie, or do anything else creative at all. You're all dead in your tracks."

      I'm aware you were being sarcastic, but think of it this way. Say that once we put the musicians in their place, we made a law outlawing the sale of software, or legalizing software piracy, or something similar. Software development would continue to exist (e.g. the OSS mov

      • Yes, but sooner or later a company will need thiere software to have a certain feature, it currently does not. So they will pay someone to add it.

        • "Yes, but sooner or later a company will need thiere software to have a certain feature, it currently does not. So they will pay someone to add it."

          Yup. The software market would change drastically. If companies needed a feature that they couldn't get by pirating some third-party work, they'd hire a contractor.

          A future in which programmers are treated the same way as we want to treat musicians would be great if you're a contract programmer or you're already in the habit of giving your stuff away for

  • French Governoment not so keen about P2P (Score:3, Informative)

    by chevanne ( 597362 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @05:11PM (#14638173)

    French laws issue related to P2P are related at http://www.ratatum.com/ [ratatum.com] Check in particular http://www.ratiatum.com/news2755_DADVSI_remaniemen t_du_texte_vers_moins_de_sanctions.html [ratiatum.com] (in French, sorry)

    Basically:
    * Just before Chrismas, the government has attempted to vote a law allowing more sanction against P2P
    * Some parlement members (both left&right) has decided to modify the law in a direction allowing P2P if a flat fee is paid by the user ("license globale")
    * This modification has been voted
    * The leader from both political party UMP (government) and PS (opposition) are against this modification of the law
    * The goverment want to modify against the law, to remove what has been added in december and to ask the parlement to revote, but with less sanctions as before : 38 Euro in case of infrigement (~ 45$)
    * Both side are trying to petition the public. In particular the media company are pushing the artist to says that "Allowing P2P will kill artistic creation"

    Now, the debate around this law is very alive in French media, which is a good thing IMHO, because it will be very difficult to make a very restrictive laws.
    The new law will contains also provisiond enforcing "fair use" (or "private copy" in French), i.e. to allow to bypass DRM to allow interop (between iTune and some MP3 players for example).

  • I guess its time to start using French proxies so the **AA thugs can leave me alone!

  • I'd pay $6 per month... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Panaphonix ( 853996 ) on Friday February 03, 2006 @06:07PM (#14638673) Journal
    Under a system proposed by Harvard University Professor Terry Fisher:

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/01/free_legal _downloads/ [theregister.co.uk]

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