And Fox News told us that France was a bad, bad place. Turns out France was right about a lot of things, including file sharing!

You all forget one important piece of info, the race riots that were going on not even a month ago. This is a little stunt of course, but it is to distract from all the carnage that they are STILL getting over. In short, they are just tring to move the spotlight off of something that is much more important, and turn a blind eye on there own people; so they can TRY to piss us off. PATHETIC!!

The headline is completely delusive.

Here is a link to prove that:
http://www.zeit.de/onlin...frankreich_urheberrecht

Here is a short summary in English - -

What the French government really wants is:

1. The distribution and usage of ALL software that enables the transfer of DRM protected contents shall be banned.

2. EVERY radio or tv transmission in the internet shall be allowed by means of DRM only, in order to prevent any copying at all.

3. The French internet providers shall be forced to monitor the COMPLETE private data traffic for the braching of copyrights.

This is the dream-come-true for the lobby of those making money with media.

This will be done soon, despite what happened in the parliament.

So - YES, PC_Tool - this is all about PR.

If this passes, France might unwittingly be playing into Microsoft's hands.

This would be quite the FUD bartering chip for Microsoft in coming to an agreement on profit-sharing with media associations. "Some profit is better than none, right?" Microsoft'll say to them, and they'll reluctantly agree to Microsoft's terms.

Gates will proclaim, "And now, witness the fire power of this fully-armed and operational Next- Generation Secure Computing Base."

"We're doomed."

"If this passes"

It won't.

'Nuff said.

http://www.bloomberg.com...8aXkU8&refer=europe

From Ars:

"To put it bluntly, this is a publicity stunt. The bill, which passed last night (Dec. 21st) by a vote of 30 to 28, saw the remaining 519 deputies absent from the vote. They weren't there.

Still, the members of the Assemblée Nationale who voted for this will look populist and fair-minded, but the amendments in question will never survive the next round."

A stunt. For appearances sake. Pomp and Circumstance....it is utterly meaningless.

This was a no-go from the beginning. Over half the assembly wasn't even involved. It's a non-starter put inmotion to make a point. They all know it will never make it to law.

Just a stunt folks, nothing to see here.

I got somthing of more importance than the topic above!

I have a mouse with a fan in it, it keeps your hands from sweating! :P

Seriously? You bought one of those?

How are they to use?

They're pretty nice actually. I dunno about you but my hand has a tendency to get really hott and moist, and you can just turn the lil mouse fan on and it blows really cool air into the palm of your hand. Dries it up pretty well! I like it.

It's a
nYKo
Air Flo Mouse

Hahahahahaha...

can....not...resist....

"my hand has a tendency to get really hott and moist,"

Yeah, that fits quite nicely into the 'We *really* didn't need to know that' catagory.

hahaha! nice... But yeah dude, it's a really neat mouse. If you "double-click" your mouse alot, you should get one lol.

I'll look into it, but will probably avoid. I am going to be upgrading to a *hopefully* near-silent system pretty soon here, and adding a mouse fan doesn't really fit into that.

haha good point, Get a Logitech MX1000...That thing is sweet, that's what I use at Home.

Got the MX815 or sumsuch now...the gaming beast.

I'll prolly stick with it for a bit yet.

lol look how stupid the French are....

"Hey guys! Lets pissed the americans off some more!!!"

...bastiges...

This won't last. There's just no way.

Stupid French Parliament.

It's a first step. This is how it will be everywhere, eventually. Even US will come to it ultimately, albeit probably the last.

...don't hold your breath.

I don't need to. It doesn't have to pass in this particular case, it is still obvious this is the way things are going.

Hundreds of millions of people who would never take anything that doesn't belong to them without permission (steal) have no problem sharing (copyrighted) files. Why do you think this is? Because they understand (or rather instinctively feel) that making a copy is not stealing.

And laws prohibiting something that majority of people think is alright were always eventually repealed. Happened many times before, will happen in this case also.

Neato!

France is a great country isn't it?

I suspect that the European Court may have something to say about this if it becomes law in France, especially if it conflicts with European laws that France was already signed up to. The European Court can overrule a country's laws if they are in conflict with European law, if there is a test case. Therefore the European Court is the obvious place for the music industry to go to overturn this law.

They wouldnt be voting for something that is contradicting some EU directive(s), or such, in the first place...

So does this mean that international sharers that use French proxies will be OK too? *grin* I'm certain the International community won't allow this to get far.

So France is going to look the other way when it comes to movie/music piracy like China does? I doubt it. Their $$ interests in the rest of the western world are way too huge. Not nearly enough details in this probable non-story.

Viva La France!

Now all they need to do is throw a tax on CD's and DVD's, and they're set.

$2.00 each, anyone?

A tax would be a simple way to pay before you copy

When you get dragged into court - simple show your till receipt :-) "I've paid"

Then all that would be needed is a way to get the tax to the artists. Maybe a 'top ten' list of copied material. With the premium slice of the tax going to the number one slot.

Funny, i live in Finland and we have "tax" on things like DVD/CD or any other device i.e. MP3 player are have this "compensation tax". Yet, starting from 2006, it will be pretty much illegal to copy any kind of CD/DVD for own use.

Good example is the price of DVD. They are 2x as expensive compared if you bought them from germany, where half of that goes directly to artists.

Insane.

Makes little to no sence to me, but then again, im only a puny human.

there is already a tax on copied music, if you buy black cds which are labled with "for Muisc" there ios a Tax! so maybe we are already paying tax on our music copying.

Yeah it's funny to see when all these Scandinavian people come to Germany and buy tons of alcohol and media articles. It's just because our value-added tax is so low. But wait until 2007, there the tax is going to be raised up from 16 to 19%.

Wait til the EU antitrust commission appears and sues France...

Man-O-Man do I hope this gets legalized in France.

Hahahahaha...

This is so funny.

RIAA and MPAA can eat poop on a stick.

They can already eat poop on a stick, as far as I'm concerned.

and How!

Thank God that France is not crazy!!! :)
they surely know what are computers and data in the true essence

They're not crazy, they're insane, and this won't last.

Seems that the French government will do anything to irritate American corporations... and that's really funny!

Agreed. That is hilarious.

Vive la France! :-)

"Really - how can a network be held responsible for the actions of those using the network???"

It can't.

No more than a telephone company can be held responsible for the drug deal made using its lines.

Canadian ISPs fought that battle.

And won.

Unless you're the United States Supreme Court....

In which case, a P2P service *can* be held liable.

So...

Canada? Legal.

US? Illegal.

Pretty much the rest of the civilised world? On the fence.

Just because one country says this, and another says that proves nothing...

While reading the court notes about a recent case to bring down a P2P network (can't remember which one it was) I had the following thought...

court prosecutor "in supplying the means you are facilitating in the theft" (or something simular)

Can the maker of the car be held accoutable for making the get-away car.

What about the steel mill that made the steel, that made the knife that was involved in the stabbing?!

Is the maker of the motorway responsible for every way that motorway is used?

Really - how can a network be held responsible for the actions of those using the network???

.... when it fits the conditions laid down in the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against Grokster in June this year.

This article points out that France's parliament voted to legalize, get this, sharing:
Music Files
Video Files
That's against the law in the US, this article simply says "P2P" instead of "sharing music files", its much more convenient.

I totally agree with JackC - P2P is a technology - when I talk person-to-person (peer-to-peer) using any of the chat programs that also P2P

Here is something to think about...

I'm in the UK and we have a TV licence (a bit like Sky satelite subscription) - so we have already paid for the TV programme weither we watch it or not.

The BBC (when I contacted them recently) said they had no problem with me video recording any program on any of their channels.

So...
Mr A sets up his video recorder Mrs B sets up her video recorder. But unfortunatly the power goes out in Mrs B's house. Mr A offers the video he has to Mrs B. Is Mr A commiting an offence?! since Mrs B (and Mr A) has already paid, and Mrs B would have recorded the programme anyway.

As I've said elsewhere - a system where we pay for the item ahead of time - removes many of the 'issues' concerning copying.

As long as the copyright owner gets their money - what could they complain about?

UK TV license is more like a tax on having a TV rather than paying for copyright materials on the BBC.

The video lending between private users comes under fair use. If you do so on a commercial basis, you will have to pay for the materials - that's when "copyright owner gets their money".

Unfortunately, that's good enough for them to come after you in many places. I was contacted regarding copyright infringement after missing "My Name is Earl"(VCR died), and downloading it off the net. Now I have a new VCR though...so back to taping, and not downloading.

In general I would think...
--> Download a British show you can't get(because of your country) = OK
--> Download a Canadian show you can't get(because of your country) = OK
--> Download a British or Canadian show you can get(and in effect have paid for) = OK

--> Downloading a show you haven't paid for, but could pay for = NOT OK

--> Downloading an American show = NOT OK

You must be clear about what programmes you are talking about. Much of the BBC's output comes from private companies that own copyright, not the BBC.

The BBC website has a very nice Listen Again service where anyone can freely listen to BBC radio broadcasts. The rights for these are carefully negotiated beforehand. Many shows are not available there because the rights to copy have not been agreed.

As for videoing at home, that was debated and resolved at BBC and government level almost 25 years ago. Making personal copies is not seen as a problem in the UK, and I have never heard of anyone being prosecuted because they have a huge library of movies copied from the TV. Legal problems only occur when people distribute copies in a big way, most commonly by selling copies. This seems like a pragmatic and reasonable way to handle the copying issue.

If anyone wants proof of how generous and trusting the BBC really is with its material, just visit the BBC website's Listen Again page. It is a trully excellent service.

Downloading a TV show: EMINENTLY OK.

If you put it on the airwaves for 50 years, lost the lobby to prohibit home recording, watched a VERY huge industry based on recording grow up around the concept and couldn't strangle that technology, then I guess you've totally lost that battle and it's rather obviously OK to record in any format imaginable.

Oh, you got greedy and decided to try again after all those fifty years?

How terrible for you - cry me a river.

Fifty years sets a HELL of a precedent.

"Downloading a TV show: EMINENTLY OK."

In Canada? Perhaps. In the US? Definately not.

"Fifty years sets a HELL of a precedent."

Not even close. It's been illegal all 50 of those years. Lack of publicity has nothing to do with it. Falls under ignorance of the law not being a defense. Again, it may be different in Canada, but definately not in the US.

Why fight it now? Could it be that technology has caused two things to happen? An explosion in the amount of infringement, and a greater ability to fight it?

Please keep in mind I am 100% against copyright on publicly accessible digital matieral. If it's pumped to the airwaves, it should be public domain. I am simply pointing out the flaws in your argument as I see them.

For clarity:

Lack of enforcement does not set precedent in the US.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, as is your agreement or disagreement with it. If you live in the US you *must* abide or accept the consequences.

I know you do not live in the US. The laws in your country are different. But to imply the laws in your country are the rule by which all countries should be measured is both arrogant and un-informed.

..and no, I don't want to start a flame-war.

The notion that the term P2P does not apply appropriately in this case is not lost on me, and I agree that the masses are generally mis-informed by the media. Education is the key. However, the use of P2P networks being declared LEGAL has not been done anywhere else. This simply means that this is the first court ruling that upholds the legal use of P2P networks to allow file transfers between 2 computers. Many companies are actually tried to get legislature in place that makes the use of P2P networks illegal. What they don't realize is that there really isn't any network that doesn't utilize at least a portion of the P2P framework.

Sorry, but your article is extremely mis-informative.

This statement - "France would be the first country to legalize P2P."...

P2P is legal everywhere. P2P does not refer to the sharing of illegal/copyrighted files, but simply to a particular technology.

P2P does not even necessarily mean sharing of files. P2P is a technology that can be used for many things, including client-to-client meetings, etc.

In short, P2P is NOT the sharing of illegal files. The term P2P is most commonly used to refer to the sharing of any files (illegal, or legal).

yeah, and russia legalized p2p in all its forms, and i believe canada as well, so first country doesn't work even with the correct intention

Saying "P2P is legal everywhere" is misinformative. File Sharing is an unenumerated right (at least in the US it is, not sure myself about Canada or Russia).

It may be "legal everywhere", but there is no legislation for or against it, except indirectly through copyright laws. I think what they are trying to do is to legislate P2P directly so that the use of P2P is better defined, e.g., a person knows exactly where s/he stands if (say) s/he downloads or uploads a Linux GPL distribution as opposed to another downloading copyrighted material.

File sharing is quite legal in Canada.

Thankfully, the US is NOT the center of the universe, even though it likes to think it is. :) :) ;)

Good luck becoming that-- btw: what is the center of the universe?

I am. Guess you didn't get that memo ;-)

Vogon.

Which universe?

roflmao

Nope, missed that one. Thankls for the heads-up!