Email from France – 4
p2pnet.net News:- We French people proudly nurture our culture. For instance, everytime you go on the Champs Elysée to watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster, part of the ticket price goes to our own local movie industry to help them create and distribute quality French movies.
That’s what we call the “French cultural exception”.
Of course, this isn’t enough, and we support our culture with one of the best copyright laws in the world.
Unfortunately, though, in this instance “best” means “gives users the least amount of freedom possible”.
And now the French recording Industry association, the SNEP, is promising to launch actions against French p2p users.
The IFPI has sued 200 Internet users since March and was successful against 17 users in Danemark, one in Germany and 30 in Italy. And it’s now threatening French users as well.
But there’s a but.
Our privacy law currently protects IP addresses as “personal information”. That means in France, none of the Big Music organizations such as the IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industries) can lawfully collect these data without infringing French law.
So, how can they sue p2p users if they can’t even give IP addresses to the judge?
The answer is simple: forget about privacy. Laws are meant to be changed and it’s already being planned to amend our laws to allow some groups to collect IP addresses when copyrights are being violated.
In addition, the French Minister of Industry, Patrick Devedjian, has promised on July 8th to launch a three point Action Plan against piracy:
- Information and education of the Internet users so to make them aware of the risks and incured penalties
- Following the legal proceedings engaged against a number of reported pirates. (that is, the state will launch criminal prosecutions)
- Promote and offer legal and payable offers.
Currently, French law doesn’t have an anti-circumvention provision which would prevent someone from bypassing TPMs. But it seems as if it won’t be long before France adopts the infamous European Union Copyright Directive, our home-made DMCA. The EUCD should have been implemented by the Member States before December 22nd, 2002. To date, the directive has only been implemented in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Luxembourg and is still discussed in a number of other states.
On the other hand, more and more media in France are relaying alternative solutions to the so-called “P2P problem,” the most promising of which would be to extend the radio licencing regime to the Internet.
Currently, when you listen to the radio, you’re paying the music authors by listening to commercials.
On the Internet, you could be paying through a levy on products or services whose value is enhanced by p2p file sharing.
On June 16, the ADAMI (a French collective society for performers) will suggest just such a solution by revealing a “study on the new economic models for the broadcasting of culture“.
I described a few months ago the system of a compulsory licencing regime on the Internet in what I also called a “culture broadcasting licence“.
In North America, this solution has already been brilliantly explained by William Fisher in his forthcoming book “Promises to Keep“, and the relevant chapter is available online. Harvard professor Neil Netanel also proposed what he called a “noncommercial use levy” and Jessica Litman is also drafting such a proposal.
The idea has crossed the Atlantic, and it makes its way to the stakeholders.
Now it’s time for consumers and artists to become allies and come up with a common solution that would make these new counterprivacy laws unnecessary.
In France, the debate for an alternative solution is emerging, but the government is trying to strangle it, as in the US and Canada.
Collaborations such as the one between p2pnet.net and Ratiatum.com and between Internet users and artists all around the world are the kinds of initiatives that we all need to help the Internet become what it deserves to be.
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Guillaume Champeau, who runs Ratiatum.com, p2pnet’s opposite number in France, and p2pnet editor Jon Newton, decided they owe it to their respective readers to trade items every now and then.
Champeau’s first Email from France is here, the second is here and the third is here.
June 10th, 2004 at 11:05 pm
Here in the U.S. of piece of S*** A. When I think of true liberty and freedom I usually think of Europe. France, being one of the countries who supported our liberation from the English, and gave us that wonderful statue called Liberty, is one of the best countries in the world. It sickens me to even imagine big corporations and big money effecting France as it does here in our daily lives.
But one thing I know and I’m counting on if that the French don’t care about these laws and if it starts to bother them too much, there will be hell to pay. People in France do not take things sitting down like here. They stand up, strike, and create problems for lesser leaders, unlike here. Good luck Fu***g with the French, to all corporations.
–Paxi–
June 14th, 2004 at 12:47 am
“On June 16, the ADAMI (a French collective society for performers) will suggest just such a solution by revealing a “study on the new economic models for the broadcasting of culture”. ”
I wish to know how you can be so sure about a study you haven’t read yet ?