‘We’re all pirates’
p2pnet.net News:- More than 7,000 people in France have in effect told the French authorities to prosecute them for ‘online piracy‘.
They’ve done so by signing a petition launched by le Nouvel Observateur to protest the Big Music cartel’s sue ‘em all campaign, designed to blackmail people into buying ‘product’.
The petition is called We’re all pirates and reads:
“At this hour, dozens of internet users are about to be prosecuted for having downloaded music files from p2p networks. We want to denounce this repressive and disproportionate policy of which these victims are scapegoats. Like 8,000,000 other Frenchmen, at the least, we ourselves have downloaded the odd music file and are therefore guilty. We are demanding that these absurd actions be stopped. We are proposing the beginning of a wide-ranging public debate involving government and everyone in the music industry, including artists, so as to arrive at adequate protection of the author’s royalty rights, but also those of the consumer …”
(Thanks for the interpretation/translation, Liz)
Head over to the le Nouvel Observateur site for a list of some of the more famous signees.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
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See:-
online piracy – “Nous sommes tous des pirates”, le Nouvel Observateur, February 2, 2005
February 4th, 2005 at 9:04 pm
Copying copyrighted material is the most victimless crime of all, when done privately and not for profit.
Now society. or at least those that control the legal system, is making all sorts of victimless “crimes” very costly and wants to send the “criminals” to jail.
The inconceivable part of this sad story is that when the victims of piracy and trade were humans, the slaves, much of the “civilized” world did not make the trade (of humans) a crime or even shameful. Why, Washington himself was a slave trader.
Some progress!
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com