Grokster ruling hits France
p2pnet.net News View:- Grokster has crossed the Atlantic and hit the shores of France. The French Minister of Culture and Communication, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, offered an official reaction to the decision yesterday [French - (rough translation mine]:
Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, Minister of Culture and Communications, thinks that the decision of the Supreme Court establishing responsibility for the owners of software that allows the illicit exchanges of files (peer to peer: “poste à poste”) is likely to move the debate in France forward.
He hopes that this decision can contribute to aid the deliberation of all the actors involved.
He notes with interest that it constitutes a useful and important stage in the fight against illegal file-sharing and contributes to the emergence of a protected legal offer, which is in constant progression.
In this perspective and in the wake of the parliamentary debate on the [draft] bill on copyright in the information society, which will be examined at re-entry, the Minister of Culture and Communication has asked his staff for a legal evaluation of the American decision.
I doubt that the French Minister has actually read the decision, but apparently his staff will.
And that’s probably the most interesting part of his rather flat reaction: that the American decision isn’t deemed merely a useful guide for the national debate (in which the minister chooses sides), but also for the deliberations on the regulatory changes in the French copyright law.
It’s suggested rather than stated that MGM v Grokster may be used as a source, or even inspiration in the French parlimentary debate on copyright reform as part of the implementation of the European Copyright Directive.
Has the European echo started?
Rik Lambers – CoCo
[Lambers is a former researcher at the Institute for Information Law, Amsterdam, who's now in transition to a new full time job in the field of IP/Internet law. He's also an associate member of the European INDICARE project, which researches consumer issues related to DRM.]
