p2pnet - rss feed: French ‘legal p2p downloads’ plan
p2p news / p2pnet: French plans to legalise p2p downloading are still being debated while an alarmed corporate music industry does everything it can to block the process.
France proposed the move in December, 2005, and French president Jacques Chirac recently, "added his opinions to the somewhat confusing debate on illegal file sharing that has been doing the rounds in French political circles in the last few weeks," although his views didn’t clarify anything.
But EMI boss Eric Nicoli has no doubts, calling the plan an "aberration".
Now, "France’s Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres is set to be questioned about the draft on Wednesday by the parliamentary commission for cultural affairs and the commission for economic affairs," says Reuters.
"The project has worried the music, film and television industries because it would make France the first country to allow unlimited peer-to-peer downloading for a flat fee of several euros a month, going on, "Some legalised versions of peer-to-peer networks are starting to crop up, including one expected to be launched soon in Germany by Warner Bros."
This is in reference to In2Movies, a fake p2p service slated for release next month.
"We are concerned and monitoring the situation closely," Reuters has a spokeswoman for the Big Four’s IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) saying.
France should now expect warnings about dire consequences to the Big Four and its artists and employees from IFPI boss John Kennedy if the proposal goes through.
"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," states Reuters.
Also See:
confusing debate - Chirac on p2p file sharing, January 12, 2006
aberration - EMI attacks French p2p plan, January 22, 2006
Reuters - France’s legal file-sharing plan advancing, February 3, 2006
fake p2p service - Warner Bros p2p ‘file sharing’, Januaryy 30, 2006
February 3rd, 2006 at 10:42 pm
“The project has worried the music, film and television industries because it would make France the first country to allow unlimited peer-to-peer downloading for a flat fee of several euros a month”
Not quite so, really. Radio stations in Frances, as elsewhere, get perrformances licenses that are extremely cheap for the right to broadcast millions of songs to an unlimited number of radios an unlimited number of times for the license period.
As a matter of fact the licenses are so cheap that the alleged recipients of the license fees, the songwriters, get practically nothing for the use of their songs.
The music industry is not complaining about the cheap use (almost free) of their music. The reason is that the radio performances increase the sales of their CDs.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
February 4th, 2006 at 1:04 am
The EFF has been proposing a system like this for years
http://www.eff.org/share/collective_lic_wp.php
February 4th, 2006 at 6:44 am
With all the funny stuff that has been pulled by the cartels, it is a wonder this hasn’t already surfaced in many countries as the solution. If France became the poster child of how to do it for country after country because of the continual lawsuits being attempted by the cartels through their various groups, you can bet you would never hear lawsuit again with the words p2p tied to them. It is an elegent solution to the problem. The artist won’t get paid, anymore than they do now. Creative accounting with no need to worry about the cost of anything will ensure that artists are always in the hole.
Still this could well be the workable solution and you can bet the cartel will pull out all stops to nip this in the bud. It would tie their hands for continual price raising without having to get regulatory permission to do so. On a global scale, having to deal with country after country, just might keep them busy at something else for a change.