French p2p file sharer freed
p2p news / p2pnet: France is fast becoming a bastion for p2p freedom.
The country was the first to propose legalizing p2p downloading and now a French court has thrown out a case against a p2p file sharer for both downloading and uploading music and movies.
The file sharer was defended by the Association of Audionautes (ADA) in a suit brought by sued by the Société Civile des Producteurs Phonographiques.
"On September 21, 2004, the prosecutor’s office found 1875 MP3 and DIVX files on the defendant’s hard drive," says the ADA.
The man was later sued for allegedly downloading and uploading 1,212 music tracks.
However, "the Judges decided that these acts of downloading and uploading qualified as ‘private copying’," says the post.
Also See:
legalizing p2p – French ‘legal p2p downloads’ plan, February 3, 2006
Association of Audionautes – French judge authorizes downloading and uploading of copyrighted content on the Internet, February 7, 2006
February 8th, 2006 at 5:59 pm
HAHAHAHA Go France!!!!
February 8th, 2006 at 11:21 pm
Now I just need my computer to be in France.
February 9th, 2006 at 4:49 am
Finally Sanity!!!!
February 9th, 2006 at 5:58 am
Damn i wish i could see the faces of those cartel execs when they first found out about this… I reckon their expressions would be priceless ;o)
It’ll probly take them a day or so to get over the shock before they issue their usual “doom and gloom” statements about it.
February 9th, 2006 at 7:15 am
Hey this is one for the books.
While the **AA’s of the world have been going ape, using penalities never meant to be levied against individuals not making a profit in sharing, maybe someone has a clue to sanity in this mess.
We already have seen the lengths that the cartels will go to put pressure on the average Joe about this insanity. No one is excluded be it mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, nor child. They had to find some method to even start and saying that payment due them was enough to include financial incentive is horse hockey. So were the ad driven support for websites line. No one that I know of in p2p ever sold diddly. No money changed hands.
In truth, the cartels have no one to blame but themselves on this one. They have shown what lengths they will go to, including pressing to have a child taken from its family in order to push for a court lawsuit and in my opinion that is plain wrong. At some point the rest of the world will have to consider if tieing up court time for average Joe by the thousands is going to accomplish anything other than continue to make the cartels and the courts by association look bad in the eyes of the public.
February 9th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
There may be some hope for the French after all.
They obviously have more brains than the US courts system.
February 9th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Well, I guess we should be hearing their BULLsH*T news release any time now stating how the have a ‘great victory again piracy’.
Ha.
What a bunch of idiots the Mp** and their French couterparts are.
Duh.
Thank you to the French courts for having some common sense.
February 12th, 2006 at 3:33 am
This might be bad news as :
- The cartels will appeal this decision and put their top lawyers on this for the appeal.
- It could be used in the parliementary discussion about the new copyright laws (due to be held in March) as an argument for the big 4, showing the representatives that they need harsher legislation (DRM here, DRM there, DRM everywhere!)