TetsuoShima Posted February 8, 2006 Share Posted February 8, 2006 France Taking a Step Forward to Legalizing P2P The District Court of Paris released free of charges an avid user of Kazaa, in posession of 1875 mp3 files containing copyrighted materials, in a lawsuit filed by a French recording industry. According to the court, the defendant was making use of these files for private, personal use, which consequently makes his use legal. France allows its citizens to make fair use of copyrighted materials as long as that usage is not collective nor commercial. This decision taken on December 8, but made public on Tuesday by the Asssociation of Audionautes, a non-profit organization that fights the abusive threats of the music industry. The court's judgment is the first one to authorize both the downloading and uploading of P2P content for Internet users. France has so far been mainly leaning towards decriminalization of P2P use as shown by previous court judgments. On late December 2005, the National Assembly of France voted to legalize peer-to-peer file-sharing of music on the Internet. The amendment recommended that Internet users pay fixed fee to compensate the music producers. Reports of the measure indicated that the fee would be between 5 euros ($5.92) to 7 euros ($8.28) in the form of a monthly subscription charge for unlimited downloading. Last Wednesday, French periodical Le Nouvel Observateur placed a manifesto online titled "Liberez la musique" (Free the music) denouncing the exaggerated repression against P2P users in France and calling for an open debate on the subject. The call has attracted more than 16,000 signatures, including those of celebrities and politicians who declare being hardened criminals under French law as they have all downloaded music at some point in time. The debate has yet to come to and end as some court judgments show opposition to file-sharing. In its February 2nd judgment,a district court in France (Tribunal de Grande Instance de Pontoise) accused a P2P user of non-authorized reproduction according to the intellectual property laws of the country. The individual who downloaded over 10,000 illegal files was condemned by the criminal court to paying a 3,000 Euro fine for infrigment to the copyright laws of the country. In the civil lawsuit, the P2P participant was condemned to paying 10,200 Euros in interest and damages and 2,200 Euros in punitive damages to five big French industries all in the music production and intellectual property fields. ---------------------------------------------- Well, it isn't perfect yet in France either, but at least they're moving in the right direction, which is more then can be said of most other countries! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StitchInTime Posted February 8, 2006 Share Posted February 8, 2006 The amendment recommended that Internet users pay fixed fee to compensate the music producers. Reports of the measure indicated that the fee would be between 5 euros ($5.92) to 7 euros ($8.28) in the form of a monthly subscription charge for unlimited downloading. Bon voyage, but I won't be moving. If those figures are in U.S. dollars that's more than I pay for dialup, and since I couldn't afford to pay what would be more than double what I'm paying now, I'd have to stop downloading altogether. So, either way, you still have to come up with the cash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quosego Posted February 8, 2006 Share Posted February 8, 2006 Cool, france is getting smart. Thank god I don't have to worry about music and movies, those can be pirated (downloaded) legally in the netherlands :). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
str82u Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 Decriminalize - That wonderful word that means it's more of a bother than benefit to try to find you, much less house you in a jail and prosecute you for money you probably are going to sit in jail to pay anyhow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vfn4i83 Posted February 9, 2006 Share Posted February 9, 2006 Well France have a feet in the future, and a modern filosophy Aint companys how control the law but the people neverless they arent criminals for do that kind of action, they believe that a movie or a song is created to be seeing and listened or else its meaneless and if tec. can facilitate that I stop it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mav Posted February 10, 2006 Share Posted February 10, 2006 How's the weather in Paris this time of year? Wonder where I can get a good French/English dictionary.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StitchInTime Posted February 10, 2006 Share Posted February 10, 2006 Wonder where I can get a good French/English dictionary.. At a bookstore, no doubt. Collins Robert is good. I have a great big one of those, a smaller one of Larousse, which is also good, a pocket-sized one, a phrase book, and some french course, cassette tapes and textbooks around here somewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbbb Posted February 27, 2006 Share Posted February 27, 2006 I think France is taking a step in the right direction, but to compensate those who are already rich? That sounds fishy to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
str82u Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 Well, if we are the great capitolist nation we claim to be, or are, we can't say, "Piss on them" just becasue they are rich. If it were my work out there, I'd want to get paid too, at least at first, after that I'd seed it myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kyran Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 well i hope it comes to england after all we give the french enough in farm subsides Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macrovirus Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 Well, if anyone needs a hand getting settled down here... It sounds like a great move in the right direction - keeping the big coperations happy with small fee, but allowing unlimited downloads - quite personally I'd go for that any day, especially if they had something similar for TV shows in the future. It would make a lot more sense, allowing everyone to be (moderately) happy, keeping the money flow going in the big corperation's pockets, and the downloading of these things perfectly legal. Hopefully it wont be too long until this becomes a global reality... But I can always dream *sighs* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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