French Telcos Point Out How Costly It Is If Sarkozy Forces Them To Be Copyright Cops

from the why-put-the-burden-on-the-telcos? dept

Thu, Mar 5th 2009 7:59pm — Mike Masnick

With France still trying to move forward with its plan to require ISPs to remove accused file sharers from the internet via a "three strikes" policy, French telcos and ISPs are protesting the plan, noting that it would cost them millions of dollars to obey the law, and they see no reason why the burden should be on them. This is an important point that often gets missed in the debates over such "three strikes" policies. The problem is that the entertainment industry refuses to adapt its business model to the changing market. There's ample evidence that if they did embrace new business models, they'd do quite well. So why should other companies pay for the entertainment industry's own laziness? And why are politicians (even those who seem to ignore copyright rules themselves) helping to push this through?

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Filed Under: france, isps, three strikes

4 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 5 Mar 2009 @ 8:50pm

thats ok, they will just charge $500 a month for service and say goodbye to the internet.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2009 @ 12:29am

Re:
Maybe that is their plan? Considering the protectionism in France.. hmmm
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Mar 2009 @ 4:52am

So are all the pro-copyright people around here fine with this? Increased costs to other businesses.

Your average French citizen will have copyright costs passed on to them in their monthly ISP bill. And it will also have those costs in any entertainment that is consumed.

The best part is almost none of this money ends up in the hands of content creators!
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nzgeek, 8 Mar 2009 @ 9:07pm

Sarkozy loves to play by the rules...
I find it hard to take Sarkozy seriously when he (and his political party) have blatantly infringed a band's copyright and refuse to pay the necessary royalties.

The UMP has used the song Kids by MGMT at its national congress and in two online videos, but when they were hit up for royalties, only wanted to pay a token 1 Euro. They're now being taken to court (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7912423.stm)
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