French Lawmakers Trying To Regulate File Sharing Don't Know Much About It
from the required-classes dept
We've joked in the past that judges and politicians should be required to pass some sort of "class" on certain basic technology issues before they'll allowed to rule on lawsuits or create regulations having to do with technology. All too often we find that many of the problems created in the courts and legislatures are due to politicians simply not understanding technology. It looks like that's true around the world as well. Over in France, where politicians are pushing hard for a three strikes law, a reporter went and asked some politicians some basic questions to gauge their understanding of the technology in question -- and found that most had absolutely no clue. Combined with the fact that approximately 90% of people in a recent survey were against the law, and that the European Parliament has said any such law would be a violation of a user's civil rights, you have to wonder how politicians can possibly justify such a draconian law.
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Filed Under: france, p2p, regulators, technology literacy
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Amazing isn't it?
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Re:
I'll sleep so much better now.
It is too easy to dismiss an issue by simply stating that everything else is screwed up, so what's your problem ???
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Brought to you by the FDA and Peanut Corporation of America.
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Trick question
The real problem here is they are taking advice only from the old guard content companies. European governments did the same for a while when radio came along. The "music industry" of the time didn't like radio broadcasting of music and governments also felt it was not a technology for civilian use. But the public loved tuning in to the pirate radios, some broadcasting from ships in the English channel, where no government had jurisdiction to stop them.
The legislators in France (and elsewhere) should think about this. If their predecessors had implemented a 3 strikes policy towards radio broadcasting of music, would we be better now? Would the "music industry" be better or worse?
And all this to "save" a business model that is doomed anyway. Even if P2P filesharing stopped tomorrow, there are still music blogs, file hosting sites like rapidshare, email, instant messengers, the old usenet, portable drives, etc, etc, where people could get music without exposing themselves to monitoring. Plus there are new legal streaming services every week, where people can hear music (CC or not) for free.
Even if there was only iTunes and NOTHING else, the old business model of promoting 1 song and selling a CD with 12 songs for 15 dollars/euros is OVER!
Piracy via P2P is an excuse, it's a side issue, it's blinding music execs and politicians, but it's mostly a distraction from the real issues. Even if piracy stopped completely tomorrow, it would not change anything!
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Re: Trick question
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Should someone pushing for a law be well briefed enough on the basic issue to know what they're pushing for? They even have research staff to brief them.
If someone who breaks the law isn't allowed ignorance as an excuse, they someone who sets the law shouldn't be allowed the privilege of ignorance.
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