And, Just Like That, France Rejects Three Strikes

from the pendulum-swinging dept

Thu, Apr 9th 2009 9:10am — Mike Masnick

The situation in France just gets stranger and stranger when it comes to the proposed "three strikes" law for kicking music and movie fans off the internet. You probably know that just last week it was approved by legislators in a surprise vote, where just a small number of elected officials waited until most others (who believed the vote would be held later) had left before holding the vote. This resulted in cheers from Hollywood and others in the legacy entertainment business. However, now it appears that The National Assembly has surprised everyone back by rejecting the measure, but with a similarly small group of officials voting. The law was rejected 21 - 15 in what's described as "a near-empty National Assembly." I'm sure more will come out about how this happened, but perhaps politicians who were upset about how it passed in the first place, just played the same trick back. Either way, I'm sure this is not the end of this issue in France (or elsewhere).

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Filed Under: france, three strikes

21 Comments

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Weird Harold's former #5 fan, 9 Apr 2009 @ 9:27am

Do they not have quorums in the National Assembly over there?
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:Lobo Santo, 9 Apr 2009 @ 9:29am

Holy Shnikes!
And here we were all thinking the French had no common sense left...
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R. Miles, 9 Apr 2009 @ 9:34am

An American and French were talking...
...recently, discussing how their flags represent the current state of government when passing new laws.

The French guy says, "We get red when we discuss it, white when legislation discusses it, and blue when government passes it."

The American says, "We're the same way, except we see also see stars."

Pretty much sums it all up.
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Tgeigs, 9 Apr 2009 @ 9:40am

Jesus
Apparently, two wrongs make a French Government.

Why can't anyone in any government actually show a backbone, stand up and say "No, you aren't going to do things that way, because it's WRONG", and act as an example to the rest of their country. I mean, i'm all for this law getting bitch slapped, but if they don't do it the right way they're just going to muddy the waters instead of actually getting anything DONE.
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Ryan, 9 Apr 2009 @ 9:43am

Re: Jesus
I disagree. If they pull a knife on you, you pull a gun on them. They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue. That's the Chicago way, and THAT's how you get Capone!
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Leigh (profile), 9 Apr 2009 @ 9:57am

"Legacy Entertainment Business"
Is "Legacy Entertainment Business" a phrase of your coining Mike? Because it's a good one!
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Tgeigs, 9 Apr 2009 @ 10:08am

Re: Re: Jesus
Yeah, as someone who has lived in Chicago his entire life and is relatively familiar with its history, let me assure you that they never GOT Capone. Even when he was in jail he lived better than you or I ever will. Plus, his legacy of organized crime lives on and is just as strong today, though far more secretive.

So no, that's NOT what you do.
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Freedom, 9 Apr 2009 @ 10:12am

Re: Jesus
>> "No, you aren't going to do things that way, because it's WRONG"

This was more about sending a message that you won't do it (pass a law) the wrong way. If you do, we'll just do the same thing and reverse it. I'm impressed at how this was handle. Besides, if nothing else it makes politics entertaining.

Of course, in my state, the best political entertainment of all is the new heavy weight match up between Sheriff Joe and Al Sharpton. Think about it, two major political figures with egos as large as this planet itself. Al Sharpton telling Sheriff Joe he'd better resign or else and Sheriff Joe saying essentially bring it on. Both of these men aren't used to losing and I think this may be the last real fight for them (long careers - getting close to retirement). If you didn't know the subject matter, I think these two were promoting a boxing match or something.

It is also interesting since our former Governor started an investigation and then a month later Al Sharpton comes after Joe. Pretty much tells me that our former Governor couldn't nail Joe on anything legally so they are going after him with Al Sharpton and the Press. I've never seen Joe loose a battle when the Press was involved so this should be truly interesting and entertaining.

This is almost as good as when we had Fife Symington as our Governor - Fife, we miss you! So close to having our income taxes reduced to 0. Why man did you have to piss off the feds... why.... why.... :)

Who needs reality TV shows when you have politics!

(Sorry for the tangent!)

Freedom
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Ian Kenefick, 9 Apr 2009 @ 10:17am

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for Ireland whose largest ISP (Eircom) will isssue 3 strikes and your out. Perhaps it's an opportunity for a VPN providers to offer services aimed at the home user. I'm not advocating piracy for a second - on the contrary, I cannot make the most out of my high bandwidth connection for P2P traffic purely because my ISP sees fit to throttle it - irrespective of the fact that I am trying to share Linux Distros and GPL Licensed software.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2009 @ 10:55am

from what i read elsewhere, the only reason the bill was overturned was because the people who had their internet access suspended still had to pay their internet access bill.
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Ryan, 9 Apr 2009 @ 11:04am

Re: Re: Re: Jesus
Well, I was just quoting a movie, but the case in point does not invalidate the general tactic. Capone got to where he was by being more brutal and violent than any of the other bootleggers. The Nazis ascended to power by being more exploitative than anybody else and wiping out their enemies. I could go on, of course. If you fight clean and your opponent fights dirty, you're probably gonna lose.

These situations I mention are groups that did not have the best interests of society at heart propagating actions that also were not necessarily in the best interests of society. I don't see how replying to this tactic with a tit for tat makes the nation any worse off (remember, this was the status quo a few days ago), as long as the ultimate objective is to end this kind of nonsense.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2009 @ 11:25am

hmm . . . Pretty Funny
Seem typically French that less then half the legislators are ever at work . . .
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BT, 9 Apr 2009 @ 11:36am

3 strikes
Does the National Assembly get two more tries?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2009 @ 11:45am

It will probably be back and pass for good next time.
This is probably not over yet. The ruling party did not have all of its ministers there, and they will probably bring it up again when they have their ducks lined up. The new version may be slightly draconian, for example by not requiring people to continue to pay for their broadband after they have been cut off (but don't be surprised if they are required to pay a huge cutoff fee or something like that).
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Tgeigs, 9 Apr 2009 @ 11:51am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Jesus
Okay, so I know this isn't the forum for this, but being from Chicago and having a love of history, I have to correct you.

"Capone got to where he was by being more brutal and violent than any of the other bootleggers."

Thoroughly false. Capone largely built his empire by bribing EVERYONE, including the Mayor, NOT by being particularly violent. In levels of pure brutality, no one bested the Northside Gang and Bugs Moran. In fact, Capone's downfall only began BECAUSE of public outrage at the Valentine's Day Massacre. Up until then, his "I'm just a businessman" line and flamboyant lifestyle had made him a celebrity here in Chicago.

"The Nazis ascended to power by being more exploitative than anybody else and wiping out their enemies"

Arguable at best. A more accurate description would be that they came to power by taking advantage of corrupt bankers and industrialists (Ford, Rockafeller, Dulles brothers, Citibank, etc.) that thought they could make money by using Germany to create a global conflict against communism. When Hitler got out of control, they turned on him, then ended up using the United States to "fight" communism instead, making money off of the Cold War. Communism has since gone away, so now we're on to terrorism. Can't wait to see who they fictionally make our enemy next...
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robin, 9 Apr 2009 @ 12:05pm

local view
http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2009/04/09/le-parlement-rejette-le-projet-de-loi-creation -et-internet_1178838_651865.html#ens_id=1162478

is this news presented by france's largest daily.

the gov't spokesperson has stated clearly that "this vote only slows adoption of this proposal, it does not block it." it's going to be re-introduced on april 28, after the national assembly's easter break.

most interesting is that the minister of culture, christine albanel, is non-apologetic about the law: "this law is the result of an accord between artists, copyright holders and telecoms"

so where is the public?

and mike was right, this vote was a dirty pool retaliation for dirty pool.
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Ryan, 9 Apr 2009 @ 1:04pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Jesus
I don't necessarily define "playing dirty" as being violent. It just means they won by not playing by the rules. Capone wouldn't have stood up to superior legimate resources by playing by the rules. And the Nazis won by exploiting public sentiment (and they were certainly violent--see the Reichstag fire and the Beer Hall Putsch). I would love that we had honest politicians, and even more that we had almost no government at all. But if I were a French politician against this legislation, I would have done the same thing. Playing the "superior morals" card doesn't get you very far.
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Herve, 9 Apr 2009 @ 2:24pm

Re:
No, there is no quorum in l'Assemblée Nationale
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Herve, 9 Apr 2009 @ 2:30pm

It's not finished yet, unfortunately
The government announced they will submit the law again on the 28th April. They are allowed to do it by the french Constitution (article 45). But what happened today is extremely rare. It happened only twice in the 5th Republic (i.e. since 1958).

There is now greater media exposure about this law for the general public about this law (i.e. not the usual geeks), and also some artists are now opposing the law. Let's cross fingers :)
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Anonymous Frog, 9 Apr 2009 @ 3:36pm

there's always something going wrong when the French government tries to pass a law against illegal file-sharing. In 2006, the NA voted an amendment introducing the "global license" which the government had to suppress somehow. Now, the NA is rejecting the text. The truth of the matter is that the conservative majority is not unanimously in favor of that kind of legislation, and some of them very deliberately stayed away from the vote.
The law will probably pass in a few weeks, as article 45 paragraph 4 makes possible, before being proved unenforceable.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Apr 2009 @ 5:27pm

My version of the three strikes law would stipulate that after a bill has been voted down three times, the next person to introduce it will be tossed out.
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