France Agrees With Spain In Saying Modding Nintendo DS Is Not Illegal

from the good-for-them dept

We had just recently written about how a Spanish court had ruled against Nintendo, saying that a company making "flash carts" for the Nintendo DS -- basically alternative cartridges that can be used for non-authorized games -- was not breaking the law. The ruling basically said that since the flash carts extended the utility of the Nintendo DS, it should be allowed. The reasoning is that Nintendo should not be the only one who can extend the functionality of its devices. This was a nice surprise, but not a huge surprise, since Spain has a good track record of reasonable copyright law decisions.

However, what is surprising is this story, sent in by a few folks, with reader "Sauce" getting it in first, noting that there has been a similar ruling in France, the inventors of the infamous "three strikes and you're out" form of copyright law. The court there seemed to have a problem with Nintendo purposely locking developers out of its device, and even suggested that it should be required to be more open to developers, like Windows. Fascinating to see European courts recognizing the rights of individuals to have a "freedom to tinker."

Filed Under: copyright, france, modding, nintendo ds
Companies: nintendo

French Courts Continue To Penalize eBay For Actions Of Users

from the bad-news dept

While more and more courts seem to be understanding that eBay shouldn't be responsible for what users are selling on its site, it appears that French courts are a bit confused. Last year, a French court fined eBay $63 million because counterfeit LVMH products were being sold on the site. Of course, eBay has no way of knowing what's legit and what's not, but the French court didn't seem to care. A similar case, also involving LVMH, but concerning Google ads, was also ruled in LVMH's favor, but it was appealed to the European Court of Justice, and a judge there has already indicated that it makes little sense to blame the company. But that isn't stopping the French courts. eBay has now been fined yet again, because of a French ban on selling even legally purchased brands of LVMH perfumes if you're not an authorized distributor. eBay is appealing the ruling, saying that banning the resale of legally purchased goods doesn't make sense and harms consumers. However, a much bigger question is why eBay should be liable at all. It's not eBay doing the selling, but users on the site.

Filed Under: auctions, fines, france, liability, trademarks, users
Companies: ebay, lvmh

France Agrees To Kick File Sharers Off The Internet Again; Lobbyists Call It 'Consumer Relief'

from the up-is-down,-black-is-white,-you-said-what-now? dept

There isn't a huge surprise in the news that France has once again passed a law to force ISPs to kick accused (not convicted) file sharers off the internet under a draconian "three strikes" system. We all knew this was coming. After the original French three strikes law was gutted as being totally unconstitutional, French President Nicolas Sarkozy (who apparently doesn't believe any such law should apply to him, given his history of mass piracy) insisted that such a law was necessary to defend freedom. Yes, really. And, even as France's cultural minister was planning to get multiple internet connections just in case he got cut off -- while also wishing that his own creative content were "pirated" more often, the French gov't went back to work on putting in place such a law. The big "change" this time was to give judges 5 whole minutes to rule on file sharers, so that they could say a judge oversaw the case, rather than it just being a random accusation. I'm not sure how due process works with a 5 minute limit... but what can you do.

What's much more entertaining is seeing how entertainment industry lobbyists are cheering this on. I'm beginning to think that they actually believe that kicking people off the internet will make people buy more of their content. Incredible. First up, the MPAA's Dan Glickman (who's being pushed out of his job for being woefully ineffective):

"Today's decision is an enormous victory for creators everywhere. It is our hope that ISPs will fully honor their promise to cooperate and that the French government will take the necessary measures to dedicate resources to handle the enormous task ahead."

A victory for creators? Really? By kicking fans off the internet for promoting their works? Yikes. Someone's out of touch. Then we have Rick Cotton, of NBC Universal, the man who insisted that movie piracy was really harming the poor American corn farmer since people ate less popcorn with pirated movies:

"The French action recognizes that jobs and economic growth in creative industries are under assault by digital theft. We need a safe and secure Internet that enables consumers to access content easily but does not facilitate illegal file sharing that kills jobs in creative sectors."

Yes, and the corn farmers, too, right? So, if it's really all about jobs, what about the people kicked offline who rely on the internet for their job? Apparently those jobs don't matter? In the meantime, it's already pretty clear from multiple studies that it's not file sharing that's "killing jobs in creative sectors" but the inability of executives like Cotton to understand basic economics and business models.

But, honestly, the most guffaw-inducing response to this comes from Tom Sydnor at the Progress & Freedom Foundation. Sydnor, who as you may know, has a long history of making claims that don't pass the laugh test, has really outdone himself this time (it's even better than when he accused a college that couldn't identify accused file sharers of harboring "terrorists, pedophiles, phishing-scheme operators, hackers [and] identity thieves" by giving them a "get out of jail free" card). So what's his take on kicking people off the internet based on accusations? Well, it's really about consumer relief. No, seriously:

"As a consumer, I would far prefer the successive warnings that French law would now provide to the sudden financial devastation of the John-Doe lawsuit that American law would now require. I thus urge American internet-service providers and copyright owners to work together to provide American consumers with similar relief."

Ah, yes, because the only options are to sue everyone or to kick people off the internet? Apparently Tom has such incredibly little faith in the innovation ability of content providers that he assumes that they cannot craft unique and innovative business models that don't involve suing everyone or kicking people off the internet. How insulting of him towards content creators. Every time Sydnor makes a statement like this and PFF promotes it, it just weakens the work that PFF does in other areas. It's tough to take an organization seriously that has someone claiming that kicking people off the internet based on accusations of private companies is "consumer relief."

Filed Under: copyright, dan glickman, france, lobbyists, rick cotton, three strikes, tom sydnor
Companies: mpaa, nbc universal, pff

Nicolas Sarkozy Caught Mass 'Pirating' DVDs; Time To Kick Him Off The Internet

from the see-ya-later-nicky dept

Why is it always the adamant defenders of silly policies like kicking people off the internet for copyright infringement who are later found to be mass infringers themselves? French President Nicolas Sarkozy, of course, was the first major politician to support the concept of kicking people off the internet for copyright infringement (more commonly called a "three strikes" rule). He took credit for coming up with the idea originally nearly two years ago, and pushed very hard for the law -- which eventually passed but was then tossed out as unconstitutional in France. Sarkozy still stood by it and helped bring back a revised version.

Of course, in the middle of all this, there was a bit of irony in that Sarkozy was caught using music without authorization in some online videos, for which he paid a €30,000 fine. Of course, it now appears that may have just been the tip of the iceberg. Boing Boing points us to the news that Sarkozy's administration has been caught mass "pirating" DVDs of a documentary about Sarkozy. The publisher of the documentary only made 50 copies. Sarkozy's "audiovisual services" group happened to make itself another 400 without permission -- even replacing the name of the original publisher on the cover.

Once again, this should be a "teachable moment," to point out to Sarkozy and other supporters of such plans to kick people off the internet that the issue isn't quite so simple after all. When you're on the other side, sometimes it seems perfectly natural to make a copy of something, without even realizing it's potentially infringing. Unfortunately, why do I get the feeling that Sarkozy won't change his stance one bit -- or even recognize the irony of the situation?

Filed Under: copyright, dvds, france, nicolas sarkozy, piracy

French Politician Proposes Warning Labels On Any Photoshopped Ad Or Marketing Label

from the no-digital-slimming-down dept

Mr. LemurBoy points out that some French politicians are pushing a law that would require a label on any marketing or advertising image that was photoshopped, airbrushed or edited in some manner. The idea, of course, is that they don't want ad campaigns to portray things in a manner that is not quite truthful. But shouldn't there just be a simpler rule against deceptive advertising (one I imagine must already exist)? If it's just a little edit to make the photo more reasonable, why should it require some special disclosure?

Filed Under: france, photoshop, warning labels

And You Thought Your Job Was Stressful: France Telecom Employees Keep Committing Suicide

from the yikes dept

People commit suicide. It happens. But, when a company has had 24 employees commit suicide in 18 months, with many blaming stress from the company as a reason, it makes you pay attention. Apparently, that's the situation at France Telecom, where the 24th suicide in the last 18 months took place earlier this week. The company says that it's going to look into how it handles human resources, which seems like a decent idea at this point. In the meantime, if you're prone to not dealing well with stress, perhaps cross France Telecom off your list of desired employers.

Filed Under: france, suicide
Companies: france telecom

French Court Finds Violation Of GPL... Despite No Involvement Of Copyright Holder

from the interesting... dept

Guerby alerts us to the news that a French Appeals Court found that education tech company Edu4 violated the GPL by distributing a version of VNC without offering up the source code (and removing the GPL copyright notice). As the announcement notes, one interesting factor here was that it was filed by Edu4's customer, an education group, not the copyright holder. While it's nice to see a legal win for open source software, this does raise some questions. My guess is that the rationale is that this isn't a copyright case, but a licensing case. Thus the education group, AFPA, can actually be a party to the lawsuit. Still, it does raise questions over who has the right to make sure the GPL is enforced.

Filed Under: copyright, france, gpl, license
Companies: afpa, edu4

Beyond Kicking People Offline, France Raises Fines For Copyright Infringement To $440,000

from the proportionate? dept

With France continuing to push for a version of three strikes legislation, the latest bill approved also happens to increase potential fines for infringement up to 300,000 euros, or approximately $440,000. Nice to see governments making sure that the punishment fits the crime, huh?

Filed Under: copyright, fines, france, infringement, three strikes

French Porn Execs: Ignore Piracy, Focus On Quality; Japanese Porn Execs: Sue Everyone

from the a-bit-of-a-split dept

It seems that the porn world has had a "love/hate" affair with file sharing. Over the years, we've seen stories of porn film makers embracing piracy to their advantage, and others complaining about it. It's really not all that different than the rest of the entertainment industry. So, it should come as no surprise that different porn execs are responding quite differently in two recent stories. First, comes the news that Japanese porn film producers are looking to sue 65,000 people in South Korea for uploading. That's about double the number of people that the RIAA sued in the US for uploading. Wow.

Meanwhile, reader PrometheeFeu alerts us to quite a different story in France, where industry execs are taking a much more reasonable view on things (article in French, translation provided by PrometheeFeu). The execs admit that it doesn't make sense to try to keep things from users:

"Today all of our new productions simultaneously come out in DVD, download and streaming on our website and on our partner's VOD platforms. Back then, we looked at the music market as an example of what not to do and how to react"

And they know piracy happens, but they figure that it's just a part of the market, and you can't blame people (or sue people) for file sharing:

"If you leave unattended a bag of candy and some children, they will not understand why you punish them for eating the candy. Illegal files are 3 clicks away for just about anyone. It's normal that consumers will take advantage of those."

But, they're figuring out ways to compete, by focusing on high quality, high-end material:

"Of course, the large majority of free and illegal content is low-end. [...] The public rejects this mass of identical video. Whatever small amount of high end content obviously stands out."

The producers in Japan might want to visit France for a lesson on how this works.

Filed Under: france, japan, korea, piracy, porn

France Surrenders To Google?

from the headlines-that-write-themselves dept

You may recall that, nearly five years ago, folks in France sounded the alarm: Google's book scanning plan was a threat to French culture that needed to be dealt with. So, the government threw a lot of money at an ill-defined plan... and plenty of folks were quick to take the money, but not do much of consequence with it. Eventually, late last year, one small part of the project was revealed, and it looked decent. But, apparently that wasn't enough. France's national library (Bibliotheque Nationale de France (BNF)) has thrown in the towel and apparently signed up with Google to allow it to scan its collection. Of course, they could have done that five years ago and saved billions of taxpayer dollars... but what fun would that be?

Filed Under: bnf, book scanning, france, national library
Companies: google