France Passes Three-Strikes Law

from the oh-non dept

They've been talking about it for a while, now they've gone and done it: French legislators have passed a three-strikes file-sharing law. The plan is essentially the same as the one discussed before: a new government agency will be set up to to investigate file-sharing complaints made by copyright holders. If it believes there's been infringement, it will send out a first letter to the ISP account holder, warning them and recommending they make sure their WiFi is secure; a second offense within six months will generate a second letter, and if they're busted within a year of that notice, the agency can cut them off from the internet for anywhere from a month to a year. The agency has a lot of discretion on who to cut off and for how long, as apparently legislators didn't want to see businesses get cut off from the internet because of the actions of a few employees. That level of discretion is raising some eyebrows, while some speculate that cutting people off at all runs counter to the French constitution (just as the EU Parliament has said the laws violate civil and privacy laws).

One interesting aspect of the law, though, is the so-called "Hallyday Clause", named after aging French rocker Johnny Hallyday. Hallyday is a very popular and successful French musician, and he moved to Switzerland in 2006 to escape high French taxes. The part of the three-strikes bill with his name on it says that downloading copyrighted material of people who live in tax havens, or otherwise don't "properly" pay their taxes to the French government, will attract a lesser punishment than downloading the material of artists who pay up. It's a slightly amusing "gotcha" idea, but when the actual monetary losses from illegal downloads are pretty minimal at best, it doesn't seem too likely to lure tax-dodging rock stars out of their havens and back into France.

Filed Under: france, hallyday clause, three strikes

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.

Filed Under: france, p2p, regulators, technology literacy

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

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?

Filed Under: france, isps, three strikes

Google So Dominant That A French Town Might Need To Change Its Name?

from the or-hire-some-better-seo? dept

Apparently, the French coastal town of Eu is so upset that people can't find the town via a Google search, that it's considering changing its name. The mayor of the town is quite concerned about how this is impacting the town's tourism business -- which does show the cultural dominance of Google, these days, on some things. Of course, as the article notes, a search on Eu french town turns up plenty of results -- though, even those are currently dominated by stories like this one about the name search. Perhaps the town just needs to hire better SEO experts...

Filed Under: eu, france, search engines, seo, tourism
Companies: google

Is Nicholas Sarkozy One Strike Towards Losing His Internet Connection?

from the it's-always-those-politicians... dept

Why is it always the politicians who are pushing for stronger copyright laws that are caught infringing on the copyrights of others? The latest is that French President, Nicholas Sarkozy, a big supporter of setting up a three strikes law in France, is being accused of violating copyright law himself. Apparently, he used the music of an American band, MGMT, at an event and in two online videos. In the US, use at an event would be okay assuming that the venue had paid a standard performance license -- but use in the video would most likely be infringement. I'm not quite sure how France's current copyright laws match up, but it certainly does seem pretty questionable for a politician going on about the harm done by people sharing music without paying for it to be doing the same. So, the obvious question arises: does this mean Sarkozy is now only two strikes away from losing his internet connection? If he believe so strongly in such things, this shouldn't be a problem, right?

Filed Under: copyright, france, mgmt, nicholas sarkozy, three strikes

France Plans Government Agency To Boot File Sharers Offline

from the we're-from-the-gov't,-and-we're-here-to-kick-you-offline dept

While the EU Parliament has warned about the civil rights violation represented by any "three strikes" laws that would kick file sharers offline after three accusations (not convictions) of file sharing, France has continued to move forward with just such a law. Michael Scott points us to the news that France is close to finalizing its legislation on the topic, which has one major difference from other "three strikes" laws: rather than the ISPs acting as the copyright police, it will be a new French government agency that will do the dirty work.

Yes, the law will propose an entirely new French bureaucracy, which would act as the intermediary between copyright holders and ISPs. If a copyright holder believes that someone is infringing on copyrights, it would send the info to the agency, who would investigate, get info from the ISP, and (if the agency believed infringement occurred) send out a threat letter to the individuals responsible. That agency would also have the ability to demand that an ISP cut a user off for repeat offenses. What's never explained is why any of this extra-judicial process is needed. Isn't there already a court of law in France that would allow a copyright holder to accuse an alleged infringer in court, where that alleged infringer could mount a defense to show that he or she was not guilty of infringement?

Furthermore, it's unclear why the government should be involved at all -- especially with the growing evidence out there that the "problem" of copyright infringement is simply a business model issue. Those who have put in place smart business models don't seem to have any problems at all with infringement. So why not just point those who are clinging to an obsolete business model to examples of those who have succeeded by embracing file sharing, and tell them it's time to adapt?

Filed Under: disconnect, france, government agency, isps, three strikes

Unpatched, Virus-Infected Windows To Blame For Grounded French Fighter Pilots And Halt To Traffic Arrests In Houston

from the gov't-security dept

Reader Calvin sends in two separate stories of government institutions who apparently failed to patch their Windows machines to protect against the Conficker virus -- despite the patch being available for many months. First, Houston police have stopped arresting people with outstanding traffic warrants and shut down the municipal court system for a few days to try to deal with their computer systems being overrun by the virus. Then, across the Atlantic, the French Navy is dealing with a similar problem, forcing them to ground many of their fighter planes. Some naval staff were told not to turn on their computers at all, as apparently the Navy's internal computer network has been hit by the virus as well. Apparently, now might be a good time to run some traffic lights in Houston or invade France (kidding, kidding...).

Filed Under: cornficker, france, houston, security, viruses
Companies: microsoft

Another Bad French Ruling Against Google Over Trademarked Adwords

from the this-again? dept

It's amazing that after all these years, we're still seeing these types of lawsuits -- with these types of results. It involves the question of whether or not a company can buy an AdWords advertisement on Google using keywords that are trademarked by a competitor -- and then, secondarily, if this is trademark infringement, whether or not Google is liable. I have trouble seeing how the answer to the first question is even a yes, but French courts have repeatedly said yes not just to the first one, but to the second question as well. This time Google is being fined hundreds of thousands of euros for allowing certain trademarked words to have advertisements run against them.

It's hard to see how this makes any sense at all. First, unless the ads are designed to confuse someone, there should be no question that ads against a competitor's keywords are perfectly legal. There's no customer confusion (the point of trademark law). It's no different than having your product placed on the grocery store shelf next to competing products, or (as is quite common in supermarkets these days) having a coupon print out for your product when you buy a competing one. Claiming this is trademark infringement is just a weak attempt to stifle competition by brands that don't want to compete.

That said, even if you somehow think that this is trademark infringement, it's an even bigger stretch to then pin the liability on Google. The actual party doing the "infringing" would be whoever bought and created the advertisement. Going after Google is a Steve Dallas defense: going after the biggest company that, tangentially, is involved just because it has the biggest bank account. Sure, Google makes money from the ads, but that shouldn't create liability any more than the guy who sells the paints that are used to paint a trademark-infringing billboard is liable for what's painted. Like the paint seller, Google is just a tool provider and has nothing to do with the content. Unfortunately, this bit of common sense still hasn't made it into the French court system.

Filed Under: adwords, france, trademarks
Companies: google

France Requires Online Publication Of Certain Laws To Be Valid

from the seems-like-a-good-thing dept

Laurent GUERBY writes in to point us to some news of a new decree from the French government, supposedly saying that all laws must be published on the prime minister's website to be valid (link in French, Google translation to English). Guerby's reading is that this means if the government does not publish all laws on the prime minister's website by May of next year, any unpublished law is no longer valid. Not knowing much French, it's not clear to me if that's actually the case, but I would love for anyone else to chime in on this. If true, though, it certainly makes sense, and makes you wonder why France hasn't been publishing laws online for years.

Filed Under: france, internet, laws

French Recording Industry Sues SourceForge For Hosting Open Source P2P

from the yikes dept

It would appear that Société civile des Producteurs de Phonogrammes en France (SPPF), a group that represents French record labels, is now trying to sue a bunch of non-French file sharing applications, as well as SourceForge. This brings up a lot of different issues, so let's break them out one by one.

• This lawsuit came about thanks to a ruling in a French court over how to interpret a French law. SPPF contends that French law says that any application that allows unauthorized file sharing is illegal. However, what was unclear, was whether or not this law could be applied to companies outside of France. The recent ruling found that, indeed, it's acceptable to extend French laws beyond its borders. This should be seen as hugely problematic just from a jurisdiction standpoint. It's difficult to see how France can claim that its laws should apply to companies entirely outside of France.
• Now that it's been allowed, SPPF is suing three companies who offer software: Vuze, Limewire and Morpheus. What's troubling is that even beyond an "inducement" standard, SPPF seems to be basing the lawsuits on the idea that if your software allows any unauthorized copying, then the software itself is illegal. Say goodbye to FTP and, well, the entire internet next.
• Finally, and most bizarrely, SPPF is also suing SourceForge, which is just a hosting platform for open source developers. The problem there (according to SPPF) is that SourceForge hosts the open source Shareaza file sharing app. It would appear that SPPF did so little research in figuring out who to sue, that it seems to think SourceForge is somehow responsible for Shareaza, rather than just hosting it.

Hopefully, the courts will come to their senses and realize, on all three of these issues, that the SPPF is out of line. But given the way some courts (especially in France) have ruled in the past, that seems unlikely.

Filed Under: file sharing, france, lawsuits, liability
Companies: limewire, morpheus, sourceforge, sppf, vuze