French Senate Approves 3 Strikes Law

from the screw-the-eu dept

Despite the fact that the EU Parliament rejected the concept of a "three strikes" law for kicking people off the internet, and warned member countries that such laws interfered with civil rights and privacy rights of individuals, France is moving forward with such a law. The EU Parliament specifically had called on France to reconsider such a law, but the French Senate has approved the law by an overwhelming majority, 297 to 15. The law still needs approval from the lower house of Parliament as well, but it's disappointing that any government body would approve such a law after it's been shown to be both unnecessary and destructive.

Filed Under: disconnect, france, isps, three strikes

Is France Going To Ban Mentioning Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne And Cognac Online?

from the these-places-do-not-exist dept

You can understand why countries might have certain restrictions on alcohol advertising, but it would appear that France has gone a bit overboard. Based on existing laws (which pre-dated the internet) and recent court rulings, it's more or less illegal to mention alcohol brands online. That means if you're in France, you can't even visit the websites of certain wineries or beer companies, as they're afraid of getting targeted under the law. Heineken lost a lawsuit over this and had to block access to its website in France. A newspaper even got in trouble for (seriously) running an editorial about champagne. And sporting events with alcoholic sponsors are impossible. Logos of alcoholic brands are being removed from the uniforms of sports players, and even the rugby union's Heineken Cup is being referred to as the European Rugby trophy in France. The article notes that this ridiculous situation has some French comedians joking about how you won't be allowed to mention or visit such popular French regions as Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and Cognac.

Filed Under: alcohol, france, online advertising

Totally Misunderstanding Movie Downloading In France

from the so-many-mistakes,-so-little-time dept

A bunch of folks have sent in this report from Variety about a study talking about what a big deal unauthorized movie downloading is in France. Specifically, it points out that movie downloads are "reaching box office levels." Except... that means they're basically counting every download as a lost sale, which we (as well as those putting the study together) all know isn't true. Even worse, the folks behind the study (who go by the already biased name: Association Against Audiovisual Piracy) seem to totally miss the most obvious point from their own report: that movie piracy doesn't seem to have a major impact on movie ticket buying. After all, their own report points out that the most popular movies at the box office in France are also the most downloaded. If it were really true that movie downloads were harming the box office, then wouldn't that mean that the most downloaded movies ended up with fewer tickets sold? The fact that the two correlate suggest that (as we've seen over and over again) lots of movie downloading just shows tremendous demand for a movie, and it's likely to do quite well at the box office.

Filed Under: downloads, france, movies, piracy, statistics

Study Shows Greater Voting Errors With E-Voting

from the more-evidence dept

Whenever we point to problems with e-voting systems, there are always some who respond by pointing out (correctly) that there are problems with the old paper ballot system as well, and the e-voting system must be better. Not so far. Jose Luis Campanello writes in to let us know that a study in France found that when compared to traditional paper ballots e-voting systems showed more errors. There were definitely voting discrepancies in both cases, but it was significantly more noticeable with e-voting systems. The study also found that it wasn't just an issue of pollworkers being unfamiliar with the e-voting machines that led to so many problems at e-voting stations. That's because the problems didn't get better as pollworkers became more familiar with the machines -- and there wasn't a correlation between sites where there were more complaints concerning how to use the machines and the discrepancies. Once again, we're left wondering why we've been so quick to rush into e-voting when there's so much evidence that it's neither accurate nor reliable?

Filed Under: e-voting, errors, france

eBay Has To Pay $63m Because A French Court Doesn't Know A Platform From A User

from the bad-ruling dept

A few weeks ago, we pointed out that a French court had made a very bad ruling, blaming eBay for actions of its users. The case involved the sale of counterfeit goods from LVMH. Rather than recognizing that eBay is just a platform and has no way of knowing whether products put up for sale by its users are legit or counterfeit, the court somehow ruled that eBay should know. Now the court has ruled on the fine, making eBay pay up $63 million for this exceptionally bad ruling. If you provide any sort of platform, a ruling like this should make you very, very afraid of doing any business in France. You can now be blamed and fined for the actions of your users. Update: As pointed out in the comments, this ruling is even more ridiculous than it at first appears. Apparently, eBay is even responsible for people selling legit versions of some products, because LVMH claims that no one is allowed to resell those goods without a reseller agreement.

Filed Under: counterfeiting, france, liability. platform, safe harbors, user
Companies: ebay

French ISPs Agree To Censor The Web

from the moving-in-a-bad-direction dept

Well here's a news story that actually combines two separate recent stories here. France, who we've just talked about for its repeated mistake in blaming platforms for the actions of their users, has followed down the same path that New York state just trekked concerning misguided concepts on how to stop objectionable content online. That is, France is now requiring ISPs to block a list of sites that it determines as objectionable. Apparently the list will be based on sites flagged by web users. Again, this is targeting the wrong thing and won't do much to actually stop the dissemination of the content. If the content itself is illegal, go after those responsible. Simply blocking it opens up all kinds of censorship questions, and opens the door to that slippery slope of what's considered "objectionable." With no real way to make sure that the content is actually objectionable, it's easy to see this system being abused in an attempt to silence people or viewpoints.

Filed Under: censorship, france, isp blocks, objectionable content

French Courts Still Very Confused About The Difference Between A Platform And A User

from the blaming-the-wrong-party dept

For all the complaints that some have about the various safe harbors found in US law to protect service providers from the actions of their users, it's important to note the sort of ridiculous results that occur without such safe harbors. And, for that, you have to look no further than France, which not only doesn't appear to have similar safe harbor laws in place, but whose courts seem to consistently take the position that service providers absolutely are responsible for the actions of their users. We've seen this in the ongoing rulings against Google, which has finally been appealed out of France to the wider European courts. And, then there are the absolutely ridiculous results, such as that time when a French court declared Yahoo and its CEO at the time war criminals, because a user sold some Nazi memorabilia on Yahoo's auction site.

The latest isn't quite as extreme, but is no less ridiculous. A French court has declared that eBay is a counterfeiter because counterfeit goods were sold on eBay. Note that the court didn't blame the actual seller, but the platform provider eBay. The lawyer for the company suing claims that eBay is much more than a platform because it has tools that help sellers sell better. That seems like a huge stretch, but apparently the court bought it. Making eBay liable for any auction held on the site in France is likely to seriously stifle the use of eBay in the country. It now not only will need to review auctions, but somehow do so without any way of actually knowing if a product is legit or counterfeit. How could eBay possibly know this? It can't -- which means it will probably have to do something like ban a tremendous number of auctions. How that can possibly be a good thing for anyone in France is beyond me.

Filed Under: counterfeiting, france, liability. platform, safe harbors, user
Companies: ebay

European Parliament Rejects IFPI Plan To Make ISPs Copyright Cops

from the good-for-them dept

There's been a huge lobbying campaign going on throughout much of the world to get local governments to put pressure on ISPs to require them to kick those accused of file sharing off of the internet. It had been worrisome that these efforts actually seemed to be getting some traction in both France and the UK despite vehement opposition from many people. It appears that the opposition has started to get its point of view across. The EU Parliament has now rejected a plan to criminalize file sharing and to implement a "three strikes and you're off the internet" policy. The vote itself isn't binding, but suggests how the EU Parliament feels. While France has already put in place such a law, there was some feeling that France would push to make similar laws enforced European-wide. This vote should put a damper on those plans.

Filed Under: copyright cops, europe, european parliament, france, ifpi, isps
Companies: ifpi

Why The RIAA May Want To Side With Open Source Developers In France

from the what-is-distribution-anyway? dept

We all know that the RIAA has been pushing for a certain definition of what constitutes "distribution" online these days (which the courts are still in flux over). An anonymous reader points to a case in France that the RIAA may want to pay attention to -- where it may find itself siding with some strange bedfellows: open source developers. Apparently, some of open source developers have sued the large French ISP Free/Iliad for failing to offer up the software used in the 3 million routers that customers use, despite the fact that it includes GPLed software (which requires that any software you distribute also be available to others for free). The ISP has responded by claiming that it hasn't actually distributed the software, since the routers are still officially a part of its own network -- and therefore the software doesn't have to be offered up.

In other words, simply giving the routers to users doesn't count as distribution in his definition -- which would certainly go against the RIAA's "making available is distribution" claim). However, as the link above suggests, it could get even worse. If you follow the same definition that Free/Iliad is making, then an ISP could purchase a site license for certain applications or content and then let everyone on its "network" access it, since it wouldn't be "distributing" it. Thus, suddenly, it may be in the RIAA's best interest to side with a bunch of open source developers before the definition of "distribute" in France gets defined in a way that the RIAA wouldn't much appreciate.

Filed Under: distribution, france, gpl, open source, riaa

File Sharing Pre-Settlement Letters In Europe Get Lawyer Banned For Six Months

from the extortion-not-appreciated dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about how common it was becoming for companies to send out "pre-settlement" letters to people they haven't yet accused of a crime. While these are well-known for groups like the RIAA, they're also used by big retailers and were famously used by DirecTV against anyone it thought might have been stealing satellite TV. The letter basically demands an upfront payment to get the company not to sue. And, of course, the letter includes all sorts of threatening legalese about how going to court will be expensive and time consuming, suggesting that it's much easier to just pay up. While these "extortion-lite" letters in the US grow in popularity, it looks like folks in Europe aren't so willing to let them pass. A lawyer representing Logistep, a company that has recently run into trouble in both Italy and Switzerland for its tactics in trying to sniff out file sharers, has been banned from practicing law for six months by the Paris Bar Council. The lawyer had been sending out these types of letters demanding 400 euros not to sue, and the Paris Bar apparently felt this was rather problematic. Somehow I doubt we'll see the same sort of thing happen in the US any time soon.

Filed Under: file sharing, france, pre-settlement letters, threatening letters