French To Tighten Digital Restrictions

[Jared Moya]

Creating your own compilations from a CD; extracting your favourite track to listen to it on your computer; transferring it onto an mp3 player; lending a CD to a friend; reading a DVD with free software or duplicating it to be able to enjoy it at home and in your country house - common practices, at the moment perfectly legal in France.


But the French government plans to forbid them all. In fact, the Copyright and Related Rights in the Information Society Bill - DADVSI (n°1206 in the French legal code) - currently making its way through the French National Assembly, is worrying a number of groups in France, from p2p users to webcasters and free software designers.


They’re particularly concerned that the French government seems to be trying to force it through in a hurry, with the crucial vote probably slated for December 23, the day before Christmas is celebrated in France and a day most legislators are expected to absent themselves.


In addition to killing off the right to private copying, the DADVSI bill would also make the simple act of reading a DVD with software that's not authorized by the DVD editor punishable with up to a three-year jail sentence and a fine of 300,000 euros. Such a scenario would be considered an instance of copyright infringement.


The act of converting to mp3 format a "protected [proprietary]" file downloaded from the FNAC website [FNAC is a major book and media retail concern] is also considered infringement, as is the publishing of technical information (such as source code) allowing or making it easier to perform such conversions. In this way, the DADVSI bill prohibits the design, distribution and use of free software that would allow accessing protected work. If the bill is approved in its present state, it'll be illegal to use software such VLC or any other multimedia player using the DeCSS algorithm, which will be forbidden.

Read the complete article

[Auggie2k]

I'd like to see them stop me from running across the street to my friends to loan him a CD.

Imagine that, the Copyright Enforcement Agency, carefully keeping an eye on suspicious teens. Haha, LOL!

[fleecy]

reminds me of the joke thread krell started a while back

[mountain_rage]

For the most part I like to defend the french but I cant defend this. Its the biggest pile of bull ever created. What really pisses me off about our current society is that politicians used to be elected to work for us, for some reason at some point in time this all changed. Money talks and sadly, theres a reason why you see the faces of politicians on your money.

[Ne007]

I came up with this equation:

1 Stupid Law = 1,000,000 new P2Pers.

[Signa]

there wont be any new p2p'ers at all. this is the french, they will just lie down and take it.

ok, so im being racist. it was a joke.

[Jared Moya]

there wont be any new p2p'ers at all. this is the french, they will just lie down and take it.

ok, so im being racist. it was a joke.

Uh actually your not being racist, as FRENCH is not a race, its a nationality, your technically a NATIONALIST.......nothing wrong with that, whats wrong is them lying down all the time and getting their ass handed to them..............

[etabeta]

Absurd that they let the movie & music cartel bribe the legistlators so much. Not even nazi-era laws were that bad.
The entire world must start taking some very serious action against this entertainment industry lobbying.
They are creating a new form of terrorism, and we already have enough of that.

[mountain_rage]

there wont be any new p2p'ers at all. this is the french, they will just lie down and take it.

ok, so im being racist. it was a joke.

I didnt see you guys stop much when it came to the patriot act and/or the dmca. Although not as extreme they still passed.

[mcovey]

France is basically hopeless, but don't we already have this crap here? Or maybe that's just industry propoganda. At any rate, being here, I obiously have never been imprisoned or even gotten "the letter" and I've downloaded well over $3000 (or whatever the fine they make you pay is) in music and movies, and that's at market cost.

I've mostly moved to private bittorrent now though, with the occasional track off of frostwire.