Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) — The French Parliament voted last night to allow free sharing of music and movies on the Internet, setting up a conflict with both the French government and with media companies.
If the amendment survives, France would be the first country to legalize so called peer-to-peer downloading, said Jean-Baptiste Soufron, legal counsel to the Association of Audionautes, a French group that defends people accused of improperly sharing music files.
The law would be a blow to media companies that increasingly use the courts worldwide to sue people for downloading or sharing music and movie files. Entertainment companies such as Walt Disney Co., Viacom Inc. and News Corp.’s Fox say free downloading of unauthorized copies of TV shows and movies before they are released on DVD will cost them $5 billion in revenue this year.
"The deputies used this vote to show their independence from the government, but they don’t know what they are doing,” Nicolas Seydoux, chief executive of French cinema company Gaumont SA, said in an interview on France Inter radio. "We are not trying to ban anything, just to make sure the work of others isn’t stolen.”
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