It’s being labelled as another black eye for the UMP over the three strikes law. The story goes that a man by the name of Jérôme Bourreau-Guggenheim who works for the French broadcaster, TF1. He sent an e-mail from his private e-mail account to his member of parliament, which just so happens to be a member of the current governing party pushing for the three strikes law. The office then allegedly forwarded that e-mail to the minister of Culture. The minister of Culture then forwarded that e-mail to RF1 apparently for information purposes. Jérôme was then brought in to his bosses office where he was shown a copy of the e-mail and then fired for “strategic differences” with his employer.

ArsTechnica has a nice round-up of French newspapers which discussed the issue.

Supposedly, the consequence of this persons actions was unintended, but it clearly happened anyway. It’s one of those surreal cases where something abstract like something related to copyright somehow manages to bridge itself to reality in a very serious way. Very few people in North American societies believe that having a political stance can cost someone their job – although it does happen in Europe. Additionally, very few people on this side of the pond would think that you could be fired over something that is happening that could affect the internet (although this person did work for an entertainment company) Even the RIAA have a few artists signed to them that believe that file-sharing is a positive thing. This is just a few reasons that make this story so big. No wonder he’s being called a “le premier martyr d’Hadopi.”

Already, the Three Strikes law is being blocked by the European Parliament. Meanwhile, in France, the Three Strikes law sparked protests in the French arts community. Even the government is currently having difficulty passing the law as it was already defeated in France once – only to return once again after that defeat.

This latest revelation is clearly another drastic chapter in an already dramatic saga of the three strikes law in France.

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A blog posting that has already translated the news from French to English details the latest developments. The question they ask is, ‘who gets to control the future?’

“We,” the blog post begins, “the world of science-fiction, writers, translators, illustrators, critics, commentators, essayists, bookshop-owners, bloggers, publishers and collection editors, must express through this text our opposition to the Creation and Internet law.”

That’s quite a list of people who oppose the new law.

“It would be a truism to state that science-fiction concerns itself with the future and that many of its participants have denounced the possible, even probable, pitfalls (dérives) of industrial and technological societies;” the posting continues, “George Orwell’s name comes immediately to one’s lips, but also that of John Brunner, Norman Spinrad, Michel Jeury, J.-G. Ballard, Frederik Pohl, Cyril M. Kornbluth, and many others besides.”

This law, which we are told will protect artists’ rights and copyright in general, seems to us a Trojan horse, deployed to try and establish control over the internet, and is thus a threat to freedom of expression in our country.

Artists, creators, all those cultural actors without whom that word would be emptied of meaning, are being instrumentalised for the benefit of a law which, we must remind everyone, contains measures to filter the net, install spyware on individuals machines, and suspend internet connections without the involvement of a judge on the basis of IP numbers (whose lack of reliability has long been established) collected by private companies, and the extension of measures initially conceived for police anti-terrorist activity to the sharing of files between individuals.

Canadians who are following these developments might be reminded of the political fallout when the Canadian Recording Industry Association and other US arms of the copyright industry existing in Canada tried to claim that restricting copyright laws in Canada is suppose to benefit artists and innovators. In a nutshell, Canadian artists left the CRIA in droves and formed their own coalition to fight restrictive copyright law proposals.

So who is a part of this voice against the French three strikes law? Here’s the list of signatories:

Joseph Altairac, essayiste, Jean-Pierre Andrevon, auteur, critique, essayiste, Andoryss, scénariste (BD), Ayerdhal, auteur, Raphaël Bardas, auteur, Stéphane Beauverger, auteur, Geneviève Beduneau, auteur, blogueuse, Ugo Bellagamba, auteur, essayiste, Jean-Luc Blary, éditeur, Pierre Bordage, auteur, scénariste, Michel Borderie, illustrateur, Bruno B. Bordier, auteur, Charlotte Bousquet, auteur, Georges Bormand, auteur, critique, Alexis Brun, éditeur, David Calvo, auteur,

Thibaud Canuti, auteur, conservateur des bibliothèques, Flora Cappelluti, journaliste, Thierry Cardinet, illustrateur, Philippe Caza, illustrateur, scénariste, Éric Cervos, auteur, Jérôme Charlet, critique, traducteur, libraire, Lucie Chenu, auteur, anthologiste, directrice de collection, Hélène Collon, traductrice, Christophe Cottier, auteur, Magali Couzigou, auteur, lectrice, Thomas Day, auteur, directeur de collection, Jeanne A. Debats, auteur, Philippe Delestaing, bibliothécaire, Nicolas Delsaux, critique, Irène Delse, auteur, Sylvie Denis, auteur, traductrice, anthologiste, essayiste, critique, Thierry Di Rollo, auteur, Sara Doke, auteur, traductrice, essayiste, René-Marc Dolhen, critique, Lea Honorine Dray, photographe, auteur, Jean-Claude Dunyach, auteur, anthologiste, Claude Ecken, auteur, critique, essayiste, scénariste (BD), Philippe Ethuin, essayiste, blogueur, Hélène Fairmarch, auteur, Fabien Fernandez, illustrateur, Jean-Pierre Fontana, auteur, Gilles Francescano, illustrateur, Alexandre Garcia, auteur, traducteur, critique, Didier Gazoufer, auteur, Thomas Geha, auteur, libraire, Laurent Genefort, auteur, essayiste, directeur de collection, Vincent Gessler, auteur, Laurent Gidon, auteur, Olivier Girard, éditeur, rédacteur en chef, Karine Gobled, blogueuse, Michel Grimaud, auteurs, Gudule, auteur, Julien Guerry, libraire, Denis Guiot, directeur de collection, critique, William Guyard, critique, Vladimir Harkonnen, baron, Henscher, auteur, scénariste (BD), Jean-Christophe Hoël, illustrateur, Aurélien Knockaert, webmestre, Wladimir Kokkinopoulos, auteur, Pénélope Labruyère-Snozzi, auteur, éditeur, Marie-Noëlle Lacassin, décoratrice scénographe, Sylvie Lainé, auteur, Patrice Lajoye, anthologiste, Nathalie Legendre, auteur, Olivier Legendre, libraire, Roland Lehoucq, essayiste, Jonas Lenn, auteur, Jocelyn Leroy, lecteur, Marie Renée Lestoquoy, auteur, Yves Letort, libraire, Eric Lesueur, éditeur, photographe, Li-Cam, auteur, Jean-Marc Ligny, auteur, Christine Luce, critique, Marc Madouraud, essayiste, Bernard Majour, bibliothécaire, Manchu, illustrateur, Nadine Manzagol, auteur, scénariste, vidéaste, Patrick Marcel, traducteur, illustrateur, essayiste, Sybille Marchetto, auteur, anthologiste, Coralie Méïsse, libraire, Nathalie Mège, auteur, traductrice, Natacha Ménard, lectrice, Laurent Million, auteur, Yann Minh, illustrateur, créateur de liens, Pascal Mir, auteur, Charles Moreau, essayiste, Ghislain Morel, auteur, documentaliste, Philippe Morin, auteur, critique, bibliothécaire, Loïc Nicolas, libraire, Richard D. Nolane, auteur, essayiste, scénariste (BD), traducteur, anthologiste, Stéphane Nolhart, auteur, Michel Pagel, auteur, traducteur, Thierry Pagès, adjoint du patrimoine, Claire Panier-Alix, auteur, Olivier Paquet, auteur, Roland Pawlak, bouquiniste spécialisé, Pierre Pelot, auteur, Serje Peronnet, blogueur, Audrey Petit, directrice de collection, Olivier Pezigot, bibliothécaire, Jean-Pierre Planque, auteur, Laurent Queyssi, auteur, Hélène Ramdani, éditeur, Mireille Rivalland, éditeur, André-François Ruaud, auteur, éditeur, Simon Sanahujas, auteur, essayiste, François Schnebelen, critique, Nicolas Serra, auteur, Stéphane Servain, dessinateur (BD), Isabelle Seviran, comédienne, lectrice, Claire Sistach, chercheuse d’arts, Nicolas Soffray, auteur, critique, Bertrand Tesson, documentariste, Hervé Thiellement, auteur, critique, Christian Vilà, auteur, essayiste, Christophe Thill, éditeur, Pascal J. Thomas, essayiste, critique, Olivier Tomasini, auteur, Emmanuel Tollé, chroniqueur, Juan-Manuel Torres-Moreno, auteur, Jean-Louis Trudel, auteur, Selene Verri, journaliste, Jérôme Vincent, éditeur, webmestre, Herveline Vinchon, libraire, Thierry Virga, auteur, Roland C. Wagner, auteur, traducteur, essayiste, critique, Philippe Ward, auteur, directeur de collection, Christine Webster, compositrice, Laurent Whale, auteur, Martin Winckler, auteur, Joëlle Wintrebert, auteur, scénariste, critique, Nicolas B. Wulf, auteur, Pascal Yung, illustrateur

It’s quite telling when the artistic community revolts against measures that are purported to be helping the artists.

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On the heels of the news that France is formally mulling a three strike policy for online users, one of the French movie scene releasers was busted.

The French news site 01Net reported the news (French – English Google translation) recently.

According to the report, the arrests came when French anti-piracy outfit ALPA (Association against audiovisual piracy) made a complaint. The people that were arrested, judging by the report, were the site-ops for the group. The report also says that CineFox was the first group to release French version of X-Men 3, Jumper, 10,000 BC and Mission Impossible 3.

From the report (As translated by Charles Eddy, a ZeroPaid reader)

“This is a real case of an organized group that has global branches” he adds. Dozens of servers in France, linked to the Netherlands, contain thousands of gigabytes of counterfeit. “The group is far from being film collectors or novelty-seekers. The main purpose of these groups is clearly money. An investigator said that without [the groups], the forums and boards (such as Oleoo, which was closed by the same service, NDLR, some time ago) wouldn’t exist.”

This whole illegal underground culture generates money . . . and makes for vicious fights between the different sides [of the pirating battle]. The competition seems to be merciless on the Internet. “The Warez scene is corrupted by money with an obvious starting point, which is part of it. There are a lot of dirty tricks, and here is more proof.”

Cinefox would essentially be shut down because of a document which was circulated by a competitor in August, 2007, a text file that revealed information on counterfeiters: the servers, IP addresses, and screen names behind the pirates and their accomplices. A precious document for investigators, who could now track down the leaders of the group: not a simple task, otherwise.

“They could always catch two or three,” explains a Warez member, “but today it’s becoming more and more complicated to find us. We lease servers overseas – in Estonia, in the U.S. with “layered” hosting, or in the Czech Republic – the information is hidden on different servers. It’s encrypted. Our connections are encrypted with SSL.”

The report also suggests that another scene release group known as Carnage have quit the scene as a result of the recent bust.

Update: Proper translations by Charles Eddy inserted. Thanks Charles for working on this particular translation!

The Internet copyright law included passed France’s parliament June 30. The Constitutional Council threw out several measures last week, concluding that they violated constitutional property protections.

French President Jacques Chirac signed it this week with the body’s changes. The law was published in the government’s Journal Official on Thursday, formally putting it into force.

Apple, which had described an earlier draft of the copyright bill as “state-sponsored piracy,” did not respond to calls and messages seeking comment Thursday. Currently, songs bought on iTunes can be played only on iPods, and an iPod can’t play downloads from other stores that rival iTunes’ premium music catalog.

The National Assembly voted in March to force companies like Apple Computer to make their online music stores and players compatible with rival products, but key members say they have agreed to many of the weaker measures endorsed by senators.

The draft adopted by the Assembly had contained a blanket demand that companies share their exclusive copy-protection technologies with rivals, effectively free of charge.

But the compromise text, due to be approved Thursday by a committee of legislators from both houses, maintains a Senate loophole that could allow Apple and others to sidestep that requirement by striking new deals with record labels and artists.

EDITORS NOTE: Nice to see France continuing it’s long tradition of “bending” to other peoples will.