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French Record Labels Go After Limewire, SourceForge
Posted by
kdawson
on Sun Nov 16, 2008 01:56 AM
from the lawyers-on-airplanes dept.
from the lawyers-on-airplanes dept.
An anonymous reader notes that TorrentFreak is reporting: "French record labels have received the green light to sue four US-based companies that develop P2P applications, including the BitTorrent client Vuze, Limewire, and Morpheus. Shareaza is the fourth application, for which the labels are going after the open source development platform SourceForge. ... Putting aside the discussion on the responsibilities of application developers for their users activities, the decision to go after SourceForge for hosting a application that can potentially infringe, is stretching credibility beyond all bounds." SourceForge is Slashdot's corporate parent.
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Submission: Record Labels go After SourceForge and Limewire by Anonymous Coward
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Juristiction? (Score:5, Funny)
SPFF had already sued the various companies and organizations last year, but until now it has been unclear whether the US based companies behind the applications could be prosecuted under French law. A French court has now ruled that this is indeed possible, which means that they can proceed to court.
How are non-french companies not operating in France (so far as I know) subject to French law?
Someone should let them know that only America can get away with that.
Re:Juristiction? (Score:5, Informative)
That would depend on France's conflict rules, which (unusually, if I remember correctly) are that the courts of France have jurisdiction over any matter harming a French national. You are broadly correct - in the USA or most other countries, the courts would likely NOT have jurisdiction over the case. But France is France. That doesn't mean that the defendant would be able to enforce the judgment though. A US court could examine the question of whether the French courts had jurisdiction over the matter before agreeing to enforce the judgment, and that probably wouldn't fly.
Parent
Re:Juristiction? (Score:5, Interesting)
I just hope there are no French people who have contributed code to Shareza. I wouldn't put it past them to go looking for someone with any sort of connection to the project at all to hold accountable for the entire thing...
Then again, maybe French law is different in that regard, but these crazy litigants all seem to be the same about doing that sort of thing, no matter what country they're suing from.
Parent
Re:Juristiction? (Score:5, Insightful)
that's because stupid is contagious. it's no big secret that other countries emulate the U.S. culture is our greatest export, and so what happens in the U.S. becomes a precedent for other nations. unfortunately, this also includes our political/legal culture.
the U.S. passed the DMCA in 1998, and soon other countries started getting their own DMCA-analogs. so it shouldn't be surprising the RIAA's legal shenanigans are being copied by their foreign counterparts. that's globalization for you.
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Re:Juristiction? (Score:4, Informative)
You really need to look past your ignorance. The DMCA was required by WIPO treaty and as an extension to part of the berne convention as changed to allow the US to ratify it (which BTW, caused the copyright extensions).
The US didn't create the DMCA out of nothing. It was literally response to a treaty that all of Europe and other countries signed on to before we made the DMCA. The DMCA goes beyond the treaty a little but the meat is the same as the treaty requirements. The other countries creating their own DMCA are doing it for the same reason's the US did and that is because of treaty obligations.
Now you can claim that RIAA influenced the treaty and so on, this might be true, The recording industry was responsable for implementations of other treaties which more or less made Phonographs, tapes and CDs compatible across country borders which I would think most people see as a good thing.
Something else about the WIPO treaties, there are portions of them that basically say if the law in one land doesn't address something in the treaty, then the law of the aggrieved land can prevail. This will give France's court Jurisdiction over an American country just like it gives the US courts jurisdiction (including extradition rights) over other countries when violations occur that aren't violations in the other land. If France can pin the Source Forge action to a treaty, a US court must honor it unless the Supreme court finds something unconstitutional in some way. I suggest you look into the treaties we are obligated to if you actually want to effect any meaningful changes instead of blaming the wrong people. You can charge windmills all you want and probably never see changes in what your railing about because you don't understand the concept behind it.
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Re:Juristiction? (Score:5, Informative)
The US didn't create the DMCA out of nothing. It was literally response to a treaty that all of Europe and other countries signed on to before we made the DMCA.
LoL
Yes, the USA created the DMCA out of nothing.
Clinton formed a working group under a guy named Lehman,
BUT, there was resistance in the USA to the anti-circumvention recommendation.
In response, Lehman took a shortcut through WIPO and a bad international treaty obligation was born.
As a result, the USA had to harmonize* the law with their treaty obligation.
The real tragedy is that because the US didn't want to pass the law in the first place,
everyone has to modify their copyright law.
*sometimes this is good and sometimes this is bad. It is rarely good when it is used to shove an unpopular law through your country's backdoor.
Parent
Re:Juristiction? (Score:4, Informative)
Bruce Lehman was the Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks under Bill Clinton. Clinton did form a working group but it didn't submit any laws until after WIPO. And yes, because of his positions in the Clinton administration, Lehman would have have direct input in the WIPO treaties, he did serve as the chair of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights, and so on. The WGIPR did nothing but submit reports for revew within the group's parent structure.
Then in 96, the WIPO organization met and came away with two treaties requiring the DMCA to be corrected. These treaties were the "WIPO Copyright Treaty" and the "WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty," which were adopted by consensus by over 150 countries. [ipwatchdog.com] A goof portion of the DMCA, especially title one and two, comes directly out of the WIPO treaties and over 150 countries are required to make the same laws.
You should look at the report they put forward. [uspto.gov] (PDF warning) In which they recomend a general structure and highlight points that should change. If you look at the recommendations portion, you will see that the terms of the WIPO as well as the DMCA are only similar in spirit but the real meaty portions of the DMCA aren't really there. By Meat, I mean the stiff penalties and so on.
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Re:Juristiction? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice urban myth you've got there, but it's not going to work on anybody over thirty or anyone of any age that has paid attention to the subject. Your IP laws are your nations own fault and even those countries that accepted them (eg. a watered down version implemented in Australia as part of a condition for a "free trade" agreement) could have chosen not to so they are also responsible for their own IP laws.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
NO, I'm seriously suggesting that Europe is just as much to blame for a treaty that require DMCA like laws be put in place. The So called weird broken US IP laws inspired by Mickey Mouse and submitted by Sonny Bono was actually inspi
Re:Juristiction? (Score:5, Informative)
two WIPO treaties that 150 of countries signed on to.
Which treaties are you talking about? The relevant one is the Copyright Treaty, and only 68 countries have ratified it. Another 26 or so have signed it but not ratified it, which means it's not in force in those countries. (Of the G8, only the US and Japan are among the ratifiers.)
The signature on the treaty is used as an excuse by the proponents of it to say that countries have international obligations to put a DMCA-like law in place, but it doesn't mean that at all. The signature is a general sign of support for it, but it implies no legal obligations.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
1. Less than 100 countries signed onto either of those treaties. The page you refer to says they were adopted "by consensus", but that doesn't imply any countries signed onto them. It just says that at some WIPO meeting they were adopted by consensus.
2. The page you referred to says:
Both Congress and the Clinton Administration used these international treaties as an excuse for passing a broad, sweeping changes to U.S. copyright laws that were urged by the entertainment industry , despite the fact that such changes to U.S. copyright law were not required by the treaties themselves.
This contradicts your main point, which was that the WCT and WPPT obligated the US to pass the DMCA. No, the DMCA was passed because lobbyists convinced your government to pass it. It's a US invention.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Thanks for fixing the typo.
I'm Canadian. We have more or less the same movies and music available as in the USA, and no DMCA, though there have been a couple of attempts to pass one. (Canada signed the WCT, but has not ratified it). The Canada-US trading relationship is still the largest bilateral trading relationship in the world.
So the repercussions of not having a DMCA are at least not immediate.
Duncan
Re:Juristiction? (Score:4, Insightful)
The DMCA is an evil law. It may have not evil applications, but they appear to be in the vast minority. That it would be such a law was predicted before it was passed.
I've seen the way the US implements treaties. The US only implements treaties to the extent that the government wants to. The DMCA goes far beyond what the treaty requires, and is probably, in a logical system, unconstitutional. (Granted the constitution is too vague to form a complete specification as a logical basis. Many terms are undefined, and much is presumed as common knowledge...including much that is no longer common knowledge. Still, this seems to clearly be a law regulating speech or the press.)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Speaking of Berne, let's not forget that the French were the ones who pushed hardest for that treaty in the first place. So thanks a whole lot for the shitty version of copyright.
Re:Juristiction? (Score:4, Insightful)
The WIPO organization created the treaty before the US created the laws. WIPO is an international organization that consist of many other countries who would have had a say in the treaty. Currently, there are 184 member countries.
The idea that the US is forcing something onto other countries who had a full say in the treaties that they signed on to as well as the US laws being made after words is nothing but ignorance. That's like saying if I asked you if you wanted to watch some movies, then I asked you what movies you wanted to watch, then when your watching them, you attempt to claim I forced you to watch the movies you picked just because I got them from the video store first.
And no, it doesn't matter if the same industry insiders were promoting their agenda, it still doesn't mean that anyone pushed anything on a sovereign nation and I seriously don't think that Mickey Mouse held 150 countries at gun point and said make this treaty and sign this law. The signatory countries negotiated on their own behalf and found enough common ground that they felt comfortable enough with the treaties that they signed on or signed their intent to sign on.
BTW, what legal president have we set? I'm interested in hearing how based in reality you really are.
Parent
Re:Juristiction? (Score:4, Informative)
just look at all the $country's Got Talent [wikipedia.org] spin-offs that were launched after the success of American Idol.
Ah yes, American Idol [wikipedia.org], 2002, spin-off of the popular British series, Pop Idol [wikipedia.org], 2001.
If America's biggest export is culture, then its biggest import is credit for other people's ideas.
Parent
Re:the usa does plenty wrong in this world (Score:5, Insightful)
So, to repeat your argument:
I think you might want to work a little on filling that gap.
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Re:Juristiction? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you're wrong about one point: AFAIK US courts, according to US law, DO have jurisdiction over foreign nationals for acts committed on foreign ground, as soon as US citizens or companies are affected (as alleged victims).
There was even some dismay in the news media here in Europe when the US adapted a law allowing US Marshals to arrest (read "kidnap") foreign nationals abroad to drag them before US courts. I don't remember what period that was exactly, but it's at least 10 years ago.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So, it is "USA - the most advanced country in the world, the country of freedom and laws making everyone feel safe...unless is does not suit somebody"?
And instead of "In Europe, nobody is sentenced without a due process", it should be actually "In Europe, nobody is sentenced without a due process unless it does not suit the Americans?"
Exactly, because we're currently a superpower and we can get away with it. And when we're not, when someone else takes the top dog position (maybe China, who knows) then they'll get to behave the same way. And believe me ... they will. Just ask the Soviets how they treated people from other countries when they were a superpower. It's just human nature and all that.
Some of you seem to think that international politics is some kind of a popularity contest, where the nicest country wins. In reality, it's ex
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Non-french companies not operating in France are not subject to French Law. However, these companies are operating in France, if there are customers in France.
Imagine a situation in which Massive company no. 1, based in Canada, supplies all of the US's need for one thing. Massive company no. 2, based in the US, supplies all of Canada's needs for the same thing. Why on earth should Canadian legislation apply to exclusively to company 1, and US legislation exclusively to company 2?
Bottom line - I think if
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Like Vivendi, which own,
Island Def Jam Records
Good luck .. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good luck .. (Score:4, Funny)
If US won't do as we tell you, we mobilize our mighty war machines and invade your puny little country. Just like we did with.. ehm... just like... umm...
Ahem, never mind.
Parent
Re:Good luck .. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, that was quite some time ago, only 30 years or so after the US became a separate country.
Parent
Re:Good luck .. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Cool! (Score:5, Funny)
I hope they go after those evil, piracy-enabling, hard disk manufacturers next.
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Funny)
No, they need to go after the evil people who produce the silcon used in chips, no wait - add the mining companies who mine the metals used, the oil companies for the oils used to make plastics, for producing the stuff in the first place for us to find it and (ab)use it.
Parent
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Funny)
You're not seeing the real force behind the evilness here. They need to sue monkeys for evolving into humans who would then go on to commit copyright infringement. Damn those tree-dwelling purveyors of immorality!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Pricks (Score:5, Insightful)
This scares me a little. I mean, we should sue the gun makers because guns kill people. We should sue the ore miners because they produce the steel that is used in the guns.
If the French have such a problem with P2P why don't they just block it at the ISP level? Why go after the FOSS developers who just write a program? Because you can't possibly blame the citizens who breach copyright.
This is coming from a country that were happy to set off nukes in the pacific because they didn't what to bow to international pressure. Pricks.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This scares me a little. I mean, we should sue the gun makers because guns kill people. We should sue the ore miners because they produce the steel that is used in the guns.
Yes, I agree 100%
But
If the French have such a problem with P2P why don't they just block it at the ISP level? Why go after the FOSS developers who just write a program? Because you can't possibly blame the citizens who breach copyright.
How do you get to eq
Re:Pricks (Score:4, Funny)
Meh, just specify that all copyrighted works must be flagged with the Evil Bit.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hello,
Actually the HADOPI proposed law, which I think is the one you are referring to, has only gone through French Senate for a first reading, but this only means the deputies' Assembly can now vote on it, which is scheduled for early 2009. Then assuming it goes through it must go back to the senate, then to the constitutional council and finally be published for it to become law.
HADOPI is a broad permission and obligation for ISPs to cut off internet access for a set time if users are caught sharing "ille
Enlightenment? (Score:3, Insightful)
Once again the Enightenment [enlightenment.org] category/icon is misused on a Slashdot story.
I guess it goes to show how long Slashdot has been around, that it has a category for the Enlightenment window manager. And how certain software packages can come and go. But I hear that E is being used on mobile phones [openmoko.com] now...
Why stop with SourceForge (Score:5, Funny)
Then they should target ISPs for not blocking access to Google and all the other "infringing" sites.
And while they're at it, sue Slashdot for talking about this.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And while they're at it, sue Slashdot for talking about this.
/. is owned by SourceForge inc., so that's aready covered.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Long story short... (Score:5, Interesting)
The French courts ruled that the French record labels have the legal right to make stupid lawsuits. Duh.
It does not mean that the French court system agrees that SourceForge should be tried, it does not mean that SourceForge will be found guilty, and it does not mean that even if they ARE found guilty that it would actually mean anything. (Good luck trying to enforce a ruling made in France, over a company not there.)
My guess is that the French courts are rolling their eyes over the thought of having to hear these cases out. They basically said "yes yes, technically you're right, we have to hear these cases too, however stupid they may be. "
computer and electric companies, etc (Score:3)
Stretching credibility? Not in France. (Score:5, Informative)
In France, using encryption has long been illegal. I believe even SSL connections weren't allowed until the law changed in 1999.
So I wouldn't call this "stretching credibility", it's just on par for the course in that country where the government clearly doesn't have a clue about IT.
Worse, they're learning about IT - from the media mafia. For example, a year ago there were voices calling out [ifpi.org] for a complete internet ban for whoever is caught sharing a file, enforcing ISP's to act as police, attorney, jury and judge. Who came up with that idea? The IFPI. Who fell for it? The government.
Three strikes file sharing law nearly there (Score:3, Informative)
The French Senate has already passed [geek.com] the law banning people from the Internet if they are caught sharing files with each other. It now just one final vote in the National Assembly before it becomes law.
Phillip.
Problem is French lawmakers not having a clue (Score:3, Informative)
The thing is the French political system is built only on ideas, not people (politicians). As such, there is right wing party, left wing party... but most of our politicians are professional bureaucrats (and the rest are professional politicians, often with a lawyer background). Very very few of our politicians have a clue on science (i mean physics, medicine, ...) in general, let alone IT.
All this gives a pretty one-sided view on a lot of problems, "culture"-related issues being one of them.
About these stupid laws TFA is referring to, the worst is yet to come: a new big law (nicknamed Hadopi) is about to pass, as well as new ISP rules (they want ISPs to filter everything, using such wonderful technologies as DNS blacklisting). And you know what, most of these topics are handled by our culture minister, which, as a job reference, is the former director of the Versailles Palace museum.
But the worst part is that they will sell the ideals of the French Revolution to pure incompetence, helped by our undemocratic mass media system.
Well, thanks god, everybody in France know that freedom and human rights problems are only in Iran, China, Russia and Guantanamo...
The *French* recording companies suing P2P apps? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just a question, has any of you ever downloaded any French music in your lifetime?
People can't be that stupid, can they?
Symptoms of a bigger problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright was created as a bridge between creators and the market to promote progress. It has mutated into a troll that prevents progress. Copyright is now a monster that must be slain.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright was created as a bridge between creators and the market to promote progress. It has mutated into a troll that prevents progress. Copyright is now a monster that must be slain.
Well, there's not much question that the big media companies are little more than international rogue organizations. They're causing damage to legal systems, corporations and individuals around the world. At some point, there are going to have to be international treaties banning such "industry trade organizations", at least the kind that like to sue everyone and corrupt governments.
Yahoo Vs. France (Score:3, Interesting)
Didn't Yahoo go before the 9th circuit of appeals about 10 years ago and get a ruling that a US company need not know or comply with all the laws of other countries if they are operating a business out of the US and designed for a US audience?
Next target: Microsoft and Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And Blame Microsoft in... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Overlord? (Score:5, Funny)
It's a conspiracy involving CmdrTaco, CowboyNeal, SourceForge, the French government and the Illuminati. I'd tell you more, but I've probably said too much already.
Posted AC for the obvious reasons.
Parent
Re:Overlord? (Score:5, Funny)
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