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Internet Pirates In France To Lose Broadband
Posted by
timothy
on Fri Jun 20, 2008 02:09 AM
from the don't-kick-against-libe-goad dept.
from the don't-kick-against-libe-goad dept.
slyjackhammer writes "France is purporting to take a hard line on copyrighted media (movies and music). According to timesonline.co.uk, a new measure approved yesterday by the French Cabinet would kill the Internet connection to those caught downloading illegally. 'There is no reason that the internet should be a lawless zone," President Sarkozy told his Cabinet yesterday as it endorsed the "three-strikes-and-you're-out" scheme that from next January will hit illegal downloaders where it hurts. Under a cross-industry agreement, internet service providers (ISPs) must cut off access for up to a year for third-time offenders.' Google and video site Dailymotion have refused to sign up as consenting participants, and the state data protection agency, consumer and civil liberties groups and the European Parliament are all kicking against the goad as well. France may be pioneer in this kind of legislation, but they sure have their work cut out for them."
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Technology: France Seeks To Push 3-Strikes Law Across Europe 265 comments
quanticle writes "As you may recall, France previously threatened to cut off broadband access for file sharers. However, after lobbying by the public, the legislation failed in the National Assembly. Now, the government of Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to revive the the measure by pushing it as an amendment to the pan-European Telecoms Package. This amendment has the potential to impose 3-strikes across Europe, not just in France."
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Democracy (Score:5, Informative)
At least they're debating it in parliament. In the UK Virgin Media's behind-closed-doors deal [slashdot.org] with the media industry has already been covered here.
Note to self - I need to switch away from an ISP that is itself a content provider with vested interests in censoring my internet connection. Soon.
Re:Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
What are you suggesting is at stake? I have downloaded music illegally on occasion, though I've actually bought a few albums because I like what I hear. For example I downloaded the Guitar Hero III soundtrack and have bought albums from 5 of the artists on there, 4 of whom I'd never heard of before. I do own the game though so maybe that's a bit of a grey area. I have received music from a few people illegally and similarly I just bought a Dream Theater album as a result of that. So I can see the point of people who want to encourage file sharing and say that it doesn't always damage the industry, though I also accept that it is currently illegal. Some people will always be jerks and just want to get everything for free. I met someone recently who went on about SoulSeek and how it's great you can get everything for free etc, I was pretty disgusted because I think that anyone who likes a band should give something back to the artist rather than use the excuse that the artist should do it just for the love of music, though it is a fair point because a lot of bands don't get paid much if anything and really do play just for the love of music (I used to be in a band, it was good fun, though if I were to do it as my main occupation then I would definitely want paid - hiring a decent recording studio for a day costs about as much as I make in 2 weeks.. and hiring a practice room for an hour costs about as much as I make per hour). Using the "music should be free" reasoning, a coder should always work for free (open source is good, but how do you pay the bills?), doctors should always work for free (I know doctors and nurses that pay to go out to other countries to help out, but again how do they pay for their training or bills if they don't have a job?). People that act like everything should be free that are just freeloaders who pretend to be acting for the greater good, but really are just making the whole situation worse and giving the RIAA et al an excuse to push for bullshit control laws like this. I don't have a problem with this as long as it's just monitoring actual illegal music downloading, but how are they even going to know if someone is downloading music if for example they are using an encrypted network?
Parent
Re:Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's an idea... get your ethics straight. Situational ethics and moral relativism are the height of craven hypocrisy. Don't like Microsoft as a company? Then walk away. Why not spend the time you spend helping people to rip them off sending them, instead, to an open source or competing product? As people here are so fond of pointing out, there are plenty of ways to edit a
Parent
Re:Democracy; and the easy solution (Score:5, Funny)
Do it on a country wide scale (say every
Parent
Re:Democracy; and the easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
do it once and be fired for breaching the IT usage policy that you signed while joining the company.
beside, it's not as if a governemental agency is blocking uniterally your internet access.
I suppose that in that case, your company is considered as an ISP.
Parent
Re:Democracy; and the easy solution (Score:5, Informative)
Haha... you clearly don't work in France. Fired for misuse of the companies internet connection?
That's really not as easy as you seem to think. It's not even legal for the company to monitor your internet usage!
Parent
Re:Democracy; and the easy solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Democracy; and the easy solution (Score:5, Informative)
as a matter of fact I do work in France.
while not easy, you can certainly be fired over Internet misuse, especially if it involves installing dialers and such on a computer.
beside, monitoring is allowed as long as the personnel is informed and it is declared to the CNIL.
Parent
Re:Democracy; and the easy solution (Score:5, Funny)
The RIAA confirms it!
Parent
Re:Democracy; and the easy solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Democracy; and the easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Democracy; and the easy solution (Score:5, Funny)
Just more reasons to use your neigbours WiFi
Parent
Re:Democracy (Score:5, Funny)
In other news , French telco's are going broke , as apparently , most of their high bandwidth users where pirates .
Parent
They're not going broke at all (Score:5, Informative)
Free [www.free.fr] provides 28Mb/s ADSL2+ with free international VoIP, free basic TV over IP for 29 euro a month. No capping whatsoever, awesome network quality, they also are the first to provide IPv6 to all their customers, and they make record profits. That's because they invested heavily in infrastructure and logistics, developed their own hardware (both set top box and DSLAMs), and managed to take advantage of significant economies of scale.
Parent
France ? The country with taxes on blank media ? (Score:5, Interesting)
France, on the other hand is one of those countries that have a tax on blank media.
A suit had been mentioned on /. a couple of years ago were a French "pirate" was acquitted on the ground that the financial damage due to copying of the movies (for private use) was already paid by the tax on blank media.
Some consumer interests group should remind that to Mr. Napole-rkozy.
But don't be afraid : after all, manifesting in the streets is a national sport in France and the subject is bound to be brought up.
Parent
what about my wife and children? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that like in the Middle Ages?
Re:what about my wife and children? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
All of these points are good and ignored (Score:5, Informative)
As a member of April [april.org], the French free software association, I have been following this nonsense since it started. We have raised those issues already. W have been in touch with government officials, and this much is clear: they don't get it, because they don't care. The Sarkozy government is about as corrupt and authoritarian as the Bush administration, and similarly incompetent.
(Even Chirac, who didn't have the most spotless of records to say the least, had at least surrounded himself with competent and well meaning people.)
To illustrate this point, there's no better story than that of former member of parliament Cazenave. He was a member of Sarkozy's (and Chirac's) party, UMP, and one of free software's best advocate in the legislative branch. But before the last election, Sarkozy decided to give the party's nomination for that district instead to convicted felon Carignon. I shit you not. Carignon lost to the socialist candidate, in a district that had never voted left in decades.
Anyway, we have been in touch with members of several parliaments (assembly, senate, european), and have found strong allies. Former Prime Minister and current MEP Rocard for example was instrumental in defeating software patents in the European Parliament, and he voiced strong opposition to this current nonsense.
But we know how Sarkozy operates, he's learned from the worst, and, like Tom DeLay, he's going to strongarm his party's members in the legislative to toe the party line, even if they have reservations.
Parent
Re:I love Linux (Score:5, Funny)
ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:16:3E:72:42:c2
New MAC address!
Um, wait...
Parent
Re:what about my wife and children? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:what about my wife and children? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you use a knife to murder someone, it will be confiscated for evidence. That's even if it was your wife's favourite kitchen knife.
I'm not saying I agree with the law, but why do people have to go so over the top in their discussion of it (and why do people think nonsense like this is insightful)?
Parent
Re:what about my wife and children? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, in that time period, you'd be considered an actor for copying a play, or a musician for copying a song.
Parent
Re:what about my wife and children? (Score:4, Insightful)
You lose your driving licence after repeated speeding; that's your car grounded for three years, a resource used by the whole household.
You get a fine for parking illegally; that's money that otherwise could've redecorated the kitchen, a resource used by the whole family.
You get communal service for being drunk and disorderly; that's your evenings tied up for the next six months, time you could have otherwise spent helping your children with homework.
Punishing you inevitably affects your family, it can't be helped. That's something you're supposed to take into consideration before you commit the crime.
Parent
Bonjour! (Score:4, Funny)
Arrrrrrrrrrgh!
three warnings? (Score:4, Insightful)
At risk of being modded down with a baseball bat, this sounds fair.
Three warnings should be more than enough. If you are unaware of the infringing use when you get your first warning, you should try to find out who's doing it. If you don't bother, then well that's your own fault.
It's a whole lot better then being sued for thousands of dollars, at least you get a chance to find out what's happening, or if you are the downloader, to stop with no consequences.
Re:three warnings? (Score:5, Insightful)
agreed 100%, and I am fully expecting the whole of slashdot to agree with you, as (from what i read here), the vast majority of people using p2p are doing it to download creative commons and open source programs and linux distributions. All that traffic to the piratebay is just people sharing their holiday photos etc.
I think it's pretty fair, if I get caught speeding i get fined instantly, I don't get given 2 warnings first.
And anyone who expects mass public campaigns against this needs to get out and speak to ordinary people. Most voters care about taxes, education, health and the economy, not whether or not their kids can keep maxxing out their bit-torrent speeds.
Parent
Re:three warnings? (Score:5, Informative)
if I get caught speeding i get fined instantly
You're not, however, denied the use of roads.
Parent
Re:three warnings? (Score:5, Insightful)
If by "strike" you mean "being found guilty of some crime by a jury of your peers" then sure. But I don't think that's what the media companies have in mind.. considering that there are no laws which criminalize downloading of copyright restricted works - not even in France.
Parent
Re:three warnings? (Score:5, Insightful)
If by "strike" you mean "being found guilty of some crime by a jury of your peers" then sure. But I don't think that's what the media companies have in mind..
Parent
Yeah, okay (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, you know the reason someone like Google won't sign up to be willing participants is because it's signing away their common carrier status. That will have HUGE legal repercussions in the United States. They will be suddenly responsible for even the most minor violation and susceptible to law suit. No company in their right mind would do that. It's not going to be out of the kindness of their hearts. If they could help nail people who are violating copyright without carrying any legal responsibility at all, I'm sure they would.
I'm not seeing a problem with this. You don't have a right to "share" material that is copyrighted by someone other than you if they didn't give you consent. You may not like this, you can come up with all the (possibly valid) reasons things should not be that way. It's not for YOU to decide. The only real problem is how something like this is enforced. I'm willing to bet it will be done with a false positive rate that won't go over well with the French people, who from this side of the pond seem the kind of people who don't put up with their government doing stupid things (I seriously commend them for their idea of how to go on strike).
Re:Yeah, okay (Score:5, Informative)
Repeat after me: ISPs are not common carriers. They have already bought other laws so the don't have to.
Parent
New malware opportunity (wonderful) (Score:5, Interesting)
Better still, tie it in to the mechanism used in the current rounds of SQL injection attacks.
Idiots. All they'll end up with is a DDOS attack on their legal system...
Andy
three strikes politician out (Score:5, Insightful)
The punishment doesn't fit the "crime". To the "knowledge worker" Europe wants to base it's future on, losing broadband is the digital equivalent of house arrest. Without access to radio, television, books and newspapers.
I like the three strike approach though. Should be applied to politicians. Sell out your voters to special interest groups three times and your out. Would really cleans out the European Commission and the European Council.
Some more precisions (Score:5, Informative)
What is not said in TFA.
The three step mentionned are optionnal. You can be banned from internet at the first time.
And the decision is not up to judges, as we can think, but to a new and "independent" (read leaded by the majors) entity. So very little to no possibility to contest the punition, since it's not french court that rule over it. Meh...
Moreover, the law try to push forward filtering of content, in order to detect "illegal" file sharing. That could prove useful to control population, in the future, isn't it ?
And if the media would accept to talk about it, maybe people could try and fight against this project, but you hardly hear a word about it out of computer oriented websites.
We're in for a wild time...
The issue is standards of proof (Score:5, Interesting)
The issue is standards of proof. To be caught doing something illegal on the net three times may seem to justify disconnection. However, simply to be accused of it cannot. The fundamental problem here is economic. The rights owners cannot justify prosecution, because that demands a standard of proof of misconduct which is very expensive. You have to get the evidence, display it, allow it to be subject it to public questioning. Witnesses have to testify to how it was obtained.
This is an attempt to bypass all that. It is far cheaper to simply disconnect on three accusations. However, the problem is going to be EC human rights legislation and the first suit for false accusation. Human rights legislation is going to be a problem because the EC Charter explicitly guarantees access to information. You are only going to be able to ban someone from Internet access with the same sort of evidentiary justification that you would need to ban them from a public library or from reading the newspapers. The first suit for false denial of access to information is, for the same reason, going to be explosive. The ISPs will be acting as a cartel, so where one, acting alone, could throw anyone off for any reason, all acting together are in effect conspiring to deny the person access to information.
One supermarket may ban someone from shopping. If all start to subscribe to a common list, there's a human rights issue.
In the end this is not going to work because you cannot get around the requirement for high standards of proof before depriving people of what the EC, with a different hat on, has defined as their fundamental human rights. Hoist with their own petard, as they say in Brussels!
Wrong answer to the wrong problem (Score:5, Informative)
The trend nowadays in France is to complain about purchase power.
But the goverment is unwilling to lower taxes and the reccord industry is unwilling to lower their profits margin.
for instance a NIN CD sells 8 UKP (10EUR) the same CD sells 22EUR in France.
go figure why people are pirating
This will probably teach people to use encryption (Score:5, Interesting)
Sofar people didn't have any big preasure to do so. I know, there are a lot of lazy people around, who just think: I don't care what happens to my computer. But I know enough people who do download and who wouldn't want to miss it.
So, how long does it take untill people run their download software in a virtual machine, completely seperated from the rest of the operating system, on a hiden true crypt partition and store the music/movies in the same way. And communication only over encrypted channels. Of course it has performance issues, but the computers are fast enough (and get faster).
And then let them cut of the internet? I would always defend myself and claim: false positive! And go public of course!
wrong summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Dumb Internet Pirates In France To Lose Broadband
Internet Pirates In France With The Slightest Bit of Technical Acumen To Carry On As Usual
there, fixed that for you
It's just France.. (Score:4, Funny)
Reality to media industry: Accept the truth (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear media outlets: Please accept the fact that you are fighting a war that you cannot win. Even with custom-tailored laws at your will the internet won't change and piracy won't go away at large. It is also still doubtful that it is piracy what is causing your alledged losses and not a general loss of quality in and appreciation of music. For the latter part it's even you who is to blame: Music is nowadays everywhere - with your permission. Bad versions of your "hits" are sold as overly annoying cell phone ringtones - with your permission and appraisal.
Some parts of the media business already have learned that both giving away for free and piracy is actually increasing business, not hurting it. Eric Flint, a sci-fi writer has pointed this out: http://baens-universe.com/articles/salvos8 [baens-universe.com] and http://baens-universe.com/articles/The_Economics_of_Writing [baens-universe.com] Instead of treating your customers like shit, making a witch-hunt and introducing bull shit like DRM which only scares away your loyal customers towards piracy - pirated versions don't have silly limitations - you should finally realize that you need to do what every business in trouble need to do: Adapt. Or die. Whatever.
Sincerely
Reality
While the law may seem fair... (Score:4, Informative)
As a french citizen, I don't really disagree with the principle of this law, but to see our government act like the RIAA's lap dog is very unnerving. And the fact that the ministry of culture seems completely out of touch with today's technology annoys me even more (Not long ago this ministry published a tender for translation of their websites. They specifically asked for automated translation. Let's just say the translators union was not very pleased, and sent them a letter, along with an man-made english translation of it, and a french translation of the english letter made by google translate. The original letter and the google one had not much in common...)
In related News: (Score:4, Funny)
Losing Internet is akin to Losing Electricity (Score:4, Insightful)
Such punishment may have made sense 10 years ago when the internet was a novelty / toy to most people. But today, many people rely on the internet for basic everyday needs, such as communication, employment, paying bills, filing taxes, etc.
Ron
Re:I guess.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well if you RTFA you'll see that they are trying to get it right:
Seems like a fair deal to me. Instead of pro-actively punishing everybody on the assumption that they're going to steal, only actually punish the ones that do.
The points about coffee shop wireless etc are all valid - presumably either the law won't apply to communal wireless (gaping loophole) or cafes/airports/etc will simply bite the IPv4 bullet and buy more addresses so they can associate a C&D notice with an actual (cc verified) customer.
Anyway. I think Sarkozy is talking sense here. Do law enforcement the old fashioned way - by finding and punishing the people actually breaking the law.
Parent
Re:I guess.. (Score:4, Informative)
That's a fairly gross assumption on your behalf.
France, being french speaking, have their own unique music market, in addition to international markets.
In support of that, 90% of top-10 selling artists are french [SNEP/IFPI, 2001]
I am splitting hairs though - the leading ISP here, Free.fr has a live music streaming service already - http://www.deezer.com [deezer.com] - No cost, no restrictions. That's a pretty decent sweetner already.
Parent
Re:one funny side-effect (Score:5, Funny)
If you download Britney Spears ... you are already punished enough by what you get! No need to disconnect here...
Parent
Re:one funny side-effect (Score:5, Funny)
Hey! Why does the word "guillotine" jump into my head?
Parent
Re:what happened to the land of liberty? (Score:5, Funny)
Possibly the same thing that happened to UTF-8 encoder of your web browser?
Parent