French Record Labels Go After Limewire, SourceForge 326
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.
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.
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...
Re:Enlightenment? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not Slashdot. KDawson. He's the only one who keeps using the category incorrectly.
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.
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.
Re:Good luck .. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Cool! (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Juristiction? (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 you want to do business in our country, you follow our rules, end of. And no, I'm not French.
Re:Juristiction? (Score:1, Insightful)
You can't imagine how peaceful the French digital rights scene was before Vivendi bought Universal and its legal team.
Nowadays France gets to experience Hollywood legal stupidity even before it's tested in the USA.
Though I guess that this way at least, the bribery flow also benefits Europe a little.
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?
Re:Juristiction? (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 inspired by Bill Clinton, Bruce legman and two WIPO treaties that 150 of countries signed on to. In fact, Title one and two of the DMCA was almost word for word of the two treaties. Perhaps you should learn a little about what you think your talking about before demonstrating how ignorant you really are. BTW, I'm over 30 myself so I'm not sure what the hell you think Age has to do with things unless your thinking your slipping into senility.
My god, a simply Google search for History of the DMCA would have told you different. Let me guess, You were burnt by Wikipedia and your favorite Bashing site again. Most people would learn but go ahead and take your time, you might get a clue before it's too late.
Re:Pricks (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 equate "French Record Companies" with "the French"? For the next story about RIAA shenanigans, are we all supposed to come troll about "the Americans" being nuts.
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.
Yes? Nuclear tests bring me no joy either, but do we get get to rant about Hiroshima on RIAA threads??? wtf? or considering your barb about international pressure, are you trying to tell us that almost 100000 civilian deaths [iraqbodycount.org] are somehow connected to the RIAA, or even most of "the Americans"???
So, where are the price fixing lawsuits? (Score:2, Insightful)
It is illegal for companies to collude to fix prices, to keep them artificially high, the recent LCD screen manufacturers article is an example. Digital copies of music and movies and so on can be made by the billions for relatively cheap. No matter their upfront cost, even if it is 100 million dollars or whatever, copies of that can still be produced for micropennies at most. So,where in the legal market are the really cheap digital copies for sale?
It seems to be beyond obvious there is a "gentleman's agreement" across the entertainment industry, internationally, to keep prices artificially high, to maintain some vague "per unit" profit margin at the serious price gouging thousands of percent markup level, and extremely so for these contentious digital copies. When are all these governments going to address that, and where is a consumer advocate organization that would push for such investigations?
Perhaps there wouldn't be so much alleged piracy if the market regulations were enforced across the board more fairly and consumers had a place to legally get a copy of some song for a penny or two, which is beyond what it would cost to have a server serve you a copy. Even a nickle a song would be more than adequate, this 99 cents or whatever for example at itunes is still outrageously high. Why haven't prices dropped right along with technological advances, like you expect to see in every single other industry?
If they came out with the Mr. Fusion unit, and everyone knew that electric power was now ridiculously cheap to produce, would consumers still be forced to pay a dime to a quarter per kilowatt hour, just because that is what the electric companies used to get "per unit" pre Mr. Fusion?
Maybe we need a consumers "per megabyte" law, or define price gouging better, where there is a cap on how much some company can charge for transferring a megabyte of 1s and 0s, and that charge reflected technological and engineering reality, with a good enough profit margin, call it 100% markup over cost of serving. That would still be loads cheaper than what is out there now "legally", and what business could really argue that a 100% markup wasn't enough? And if that causes changes to the entire entertainment industry stack, well, too bad, that's the reality of technological change. Everyone else on the planet in every other possible form gets to deal with that as regards their job, so why are these entertainment people "special" and get to stay legally locked into mid 20th century pricing models, no matter engineering changes, at the point of the government's gun?
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:Symptoms of a bigger problem (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.
Next target: Microsoft and Apple? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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.)
Re:Juristiction? (Score:3, Insightful)
What did is say, the treaty enabled Clinton to pass sweeping changed to copyright law.
I think you should read your own post, difficult as that may be. "Required" is stronger than "enabled". Even "enabled" is stronger than the page you cited, according to which "was used as an excuse" is more accurate.