French Court Levies First Fine Under 3-Strikes Piracy Law 229
itwbennett writes "In the first trial resulting from the controversial three-strikes copyright law, a French court on Thursday fined a man €150 for failing to secure his Internet connection. His negligence led to the illegal download of files, including two Rihanna songs that were downloaded by his wife."
Re:Good job France! (Score:5, Informative)
What do you mean "out of nowhere"? France was the first country to pass 3-strike laws for copyright violations and has been pushing this crap for years. /. covered this extensively 4 years ago... [slashdot.org] and I'm pretty sure it was on here even before that, but I'm too lazy to do more Googling.
I'm just surprised it's taken them this long to enforce the law.
Re:Keep the woman in line? (Score:5, Informative)
According to the 3-strike law, it's the responsibility of one who signs a contract for internet access contract to make sure that his/her computer cannot be used to breach law. The lady will not be fined because it's just too difficult for the Court to prove she downloaded the file (and not a neighbour or a relative on a visit). But the guy can be fined, because the contract was in his name, and it can be proven that his connection was used to download a song illegally.
Re:Good job France! (Score:4, Informative)
Please show me the US case where someone has been thrown in jail for downloading music or videos. (Except, of course, videos that are criminal to own, like child porn.)
They don't, not directly. What they do is get a judgement against you. Then the debtor repeatedly files motions to have you appear in court, which when they have a judgement against you, they can do, so the judge can assess your income, pay back plan, etc. The key word here is repeatedly, sometimes several times a month. Since these judgements are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, there's no hope for them to repay it. And as you might imagine, when you have an appointment two or more times a month for the rest of your life, sooner or later circumstances are going to arise where you miss your court date.
And that is when you go to jail: For failing to appear, or contempt of court. The sentence in either is indeterminate; An increasing number of jurisdictions have laws in place saying you can't get out of jail until you repay any legally owed debts -- statutes originally intended to repay victims of actual crime, not civil cases. So you do forced labor, at minimum wage, in jail.
God Bless America.
Re:Good job France! (Score:4, Informative)
can you cite the case where this happened? it sounds a bit fishy to me. there is something called 'abuse of process'.
Here's your fish [huffingtonpost.com]. Many more can be found by simply googling for 'debtors prison'.
Re:Heh (Score:4, Informative)
You're clearly hysterical. Violence is always funny.
Re:what if don't WANT it "secure"? (Score:4, Informative)
There are no search warrants in France. The police (and especially the Gendarmerie) is allowed to enter any building, any house, any property, within certain conditions (for example, they're not allowed to wake you up before 6AM)
They still need a Commission rogatoire delivered by a judge, which is almost they same thing as a warrant. The exception is the flagrant délit, when a policeman just witnessed a crime. But I bet that it is the same in other country: if you kill someone in front of a policeman and then hide in your house, in what country the police needs a paper to arrest you?