P2P (More) Legal in France 463
A reader writes:"A french appeal court ruled yesterday in favour of somebody who downloaded about 500 movies, on the ground that those were private copies, and that he didn't redistributed them, and that a tax was payed on blank media. This sets the huge precedent that P2P is legal over there. For the details, apparently no distinction was made on the method used to download the movies (upload issues) and the famous EUCD directive was even used by the defending lawyer." You'll want the fish for this one, unless you speak French.
Precedent? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Precedent? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Precedent? (Score:4, Insightful)
(from my handy legal bilingual dictionary)
Re:Precedent? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Precedent? (Score:4, Informative)
Jurisprudence is used in ruling in France just as much as in North America for the common rulings where there is no defined law. There really is no difference.
This particular judgement was made based on an existing law that says that, if a piece has been broadcasted to the public (like a movie at a theater), everyone is allowed to make a private copy. Private means you can view it at home, but cannot broadcast it during a public event, or even to a crowd at your workplace, or anything else. In that case, the "broacast to public" was not proven since the guy only invited a few friends to watch movies or gave it to one or two of them.
Now, whine against France again, slashdotters! ;-) There are a lot of niceties like this in this country that makes life much more worth it!
Re:Precedent? (Score:2)
Re:Precedent? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Precedent? (Score:3, Funny)
And as an added bonus, he can squish Elf-Aquitaine!
Zie French are Annoying (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Precedent? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe not, but they used the precedent of if you pay the tax, you have paid the due. The royalty on blank media was the precedent and he was right that the royalty provided rights to use them.. I'm glad to see a court get it right. To fix the loophole, all they need to do is eliminate the royalty tax on blank media, then it could be a different ballgame.
Who gets the royalty taxes? (Score:3, Interesting)
In France or otherwise.
Re:Precedent? (Score:2, Informative)
When a similar dispute comes to the courts, it is important that the it is treated equally, so precedent is applied.
Another reason for why precedents are important in civil law systems, is that it is a principle of the rule of law that rules be foreseeable. If courst would not follow their precedents, people would not be able to plan thei
Opening phrase of the article (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a seriously cool word. Better than "web surfer" or "'netter". I say we port it to English immediately.
Re:Opening phrase of the article (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Opening phrase of the article (Score:2)
Re:Opening phrase of the article (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Opening phrase of the article (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Opening phrase of the article (Score:5, Funny)
This term is actually also in common use in Poland.
...except they spell it yntyrznyrczyt.
Re:Opening phrase of the article (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Opening phrase of the article (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Opening phrase of the article (Score:2)
Re:Opening phrase of the article (Score:3, Funny)
We are just in the "field of the remote loading".
From now on I shall not use the term P2P I shall say remote loading and if they take me to court that shall be my defense.
I did not infringe copyright, I just remote loaded that film.
Re:Opening phrase of the article (Score:5, Informative)
Weirder french terms are:
polluriel (spam)
addiciel (add-on)
applette (applet)
bidouilleur (hacker)
fumiciel (vaporware)
obésitiel (bloatware)
pollupostage (spamming)
rustine (patch)
Re:Opening phrase of the article (Score:3, Interesting)
Just a couple of days ago I was trying to translate patch to a french listener (walloon actually, me being flemish/dutch).
I just trew in rustine since that's used as a patch on a bike tire, never thought it was actually correct
Re:Opening phrase of the article (Score:3, Funny)
We'd say "une patche".
Re:Opening phrase of the article (Score:3, Funny)
Sadly, I've encountered a lot of words which I was taught the French word for but which are not used/understood in French Canada.
And I've seen European francos have to speak in English in Quebec since they couldn't understand a damned thing.
This leads me to two conclusions:
1) In Quebec, you're illiterate in both official languages since neither seem to actually get used as a distinct language
2) Somewhere along the way French stopp
Re:Opening phrase of the article (Score:3, Insightful)
There's worst. An it is an insult to anyone who speaks French: cédérom (cederom, in case you can't see the accents). CD-ROM means something. Now cederom is the correct way to speel the word. Stupid eh? Cederom. Yeah right....
Here's the Google Translation into English (Score:5, Informative)
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease [komar.org]
Re:Here's the Google Translation into English (Score:5, Funny)
I think I was better off reading the French...
Re:Here's the Google Translation into English (Score:2)
"The public ministry had required a fine of 5.000 euros before the Court of Appeal, following the example parquet floor of Rodez which had made call of the decision of release."
Obvious Question (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Obvious Question (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Obvious Question (Score:2)
As I understand the matter, the court is saying exactly that, within the limits of the case : personal copies are "fair use", now bring us the real culprit.
Re:Obvious Question (Score:3, Interesting)
He was?
on the ground that those were private copies, and that he didn't redistributed them
He paid the royalty for the private copies by the tax on the blank media. The royalties were paid. That's what the court saw.
Re:Obvious Question (Score:2, Interesting)
Torrents upload (Score:3, Insightful)
Blank media tax... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Blank media tax... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Blank media tax... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Blank media tax... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Blank media tax... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Blank media tax... (Score:5, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with the USA. In France people go to seem more French movies than American ones. So the French cinema industry is probably more affected by this ruling than the American one. And after all, why would a French judge give a shit about another country?
Re:Blank media tax... (Score:2, Interesting)
You have to understand, that apart from some good films, music, and some OK television programmes, America is just another country to most people.
The French don't plan their policys around whatever the law of the day is in America, any more than they plan it around the laws of larger and closer countrys like Russia or Africa.
Re:Blank media tax... (Score:3, Informative)
France to piss of America?? (Score:4, Insightful)
This makes no sense at all. Not everything that anyone does on this planet is done to either please or piss off America.
You just strengthened me in my idea that the majority of Americans have no idea about what is going on in the rest of the world. It scares me.
Re:France to piss of America?? (Score:2, Funny)
You just strengthened me in my idea that the majority of Americans have no idea about what is going on in the rest of the world. It scares me.
You're just saying that to piss me off, right?
Re:Blank media tax... (Score:3, Interesting)
And here's one that makes the mind boggle: I live in England. No that's not makes the mind boggle, this is: what happens if I import some taxed blank media from France, then download and burn a movies onto it? What if I downloaded the files from France? Is that legal? Does the fact that they're both European countries matter?
Re:Blank media tax... (Score:2)
If they would have left blank media alone they would have a moral leg to stand on, however they don't at this point.
Re:Blank media tax... (Score:3, Informative)
What the media companies wanted to do here is have thier tax and sue the taxed too. They were trying to double dip.
Re:Blank media tax... (Score:2, Informative)
What's funny though is that nobody would have thought this tax could eventually protect the consumers...
French music... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:French music... (Score:2)
Re:French music... (Score:3, Insightful)
What cracktard modded this "troll"? (Score:2)
Really, folks; before you hit the "Moderate" button, hit yourself with a clue-stick first.
As much as we like P2P... (Score:4, Insightful)
Still, it seems like an exceptionally harsh judgement against the MPAA and RIAA to say that anyone who wants any of their wares can aquire them for free. But, I guess issuing a huge judgement such as this in the USA would be the only way to move us away from record company monopoly and towards fair internet distribution paradise.
Re:As much as we like P2P... (Score:2)
What do you have against lending libraries?
Re:As much as we like P2P... (Score:3, Insightful)
Woohoo (Score:3, Insightful)
AllofTV.com..
Allof..... heh! it's early
Re:Woohoo (Score:3, Funny)
Troc.
Re:Woohoo (Score:2)
Re:Woohoo (Score:2)
Logic jump (Score:4, Informative)
Not necessarily. It sets a precedent that the downloader isn't doing anything wrong, but I don't think it says anything about the person doing sharing. Note:
on the ground that those were private copies, and that he didn't redistributed(sic) them
So he's fine since he wasn't redistributing, but it sounds like the act of redistributing just might change the outcome of the case in other circumstances.
Re:Logic jump (Score:2)
Completely wrong. (Score:2)
P2P clients can and do upload file chunks as you are downloadiung them, even assuming you aren't sharing anything else.
Re:Logic jump (Score:3, Interesting)
No theft invloved (Score:2, Redundant)
The same argument would not in the US because we do not have the media tax, except on "Music CD-Rs" required by consumer cd copiers.
He paid for it already (Score:2, Redundant)
None of this absolves the person serving the files, since he is not authorized to reproduce the works at any rate.
In France (Score:2)
Re:In France (Score:3, Informative)
Haven't you ever wondered why audio CDR blanks cost more than data CDR blanks?
A summary of the article (Score:5, Informative)
An IT student was sued by 17 movie companies including all the big names and their French distributors for downloading 488 movies over a period of years. He admitted watching them privately, with one or two friends, and sharing a few copies.
The first court, and the appeal court, rejected a claim by the prosecutor for EUR 5.000 in damages (and 10,000 Euro interests and costs) against the defendant, accepting the defense's argument that under European Union law, all surfers (internaughts!) already pay a tax on blank media, PCs and blank CDs that covers their use of these material as consumers.
The main point was that the student's use of the downloaded movies was personal - the small amount of sharing he did was not enough to classify it as "collective use". I assume that if he had shared the movies further, or shown them to a public audience, he would be liable for damages for those actions.
The charge of "piracy" was essentially thrown out.
Further this ruling would appear to affect all EU countries, though the French case will affect only French law initially - defendants in other countries will be able to refer to the same EU conventions.
(Note that the EU conventions are not law per-se, but all countries agree to implement them in national law, so it comes to the same thing.)
Lastly, this would appear to being EU into line with Canada as regards the legality of downloading media for personal use.
Re:A summary of the article (Score:3, Funny)
If that doesn't pan out, he will be offered a starring role in the next blockbuster movie - 20,000 feet under Mt. Vesuvius' lava-filled crater.
Lets Move To France (Score:3, Funny)
Finally Some Sanity (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright has been designed to protect the publishing and distribution rights so to make a copy for private use is "fair dealing"(UK) or "fair use"(US), the court clearly understood that this enhances the cultural richness of France.
What is illegal is making counterfeit copies for gain or public distribution then you hurt the copyright holder.
Now people listen to music and everyone listens to more music than they own, this encourages them to make more music and buy more music.
Copyright was always intended to enhance the cultural richness of the Public Domain by encouraging publication and creation.
It was never intended to create or support monopolistic cartels Practices.
pressure from the US (Score:2)
the famous EUCD directive (Score:2)
Re:the famous EUCD directive (Score:2)
The EUCD is the European counterpart to the DMCA.
I fail to see how it would be successfully used in a copyright infringement suit about P2P file sharing, though.
Re:the famous EUCD directive (Score:2)
Nice precident (Score:3, Interesting)
(I suppose he could have gotten them off oc the usenet, but then how did he get caught?)
Re:Nice precident (Score:2)
Well, yeh, that's exactly what the law in most countries says, if you read it literally. Why are you surprised by this?
Borders (Score:4, Insightful)
So how was he caught? (Score:5, Interesting)
He must have downloaded a few movies from the wrong sharer (i.e. copyright enforcer). But if those files were offered for public download (to trap the unwary), how can they be illegal. Hey, you offered them. Why am I in trouble for taking what you freely offered?
Something is missing in this story so far, and I really would be interested in hearing what it is.
Re:So how was he caught? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, that's the most likely explaination. There are a large number of companies that sell this service. You can find a large potential list [bluetack.co.uk] of IPs that people suspect of doing this. The rest of the site [bluetack.co.uk] is worth a look.
I block this list at my firewall, and I do get the odd hit or two each day from this iptables chain. If you are interested in doing this on Linux, checkout "linblock", a script for applying the list to i
CRAP! Now I can't bad-mouth ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Basing a decision on the fact that people are already being taxed for 'illegal use' of blank media (whether they do so or not) and the fact that he did not re-share the data is perfectly reasonable.
I have long argued that in places where blank media is taxed and awarded to the various copyright consortiums should either be lifted or that consumers should be immune to prosecution for being in possession of 'personal data copies' of any given media. The tax is based on the fact of presumed guilt (that's like spanking your children based on the reality that you probably didn't catch them doing *everything* bad... or how about a mandatory year in prison for anyone who owns a gun under the assumption they will certainly use the weapon to commit a crime.)
But giving the people a level of legal immunity based on the fact that they have already been 'punished' for making copies of copyrighted works without permission is a very novel result. I wonder, then, if the media groups will rethink their 'blank media tax' in order to strengthen the prosecutability of other copyright violations?
Go France! (Score:2)
All kidding aside, this could be a good use of the evil WTO's reciprocal commerce laws..
A sane ruling? In france? (Score:2)
A brief nitpick, if I may? (Score:4, Insightful)
From the summary:
This sets the huge precedent that P2P is legal over there.
P2P is legal everywhere. Downloading movies is what landed this guy in court. The method used is irrelevant.
Perhaps the submitter meant to highlight the possible point that a P2P user was not held liable for people using his PC to download copyrighted material from - but even then it is still different from the submission text.
Unless you speak French. (Score:3, Informative)
e.g.
Any word that ends in able, ation, ary in english are the same in french.
most of the words for meat.
alley as in alley way, is a place to go... etc...
As someone once said, English is just like french but pronounced very baddley.
So I bet that most people could pick through the french version and make out more-or-less the jist of the story.
Here's the rest of the reading guide.
avoir = own, to have
copié = (copy, but pronounced badly)
The little words...
de = from / of
du = of/ of the
par = per/through/via
pour = for
ou = or/also
été = were (also summer)
près = near/close
sur = over
Un = a
mois = Me
qui = who
nous = us - we
to = You
vous = You (but more polite).
La = the
ces't = it's (it/that is)
you can probably sed the artical into franglais
Why isn't this true in the US (Score:3, Insightful)
If we already paid for and own the content, then what's the justification for the tax?! The tax only makes sense if we're allowed to put music we on the disc we didn't pay for.
Re:Payed? (Score:2)
Re:The Complete Military History of France (Score:5, Insightful)
And I think the French judge was right on in this decision. The tax having already been paid, the *AA's were just trying to make more money and scare normal downloaders. There, I said something on topic.
The flamebait mod was probably because there's considerably more in the military history of the French than that bigoted post made out. I mean, you could say almost the exact same thing about Poland, but you won't see anywhere near the amount of anti-Polish prejudice in America that you will of the anti-French variety. Any country that's in Europe has been invaded a shitton of times, Germany and England included. That answer your question?
Re:The Complete Military History of France (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The Complete Military History of France (Score:3, Funny)
Silly things can perpetuate and propagate without having a good reason to exist in the first place. Hate the frenchs if you want (i'm one), but not for a reason like this one.
If you can't find a good reason I can insult if you want
Re:The Complete Military History of France (Score:5, Informative)
I'll tell you that. An active campaign during the latter half of the 20th century.
Historically, the USA has not been anti-french. The French were allies in the War of Independence. The founding fathers were very much inspired by the Enlightenment, which was to a large part a French movement. The French peacefully sold Louisiana to the US. The French gave the US the Statue of Liberty. And so on.
But there is an old Anglo-Saxon grudge against the French which dates back forever. That much is true.
What happened, happened during and after WWII. The USA and UK didn't want De Gaulle to lead France, since he was a rather proud/arrogant guy, strongly independent, and would not let himself be convinced to do something unless it was what he considered to be best for France. In other words, he acted a lot like America does.
So France went off on their own, unilaterally leaving NATO, for instance. America responded by calling them arrogant, ungrateful, and playing on existing anglo-saxon stereotypes of 'snooty' French. The french, to an extent, do consider the Americans to be arrogant as well. Whereas both nations have really done nothing other than support their own self-interest.
There is also a general anti-European sentiment in the USA (and vice versa, of course, but the forms are different). There has been a very deliberate effort from the American republicans in the last half-century to paint a bad picture of Europe.
Because Europe is more to the left than the USA, giving the Democrats the argument of a Good Example would be a dangerous thing. So Europe (and France in particular) has been badmouthed at every opportunity. High taxes. Strikes. Inefficiency. Listening to American media reports, you'd think Europe is part of the third world.
And the strategy worked: I'll give them that. You cannot refer to Europe in American politics. It's political suicide. Taboo. Tell Americans something is European and they'll vote against it on sheer principle.
(European anti-americanism is different. Referring to the USA in European politics happens all the time.)
As for the 'french surrender' crap. It's a lie and a prejudice. An uncommonly stupid and hurtful one, at that.
Re:The Complete Military History of France (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:viva la revolution! (Score:2)
vive la revolution!
Merçi!
Re:Downloading and Uploading (Score:2)
Given that there've been cases where using even a handful of notes in a certain sequence was found infringing of a whole song,
Re:If this is P2P... (Score:2)
Even if you don't make anything else available for sharing, chunks of the file you are currently downloading can and do get shared as you are downloading it.
The reason why nobody raised this issue is that it you are factually incorrect. You most certainly can download and not upload with any number of P2P applications. With some programs all you have to do is no
bittorrent (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know if it stands up legally, but mora
Re:If this is P2P... (Score:2)
IIRC, if you don't allow incoming connections through your firewall, you're effectively leeching off the P2P service without contributing to it.
Re:Freedom Court (Score:4, Interesting)
Earlier this week, the US decided to renounce and reject the treaty, on the grounds that other countries were trying to use it to gain access to their citizens detained in the US.
Apparently, international law is for the convenience of America to impose its views on other nations and woe betide those who try to use it the other way round. International Law, according to the current administration, is a one-way street, with US checkpoints at both ends, each of which has the right to fire at will at anything that moves.
The last time things got this bad for any nation, England passed a law stating that NO king may ever again hold the name of John. Now, that is seriously pissed off.