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France Hostile To Open Source Software?
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Dec 02, 2005 05:05 PM
from the no-frog-jokes dept.
from the no-frog-jokes dept.
AdamWeeden writes "According to the Free Software Foundation of France the French Department of Culture is telling free (as in speech) software providers that 'You will be required to change your licenses ... You shall stop publishing free software,' and warn they are ready 'to sue free software authors who will keep on publishing source code.'" From the post: "It appears that publishing Free Software giving access to culture is about to become a counterfeiting criminal offence. Will SACEM sue France Télécom R&D research labs for having published Maay and Solipsis (P2P pieces of software used to exchange data)? Up to this point, the rather technical debate surrounding the issues addressed by DADVSI bill (copyright and neighbouring rights in the information society) makes one ask: Just how much control do the Big Players in the field of culture want to seize? It now looks like years of quibbling have put an end to compromises." More information on the DADVSI bill is available at Infos-du-net.com. They've come a long way since last year.
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An anonymous reader writes "Six month after the publication of very bad amendments to French DRM law proposal, Richard Stallman has been pushed back by the chief of security team of French Prime minister.
On Friday 9th of June 2006 at 3.30pm, Richard Stallman, president of Free Software Foundation, led a delegation composed by Frédéric Couchet (Free Software Foundation France) and Christophe Espern (EUCD.INFO initiative) to meet the French Prime minister in order to talk about the French DRM law proposal and to deliver the EUCD.INFO petition signed by more than 165,000 French residents. Richard Stallman and his friends were pushed back by the chief of security team. "
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Is there a French word for "Backroom Deal"? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Is there a French word for "Backroom Deal"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Litterally, I think, "backstage swindle".
Parent
Nice to see... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nice to see... (Score:5, Funny)
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Toute votre base sont appartiennent à nous (Score:5, Funny)
il n'y aura aucun logiciel libre en France !
I love the Internet, though... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I love the Internet, though... (Score:5, Funny)
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jesus fucking christ (Score:5, Informative)
Re:jesus fucking christ (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:jesus fucking christ (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed, but saying "the goverment is examining a bill proposed by the french MPAA" is very different from saying "French Department of Culture is telling free (as in speech) software providers that 'You will be required to change your license".
Especially when you quote an article that says "SNEP and SCPP have told Free Software authors:", you can't quote an FSF article and replace "MPAA" by "the Goverment" in an article posted on Slashdot's main page, its fucking crazy!
That's the image of the media these days, but I expected something better from slashdot.
Parent
Actually... (Score:5, Informative)
Still a bad trend in any event
Re:Actually... (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine you use Firefox to download a DRM'ed Windows Media Video file.
Firefox would have to respect the copy prohibition embedded in that
Now imagine Firefox DOES respect the copy prohibition. Since Firefox is Free Software, it can be modified so it WON'T respect the prohibition.
As such, it would be illegal to use it.
These two situations are an example of what that law would turn illegal.
If you dig to a lower level, maybe the network card driver should analise the content, I think.
Parent
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
We are NOT anti Free Software (Score:5, Informative)
Let me tell you that the editorial's title ("France Hostile To Open Source Software?") is very misleading for a very simple reason: the anti Free Software statements have been made by the SNEP and SCPP, which are --guest what-- 2 lobbying groups created by various music companies. Here is a small list of companies belonging to those groups: Sony BMG, EMI, Universal, Warner Music France, Walt Disney Company, etc. Complete lists can be found on their websites:
Those 2 lobbying groups are obviously anti-P2P (and they say it clearly on their respective websites) and that explains totally why they are so anti Free Software, knowing that BitTorrent as well as other popular P2P tools are Free Softwares. But in no way whatsoever have the French in general, or the France Government, made any anti Free Software statements. We all remember [slashdot.org] those various stories [slashdot.org] that prove quite the contrary !
As a supporter of Free Software, and french citizen, I am quite sad to see this story posted on Slashdot. It just makes people have a bad opinion about us :(
The SlashDUPE effect (Score:5, Informative)
The French government is NOT attacking free software. Rather groups within the entertainment industry are attacking P2P software that is distributed for free. This is a copyright infringement case. The fact that the industry goons are attacking free software is incidental. What is particularly telling is the way that this article is written. The author talks about "access to culture" when what he's really talking about is the ability to freely violate copyright law. Someone who wasn't paying close attention might mistakenly assume that the "culture" in question is in fact the free software that is under attack. I'm sure that this confusion is quite intentional.
The slashdot editors seem to be vulnerable to propaganda that plays upon their own fears. I could probably create a fake site with a story declaring that the RIAA had begun hiring contract killers to execute the defendants in their copyright suits and slashdot would publish a link to it.
Forget the slashdot effect, cases like this deserve a name all their own, the SlashDUPE effect.
Lee
Ok, some much needed clarification... (Score:5, Informative)
What the story really is:
- Content industry pressures Europe into having their own version of the american DMCA, the EUCD. It passes.
- The EUCD, as a European directive, needs to be transcribed into every EU member state law.
- France is late transcribing the EUCD into national law and gets fined several times about it.
- The French government starts transcribing EUCD requirements into national law, and gets "friendly advice" about how to do it from (basically) Vivendi Universal and the (influential) french movie & arts industry, and none from the (non vocal and lower influence ) french tech & net industry.
- The EUCD has mostly the same provisions as the DMCA (don't break DRMs, etc) , but the French content industry (backed by US DRM solutions vendors) wants to go further : make DRM support mandatory for basically all software that enables peer-to-peer file swapping, including audio streaming software (to plug the Stationripper hole)
It is that step further (making DRM mandatory) which is inherently incompatible with Open Source software, and threatens to make things like Icecast illegal, that has brought up a stir.
The bill is scheduled for parliament vote on December 22th. More info at http://eucd.info/ [eucd.info]
*ahem* (Score:5, Informative)
As for this legislation, it seems to outlaw free software using the internet, under the notion that free software can be modified to remove restrictions on what you do with copyrighted material.
I feel disdain even saying these things to you. I doubt anyone here is familiar with the French Constitution, which requires laws to be reviewed by the Constitutional Committee before they can be enforced. The CC includes former Presidents and legal minds NOT involved in politics. It's kind of like a pre-emptive Supreme Court, and it would almost certainly not approve.
Of course, the likelihood of this amendment passing is low. There was a fuss about this in the U.S., too, when DRM first started being a big issue.
Trust me, the Ministry of Culture is laughed at by most of the government. Considering that the French government is encouraging open-source software (trust me, I know, I have worked with IT professionals in France on database conversions), and that OSS contributes to France's economy significantly, I very very seriously doubt this will be an issue.
I guess maybe I should go on an America-bashing tirade because of your proposed amendments to variously ban gay marriage and rename yourselves "The United States of Earth."
Online Petition (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What is "access to culture? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:What is "access to culture? (Score:5, Informative)
They say it's based on some rejected american law called CBDTPA (check wikipedia for a description) which aimed at disallowing all non DRM-enabled technology.
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Re:I'm not too worried... (Score:5, Funny)
What about Greenpeace [wikipedia.org]?
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Re:That's it! (Score:5, Funny)
Good luck on the whole croissants thing -- looks like the others have already fallen by the wayside.
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Re:That's it! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Interesting (Score:5, Funny)
As it should. Damn those French racists! :)
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Re:I RTFA and I still confused. (Score:5, Informative)
The DADVSI law project is really the adaptation of the EUCD European directive, which is itself the european DMCA. Yeah, we can thank our european leaders who enjoy copying stupid american laws like DMCA and SW patents... Anyway..
While keeping all the badness of DMCA (forbidden reverse engineering, etc.), there's something more: if your software allows DRMs to be circumvented, then it is illegal. The problem with Free Software is that, by nature, you can change it, so DRMs could always be circumvented. So the "obvious" solution to those RIAA-like (SACEM & co) fuckers is to make them illegal.
There's nothing about "french culture" here, really, and please, French people don't have much in common with Quebeckers (I'm seeing many analogies that are totally out of place). When they (i.e: SACEM & co) talk about culture, they talk about Hollywood movies and the latest Madonna hit just as much as french movies & music. It's just an anti-piracy measure.
The problem is that their lobby is strong. They just are the same RIAA-like bastards... they should shoot themselves, the world would be better off.
Not much to add, as a french free software developper, you can imagine I'm quite angry at them (and at our government) right now (and I've been for some time... if only it could be avoided like software patents, but I have very little faith here).
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