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Illegal Downloaders to be Blocked By French Government? 149

Posted by Zonk from the define-illegal dept.
rdavison writes "According to a recent article on the Financial Times site, 'internet users in France who download music and films without paying for them could find their web access shut down by a government body.' The proposal originated with FNAC, an entertainment retailer. According to the article, the proposal has a good chance of being accepted. 'In exchange for the clampdown on illegal downloading, the music industry has agreed to make individual downloads of archive French material available on all types of players by dropping digital rights management protection. The French film industry has agreed to release DVDs more quickly after a film's first cinema screening, reducing the delay from 7½ months to 6 months. However, consumer groups and even some of Mr Sarkozy's own members of parliament on Thursday attacked the proposal for a new internet policeman as a threat to civil liberties.'"
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Illegal Downloaders to be Blocked By French Government? More

Illegal Downloaders to be Blocked By French Government?

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  • No web access? (Score:3, Funny)

    by matt me ( 850665 ) on Friday November 23, 2007 @10:27AM (#21453601)
    Isn't most illegal file transfer done by BitTorrent? How would this help, except to make searching harder?

    • Re:No web access? (Score:5, Informative)

      by darthflo ( 1095225 ) on Friday November 23, 2007 @10:31AM (#21453631)
      That's a mistake in TFS. TFA clearly is talking about internet access, not limited to http/port80.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ArcherB ( 796902 ) *
      Isn't most illegal file transfer done by BitTorrent?

      As far as I know, yes. However, the donkey clones seem to be pretty popular. Of course, you will always have people who do it the old fashion way and put up FTP sites or trade vie IRC.

      My question is, how do they know which traffic is illegal. I download my Linux distro's via BitTorrent.
  • How about releasing the DVD at the same time as the movie, so people didn't have to download it if they wanted to watch it at home.
    • Thus effectively destroying the entire cinema industry? Hell, a good FullHD-capable home cinema will yield better picture and sound quality than most current (non-digital) cinemas do. Just for a minute, imagine the horrible protests coming from any cinema owner and you see why this isn't an option (yet).

      • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        bull ... the cinema industry would survive just fine, if they'd offer a good product at a reasonable price - think IMAX, reasonably priced confectioneries, comfortable seats and or an intelligent selection of quality films - for example, we have several artsy non-Hollywood cinemas in my town, they do okay despite downloading and the monopolization of the film industry - face the facts, the film industry (TV and Hollywood) needs reform as it is completely evil and corrupt, imho, filesharing is only justice b

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Seumas ( 6865 )
        I have a bad ass home entertainment center and I haven't been to a theater since X-Files in 1998. I don't want to go to the theater and I don't want to pay $30 (plus tax) for a DVD/BluRay/HD-DVD. I also don't want to wait six months to a year for it.

        Cable providers need to offer much larger varieties of "on-demand" content than they already do. I'm talking Net-Flix library quantities. Then, they need to release high definitely streaming on-demand movies the same day they are released to the theaters (which,
      • Are you saying costumers should suffer so some cinema owners wouldn't? (I know you don't, I'm making a point here)
      • If people dont want to watch something in cinema, they wont. They'll download it if theres no DVD to buy. Then the industry will lose both the cinema ticket and the dvd. FORCING people to do/buy something they dont want just isnt a working business option any more.

        • Re:DVD release (Score:4, Insightful)

          by rucs_hack ( 784150 ) on Friday November 23, 2007 @11:10AM (#21453931)
          In the last, ooh, five years, there have been just two films I've thought good enough to see at the Cinema. Well, three, but Serenity lasted a fortnight where I am, and I didn't get the time. Bloody stupid timing that..

          I bought all three films on dvd too. Most films I just wait and see what the reviews are like and buy the dvd when it's come down from the high price they charge at first. That can mean well over a year for some films.

          Honestly though, they shoot themselves in the foot. It's not a privilege to see a film on the big screen, it's a choice.

          If dvd's cost £3.00 initially I'd have a regular order coming in every week, and they'd make a fortune off me. As it is the price of films goes up and down in a rather stupid way. One week it's a tenner, next its five again, and back up again if people buy it.

          I know it's not a film, but the firefly series was £12.00 when I bought it. Then a couple of months later it was £35.00. Eh? That's the sort of thing that pisses me off about the whole movie/dvd industry, their only consistent trait is wringing money out of a messed up business model.
          • At least there WAS Serenity in your neighbourhood! Where I live, I think it went
            straight to DVD (and later the hi-def formats).

            However, the time from original cinematic release/first airing of a TV show until
            it's out on DVD has continually decreased in the past few years. Some movies have
            as little as two weeks in the cinemas, and the following week you can pick up a
            decently priced DVD (if you redefine 'pick up' as ordering from Play.com, of course).

            This leads to my actual sorta on-topic question: How do the
            • back when I was a teenager, we would sometimes have to wait three to five years for a film to appear on the television and on video. The media industries move at a snails pace, perhaps they remember ye olde days and think six months isn't very long.

              Trouble is, a week is too long nowadays. Hell, even the day after a cinematic release is too long sometimes.

              There's another thing, in my childhood going to the Cinema (in my case a drive in by a beach with a playground under the screen, oh the memories) was cheap

      • Re:DVD release (Score:4, Insightful)

        by CaptainZapp ( 182233 ) * on Friday November 23, 2007 @11:05AM (#21453891) Homepage

        Thus effectively destroying the entire cinema industry?

        Well, the cinema industry does a great job of doing that itself. Some oldtimers may remember the time when cinemas where actually theatres? you know with a large hall, no cheap popcorn stink a sound system, which deserved its name an operator as oposed to automated systems that don't have any pride and couldn't care less if the image is unfocused or not aligned correctly?

        oh yeah, those theatres actually had screens which deserved that name and not pumped up flat screen tvs. Oh and you also didn't get pestered with 40 minutes of cheesy ads and the coke was not 6$

        Modern cinemas suck so bad and provide such a bad experience that I really don't want to be bothered, with very few exceptions. For example the local cinemateque.

        • Why I hate at cinemas (it doesn't happen every time, but too often) when in the first week in town, in the 6th of 7th day the movie is in that cinema, you end up with the reels cut short.
                The rest - phones, people commenting on the movie, people with 4 years old children at "Passion of Jesus", no air conditioning, chairs 12 years old and plenty of similar things - and the endless stream of advertisements and commercials at the start - is just icing on the cake
        • I agree. With a rental DVD, a good quality TV (not even talking big screen high-defs here), and some microwave popcorn, you can often get a better movie watching experience than the local theater. And at a lower price point, also. $4.50 the rental, $1 (max) for the popcorn and you still even haven't reached the price of a single ticket. Not to mention deals you can get. We use our Discover Card Cashback bonuses for Hollywood Video coupons. $20 in Cashback bonus buys us 10 "free" rentals. The net cost

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by freyyr890 ( 1019088 )
          Which is why I like the local, privately-owned (as opposed to just being one more acquired outlet of Cineplex Odeon or some other corporate film giant) theatre the small town I live in. It's been running continuously for over 90 years, having started life as a stage theatre and converting to a movie theatre later on. One screen, an actual projectionist in the booth running 35mm film through the projector, reasonably priced concession, and a theatre staff that doesn't care if you bring your own food in or

    • How about releasing the DVD at the same time as the movie, so people didn't have to download it if they wanted to watch it at home.

      And 20 minutes after the first one is sold, it is in the wild being downloaded by every jerk that didn't want to pay $19.95 for the disc, or pay $7.50 for the matinee, or $3.00 for the rental.

      And, you made it easier, now pirates don't have to sit in the theater with hand held cameras. You made it easier, because now you don't have to make a deal with some guy in post productio

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by pipatron ( 966506 )

        O.k., you solved what problem again?

        Delivering what the customers actually want.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by jank1887 ( 815982 )

          Giving customers what the REALLY want right away would eliminate one of the industry's profit models. (i.e., the cinema) I assume it's currently a profitable method for the movie makers, or they'd be releasing movies on DVD sooner to recoup costs sooner. Also, before the DVD's out, there exists a temporary, 'copyright enforced' monopoly on the film that can actually be maintained to some extent despite P2P. If you want to just see the movie, sure, you could do that really quick via bittorrent. But, it'll b

          • I think they would adapt to the new model, continue to make movies, continue to make money, just not as much... Perhaps no-one would get 35 million a movie every time any more. And who knows, with less built-in profit due to an antiquated model, maybe theyll produce less crap. Online shopping didn't destroy retail chains, they adapted... looking at Best Buy and WalMart, and are doing quite well in some cases. Hell even Amazon changing the model for selling books didn't put Borders or Waldenbooks out of bu
            • agreed. things change. industries evolve. they only stop doing so when they're able to impose a status quo through legislation or market control. I disagree about the theaters though. I think they're going the way of the dodo bird. Used to be theaters were the only way to get high quality cinematic entertainment. Theaters were everywhere, and going to the movies was a common 'hey, i got a few bucks' kind of event. If I recall from my history classes of the not so distant past, opera/live theater/con
              • You may have a point on theatres.... I think that as they are now, they could have alot more money if the experience was improved on. In this area, most of the theatres smell like stinky feet, the seats are uncomfortably close when youre not dating the person sitting next to you lol, and they are perpetually unclean. At the same time, taking your kids to the movies and purchasing snacks and drinks is comparable to going to a professional sports game in terms of price. I think part of the problem is that the

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by fotbr ( 855184 )
        You do know there's dvd rips of movies out on the net BEFORE they're ever shown in theatres, right? Studios send out preview dvds to reviewers, invariably they leak. Releasing DVDs at the same time as the theatre release would destroy the theatre industry as noted above, but it wouldn't increase piracy.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by darthflo ( 1095225 )
          Nope, that's just plain wrong. In very few cases actual DVDRips are available before the official first screen date. I believe Michael Moore's Sicko was the last bigger production where this actually happened.
          It's quite common to see DVD Screeners and (a bit later) R5s pop up rather quickly after the first U.S. screening date, Cam, TeleSyncs and (increasingly seldom, probably due to the rise of R5) TeleCines tend to be available right (as in "double-digit amounts of hours") after press/exclusive screenings

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by fotbr ( 855184 )
            I should have been more clear -- dvd quality rips, not dvd rips themselves. What you're referring to as "dvd screeners".

            In any case, releasing dvds at the same time a movie is in the theatres won't have any effect on piracy, but it will have the effect of destroying the theatre industry. Personally, I'd be happy with that result.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mpe ( 36238 )
        And, you made it easier, now pirates don't have to sit in the theater with hand held cameras. You made it easier, because now you don't have to make a deal with some guy in post production to give you a dump of the film. You made it easier because the pirates don't have to get their projectionist buddy to slip them the film over night.

        Being that it was impossible for them to lay their hands on "pre-release" copies sent to tame reviewers, to bribe the factory making the DVDs to produce some extra ones, ste

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
        And 20 minutes after the first one is sold, it is in the wild being downloaded by every jerk

        All the jerks already downloaded the screener a month ago.

        O.k., you solved what problem again?

        Exactly. This does not "solve" the availability of movies to pirates. It does however give a legal alternative to some who might prefer a nicely packaged DVD to messing around with BitTorrent and hoping they get a clean rip.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 4D6963 ( 933028 )

      How about releasing the DVD at the same time as the movie, so people didn't have to download it if they wanted to watch it at home.

      In hard times, you must make hard choices and sacrifices. Let's sacrifice the theatre industry to the profit of the DVD industry! AND VIRGINS!!

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday November 23, 2007 @10:30AM (#21453621)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by pipatron ( 966506 )

      Retailers like FLAC should realize that outright gouging of your customers doesn't spur business.

      I don't know about you, but I prefer to get my music in FLAC, even after the recent security flaws.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by niceone ( 992278 ) *
      Hmm, a fairer comparison would have been amazon.fr given that there are a zillion reasons why stuff is cheaper in the US than France. And amazon.fr seem to be charging EUR 22,09 - not that much cheaper.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        there are a zillion reasons why stuff is cheaper in the US than France

        Care to try for just three?
    • Where I am at (Belgium), FNAC is mostly a book store, and a fine one at that. They also have a small technology section that sells a surprisingly high quality stock of wares. They have knowledgeable, courteous sales people in all of their departments and they don't try to shove special deals down your throat; the computers don't even have any nagware. It is expensive, but you get a great return on your investment.

      I really thought that they were a company that "gets" the digital age; people looking for en

  • The proposed enforcement body would use information collected by internet service providers on their highvolume users to detect illegal file-sharing. Persistent offenders would be cautioned but could see their internet accounts suspended or terminated if they ignored as few as two warnings.

    Sounds harsh, but still beats suing school children for 100k $. Question is of course: what if I Bittorrent a Distro's ISO?
    • My guess is that the high volume would only be used as a screen, so they could identify people for further investigation.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Seumas ( 6865 )
      Suing school children for $100k is a rather good idea as far as I'm concerned. Would it be that I controlled things, all children would be forced into a life of servitude. Grubby little parasitic bastards.
    • Quite. As far as punishments go it seems proportionate.

  • Dumb. As in, large steaming pile of ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Noryungi ( 70322 ) on Friday November 23, 2007 @10:31AM (#21453635) Homepage Journal
    Listen: I live in Paris and I have something like 10 wifi networks right in my building.

    It would take me a trivial amount of time to crack the WEP keys of this network.

    If I ever wanted to go the illegal download way, that's what I would do: use my neighbours connection. Do you really think the SACEM (French RIAA) will truly investigate who did what on which network? I don't think so. My neighbours would be left with the legal fees, prosecutions, etc, while I would just move on to the next hapless victim^W^W wifi network.

    I have expanded at length on this subject on my French blog [yahoo.com]. Including some language that I will not reproduce here.

    In a city where even McDonald's offer free wifi for the price of a cheeseburger (not to mention the schweet municipal wifi project rumored to be in the works), this typically represents what De Gaulle said about the French right-wing politicians: the most stupid in the world.

    • Re:Dumb. As in, large steaming pile of ... (Score:5, Funny)

      by mpe ( 36238 ) on Friday November 23, 2007 @11:08AM (#21453913)
      In a city where even McDonald's offer free wifi for the price of a cheeseburger (not to mention the schweet municipal wifi project rumored to be in the works), this typically represents what De Gaulle said about the French right-wing politicians: the most stupid in the world.

      There's some tough competition when it comes to "most stupid politicans in the world". Do French right wingers have some special advantage, like negative IQs?

      • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by darthflo ( 1095225 )

        Do French right wingers have some special advantage, like negative IQs?
        Nope, that privilege is reserved for American Republicans.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mgblst ( 80109 )

          Nope, that privilege is reserved for American Republicans.


          Do you really think that they are stupid. They are all rich, so they are clearly not stupid. They are corrupt, and there is a big difference. They do the things they do because it makes them a lot of money.
          • They are all rich, so they are clearly not stupid.

            So when the French aristocracy provoked the terror, they were clearly not stupid, as they had lots of money right up until the mob dragged them off to meet a short sharp shock? Rich people as a whole probably aren't any stupider than the rest of us, but why believe they are smarter? Did average or poor people drag the U.S. into the great depression?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by mgblst ( 80109 )
              There are two types of rich people. People who inherited it (the French aristocracy), who it is not necessary to be intelligent, and those who have worked hard and smart, and made the money themselves. The latter clearly has to have some reasonable level of intelligence.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by alexhs ( 877055 )
        In 1998, French right-wingers did an ad campaign in which they claimed to be the dumbest right in the world.
        The funny part is that the ad was illustrated with an image from French comic book serie Astérix, without the authorization of the author.
        The author complained about the copyright infringement (especially as the authors always refused to associate their characters with politics), and the ad was quickly removed.

        How much points does that score in the competition ?
        • Citation Required!
          • Here [strategies.fr] is the non-infringing ad they did subsequently.

            The text says : Gaul ladies and gentlemen, you're upset to have the dumbest right in the world ? We too !!! Demonstrate it by joining the RPR (name of the party at the time)

            There are a few links, one of them being an interview with Uderzo, the comic author, but I can find neither the original ad nor any link in english.
    • Ok, here is the scoop...

      1) Music and media will be DRM free....
      2) DVD's will come 6 months after the cinema...

      Sorry, but I fail to see the problems... Actually I wish they had more of that elsewhere because then I could buy music without fear of it not playing on a certain device.

      Oh wait I know what the problem is, you can't rip off anymore because P2P will be watched. And that means you MIGHT ACTUALLY HAVE TO PAY for something...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Noryungi ( 70322 )
        This is a bad idea, precisely for the reasons I gave in my previous post: wherever badly-protected wifi is available, you can illegally download content by hiding behind an innocent user. Said innocent user will be left with all the legal troubles. Expect more grannies to be dragged in front of a judge, RIAA-style.

        To be honest, I don't care if music is DRM-free in France: I rip the CDs that I bought to MP3 very well without government interference, thank you very much. And most movies come out on DVD 6 mont

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
      In a city where even McDonald's offer free wifi for the price of a cheeseburger (not to mention the schweet municipal wifi project rumored to be in the works), this typically represents what De Gaulle said about the French right-wing politicians: the most stupid in the world.

      Perhaps you have some idea of how they plan to discriminate between illegal and other large downloads? Are they going to try to Carnivore and analyse everything? Or just assume big download = pirate and cut you off?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Noryungi ( 70322 )
        Based on what I know, they have already forced French ISPs to keep logs of connections. After a number of downloads from well-known sites (The Pirate's Bay comes to mind) they will cut off Internet access after a couple of warning emails. I suspect things like BitTorrent also raise suspicion.

        In other words: download something from the Pirate's Bay -- it may be a Linux distro [thepiratebay.org] for instance -- leave your machine unattended, don't read your email for a couple of days... And you are cut off.

        However, French court

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by 1u3hr ( 530656 )
          Based on what I know, they have already forced French ISPs to keep logs of connections. After a number of downloads from well-known sites (The Pirate's Bay comes to mind)

          As I understand it (believe it or not, I don't do BT, because here, in Hong Kong, people actually have gone to jail for that) TPB does not host any files, except torrent files, a few kb.

          In any case, obviously what this would mean is that in very short order everyone would be using proxies and encryption. Unless thay make that illegal to

    • in Cheesburger?

      What is free wifi at the price of a cheeseburger?

  • Shuting down neighbors access ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Janos421 ( 1136335 ) on Friday November 23, 2007 @10:34AM (#21453655)
    Considering the number of Wifi access poorly protected (Wep) or totally open, I think that "Illegal Downloaders" neighbours should prepare for hard days.
    • Considering the fact that this is a government agency, and so likely to be lazy and simply shut down internet access without looking at who's using it, I think that WiFi cafes should prepare for hard days (if they have any, I'd assume they do though).

      Seriously, I'd bet money that at least half of these shut downs are going to be against people who did nothing more than have poor network security (if any). I mean, if you know that the government will shut down your internet if you download illegally, and you

    • I think that "Illegal Downloaders" neighbours should prepare for hard days.

      ISPs have to prepare for hard times as well. I don't think they will be too happy with this.

  • entertainment 'industry' is corrupting governments (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Greed is the motivating factor as the overly-affluent criminalize fair and decent behavior. Co-operation, sharing and community is what makes us great, not the accumulation of ill-gotten unnecessary wealth. Peoples from every walk of life and from every country and culture need to fight for freedom.

    Down with evil tyrants!
    • Corrupting the governments? Please! It's exactly the kind of excuse they need (along with terrorism) to implement their War on Privacy.

    • Co-operation, sharing and community is what makes us great, not the accumulation of ill-gotten unnecessary wealth.

      Oh, you mean like downloading copyrighted works illegally, for free, behind the backs of the people who originally made them, against all their wishes? Then I agree. Down with those pirates! Their greed knows no bounds. Why, I have even witnessed them trying to make their selfish ways into a moral high ground! Often by taking emphasis away from any specific repercussions of their actions, and pu

  • rememeber davsi that propsed to make it illegal to develop p2p applications? That proposal did have effect [sourceforge.net] on the frech ability to develop software.

    To implement this law one would need to have monitoring on the internet users. Since the rule is "not paid for", this monitoring needs to be connected to monitoring payments. you see trouble here? I do.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 4D6963 ( 933028 )

      Just great, an example of a fellow Frenchman surrendering without even fighting! Yeah, our American and British friends on Slashdot really need to us to rub that example in their face, so that we make it clear that it's not because something is a stereotype that it's necessary false.

  • Show me somewhere I can pay the movie people £4 (about the price of a bargain basement DVD, but remember I'm not using any of their resources) per "pirate" download, as all I ever do with my copious DVD collection is rip, transcode and chuck on my HTPC system. Just utilise the high quality volunteer distribution system already in place, people! Problem solved, surely?

    Ha, of course not. As we've all been saying for years, this isn't, never has been and never will be about money. It's all about control.
  • If the gov't could only clean up that cesspool know as wanadoo.fr, haven to script kiddies and warez, that would be a good start.
  • Whenever you visit a site you "download" the information. So what about YouTube and Google Video where you are "downloading" music videos and can rip them via speaker output (at not that great of quality) so is that now going to be illegal?

  • It's France (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Friday November 23, 2007 @11:08AM (#21453905)
    It's France. You don't seriously expect that they will actually succeed with this, do you?

  • FUD (Score:5, Insightful)

    by owlnation ( 858981 ) on Friday November 23, 2007 @11:23AM (#21454019)
    This article is FUD.

    While I don't doubt they are looking at all sorts of ways of controlling P2P traffic, this law is insanely unworkable. For a whole list of reasons, ranging from cracked WiFi, to identifying the what's illegally shared and what isn't. For the 100 millionth time, not all P2P traffic is illegal, not all movies and music are protected by copyrights.

    If they do this it will open up and unworkable legal mess, tying up courts time for years sorting out what's legally downloadable and what isn't. Nope, FUD, sorry.
    • While you are correct about it's unworkability, i can assure you this law is about to pass.
      The french political class, given its average age bordering on senility, is certainly one of the least tech-friendly, let alone tech-savy, of the western world.
      Add to this fact that most french politician have many interests in pleasing big media groups (like said FNAC retailers, whose CEO by the way produced the report on p2p on behalf of said government) and you can see we're going faster and faster toward... nowher
    • Maybe it is not FUD, it's the kind of measure here in Europe politicians think it can work. In Spain they passed a law that made compulsory for access providers to have a backup of all the traffic in the past don't-remember-how-many months. I think in the French case a similar improbable log should be needed in case the consumer sues the provider over an inadmissible stop of service.
  • Driving on the internet, its a privilege not a right. Do you have your P2P license?

    Illegal downloaders: how to cross the virtual border without getting caught by using someone elses license.

    How to get the wifi connections in your area shut down by wifijacking them.

    Information is power and its not free, but do you pay for it or make someone else pay for it for you?

  • We infringe on our citizens rights, introduce draconian measures that will make us a laughing stock of the world and you, you release DVD's a month and half earlier (that is AFTER the EU movie release has already been delayed for half a year).

    Wow, so frenchies, all of sudden those Bush voters look pretty shrewd eh?

    Wasn't france the place were DVD's copy protection was ruled illegal? How has this been handled? Has the movie industry actuallty been made to do anything about it?

    It isn't the first time the f

  • I remember it started with Napster. A simple and stupid program. They went for it. Then net evolved... kazaa. Remember? They did break it. Then net evolved more and more. All these people will achieve with this stupid kind of law is the next evolution of P2P. It can evolve more, believe!
  • It will never work, because ISPs won't accept losing 80% of their customers overnight. ;)

    The chairman of the "independent" government commission is the head of a brick-and-mortar music/movie retailer. How convenient that the official report recommends consumers be barred from patronizing online-based competitors, isn't it?

    Thing is, widespread copyright infringement is allowed to continue only because it is more profitable to ISPs than the alternative. If the market is dominated by ISPs that are not owned by
  • - this is not a proposal by FNAC.
    Olivennes, the guy who wrote the proposal, is the FNAC CEO, but he was appointed by Sarkozy to try and find solutions to piracy in France.
    - this is not a law. It is a proposal, and the actual law will not come until 1st quarter next year.
    - the idea is to give warnings before the internet connection is shut off (2 I believe).
    To those saying just pick random wifi hotspots, I can assure them that if people were to receive one of those warnings, they would start thinking about s

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Jesrad ( 716567 )
      "this is not a proposal by FNAC."

      Yes it is. Mr Olivennes redacted the claims that were incorporated in the proposal verbatim.

      The idea is to give warnings before the internet connection is shut off (2 I believe).

      There is also the principle of tagging and publicly shaming "offenders".

      "To those saying just pick random wifi hotspots, I can assure them that if people were to receive one of those warnings, they would start thinking about securing their access point. Internet cafés are in trouble though."

      Yeah
  • Does this affect deezer in any way? Their ads are target to france, and i expect most of the users are from france as well. The "legality" is something I still question too.
  • First of all, I must say that this "Comission" is really upseting me. How can you put at its top someone who works hand in hand with the music and movie industry and as the CEO of FNAC has the only goal and purpose to sell more discs and DVDs?? It's not at all an indepedent commission and here again or new government showed how much it wants to be close to the lobbies, and not the citizen.

    I agree that something has to be done about piracy but thats starts from both ends : users should pay for content, and i

  • 6 months instead of 7.5?!? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Friday November 23, 2007 @01:24PM (#21454891) Homepage Journal
    Are they insane! That's MUCH too generous! It'll kill the entire industry and no one will ever make a movie EVER AGAIN! They've gone crazy!

    And dropping some DRM in exchange for total control on who can access the net or not? That is also a deal much too sweet to offer, come on! We're talking about critical access to online banking, governmental program information, communications with friends and employers, and maybe even the means to vote someday, you can't offer something as precious as releasing some content without crippling digital restriction managements for something as trivial as the ever-increasingly vital access to the internet! Crazy talk I say! CRAZY!
    • Yeah. And maybe u missed the point. It's just for FRENCH movies....

      For your average normal (=american) movie you have first to wait the greedy MPAA has secured a licensing agreement in France, then dubbed the fucking movie, then released it in a theater, then DVD release 7 or more months after.

      You just end up with a crazy system where movies are released in DVD in the US before they are in theaters in France. How many times did I see a movie in a plane before it was actually released in movie theaters here
    • Hey, I've got an idea! How about if the state agrees to shut down the internet, we promise not to add noise to every DVD! _And_ we'll drop our demands for strip searches in theaters.
  • The majority of illegal downloads are a result of commercial enterprises refusing to match demand. They want to have it both ways, they want to make money but they don't want to deliver the product the way the consumer wants it.

    They want you to pay to see a movie and they also want to dictate every circumstance surrounding the viewing. What chair you'll sit in, what you'll eat and drink, you can't go to the restroom without missing part of the movie, the location you'll see the movie, and what time you'll
  • A similar measure was included in a bill last year, and was promptly ruled unconstitutional by the highest court (Cour Constitutionnelle). Specifically, that a punishment, no matter how benign, was to be executed without due process was deemed to be a violation of the declaration of human rights or something.
    So basically, this won't happen. It's still worrisome that they're trying to push that shit.
  • Slashdot, chill out. This is just a proposal to propose a proposal for a bill. The text has been reviewed by the french assembly today and there are a lot of voices against. If it ever becomes a proposal for a bill, at first glance it looks like it's going to be rejected. Actually, the main argument against is that the suggested bans are anticonstitutional since they would provide judicial power to administrative agencies (like MAFIAA allowed to send subponeas without a court order). This kind of violation
  • any deal they make with the media companies will be null and void the moment it is signed, and those companies will cheerfully break that agreement as soon as they perceive it to be costing them money. Which will be the moment it is signed, so don't do it.

    Face it, you can tell when media company executives are lying whether they move their lips or not.
  • You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottom, sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called Arthur King, you and all your silly English k-nnnnniggets. Thpppppt! Thppt! Thppt!
  • For years the ISPs have been battling to offer faster access, now they're going to battle for "cheapest" after investing in all that fancy hardware?

    I don't think so!

    PS: own from 7.5 months to six??? Irresistible offer!

  • Given that Sarko's trying his best Thatcher imitation on France, I wouldn't be surprised. Not only is he union hostile, he's trying to make up for lost time by becoming as "business friendly" by being hostile to anyone but a (non European multinational) business.

    Maybe next time they'll look a bit closer and have Sarko as the "gentleman for turning".

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