Illegal Downloaders to be Blocked By French Government? 149
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.'"
No web access? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:No web access? (Score:5, Informative)
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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.
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DVD release (Score:2)
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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,
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Re:DVD release (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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
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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)
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.
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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
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What problem are you trying to solve? (Score:1)
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
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Delivering what the customers actually want.
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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
Umm doubt it... (Score:2)
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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)
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I don't know about you, but I prefer to get my music in FLAC, even after the recent security flaws.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Lossless_Audio_Codec [wikipedia.org] is indeed a different thing
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Care to try for just three?
Et tu, FNAC? (Score:2)
I really thought that they were a company that "gets" the digital age; people looking for en
warnings (Score:2)
Sounds harsh, but still beats suing school children for 100k $. Question is of course: what if I Bittorrent a Distro's ISO?
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Dumb. As in, large steaming pile of ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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?
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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.
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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?
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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 ?
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Citation here ! (Score:2)
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.
How is this a bad idea??? (Score:2, Interesting)
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...
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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
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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?
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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
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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
Free as in Beer, or Free as in Speech, or Free as (Score:2)
What is free wifi at the price of a cheeseburger?
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It is not THAT bad. Look at the Bush administration and the neo-cons. It's just worse. However, that's true that the political class in France is late of about 20 years on about every single thing.
In any case you could consider moving to Canada [cic.gc.ca]. Been there, done that, it's cold but a lot of fun! And there are new american friends joining the fun every day!
Shuting down neighbors access ? (Score:3, Insightful)
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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
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Ah but the problem in this case is that your first warning is a total shut-down, that's a little extreme wouldn't you say?
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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)
Down with evil tyrants!
Re:entertainment 'industry' is corrupting governme (Score:1)
Re:entertainment 'industry' is corrupting governme (Score:2)
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
Not the first law there. (Score:2)
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.
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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.
Without paying? (Score:2)
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.
clean up wanadoo.fr (Score:2)
YouTube? (Score:2)
It's France (Score:3, Insightful)
maginot line? (Score:1)
FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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
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Oh, YES! This commission was clearly an action by retailers like FNAC, and a few ISPs to get the law changed in their favor. Business as usual in France (and many other countries, but it's more blatantly obvious to the public in France).
The main ISPs in France are pushing hard on this, because it will be cheaper than upgrading their networks to cope with P2P and other new protocols that change traffic
Something sounds fundamentally wrong with this. (Score:2)
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?
Wow that is some haggling (Score:2)
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
evolution baby! (Score:1)
It will never work (Score:2)
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
Some clarifications (Score:1)
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
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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
deezer (Score:2)
Point of view from France (Score:1)
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)
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!
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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
Customer service in exchange for laws... (Score:2)
Unmatched Demand (Score:2)
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
It's already been ruled unconstitutional. (Score:2)
So basically, this won't happen. It's still worrisome that they're trying to push that shit.
Oups, not "cour const." (Score:2)
Not there yet (Score:2)
The French government had better realize that ... (Score:2)
Face it, you can tell when media company executives are lying whether they move their lips or not.
Then we shall take your files by force! (Score:2)
The ISPs will revolt... (Score:2)
I don't think so!
PS: own from 7.5 months to six??? Irresistible offer!
Well, this is only par for the French Butcher (Score:2)
Maybe next time they'll look a bit closer and have Sarko as the "gentleman for turning".
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Both France and the USA did that, much to the amusement of the rest of the world, who of course could use crypto anyway (the sheer arrogance of the USA in particular in assuming that if they prevented export of crypto from the USA no-one else would develop it is astonishing). So the net effect was to hurt the USA and France.
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And it's not like it ever was enforced in France to start with... At that time I could have been emprisonned a lot for PGP, SSH or even HTTPS. Like I was gonna send my CC number in the clear, yeah right...
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Personally I don't think it goes back far enough (see Julius Caesar).
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/france.html [albinoblacksheep.com]
Also - I am not sure what you mean by North Africa - the only US involvements I am aware of there were successful. Korea was certainly not a US defeat either. About the only two wars the US was involved in that were not successful were the war of 1812 (which you missed) and Vietnam.