France Agrees To Kick File Sharers Off The Internet Again; Lobbyists Call It 'Consumer Relief'

from the up-is-down,-black-is-white,-you-said-what-now? dept

There isn't a huge surprise in the news that France has once again passed a law to force ISPs to kick accused (not convicted) file sharers off the internet under a draconian "three strikes" system. We all knew this was coming. After the original French three strikes law was gutted as being totally unconstitutional, French President Nicolas Sarkozy (who apparently doesn't believe any such law should apply to him, given his history of mass piracy) insisted that such a law was necessary to defend freedom. Yes, really. And, even as France's cultural minister was planning to get multiple internet connections just in case he got cut off -- while also wishing that his own creative content were "pirated" more often, the French gov't went back to work on putting in place such a law. The big "change" this time was to give judges 5 whole minutes to rule on file sharers, so that they could say a judge oversaw the case, rather than it just being a random accusation. I'm not sure how due process works with a 5 minute limit... but what can you do.

What's much more entertaining is seeing how entertainment industry lobbyists are cheering this on. I'm beginning to think that they actually believe that kicking people off the internet will make people buy more of their content. Incredible. First up, the MPAA's Dan Glickman (who's being pushed out of his job for being woefully ineffective):

"Today's decision is an enormous victory for creators everywhere. It is our hope that ISPs will fully honor their promise to cooperate and that the French government will take the necessary measures to dedicate resources to handle the enormous task ahead."

A victory for creators? Really? By kicking fans off the internet for promoting their works? Yikes. Someone's out of touch. Then we have Rick Cotton, of NBC Universal, the man who insisted that movie piracy was really harming the poor American corn farmer since people ate less popcorn with pirated movies:

"The French action recognizes that jobs and economic growth in creative industries are under assault by digital theft. We need a safe and secure Internet that enables consumers to access content easily but does not facilitate illegal file sharing that kills jobs in creative sectors."

Yes, and the corn farmers, too, right? So, if it's really all about jobs, what about the people kicked offline who rely on the internet for their job? Apparently those jobs don't matter? In the meantime, it's already pretty clear from multiple studies that it's not file sharing that's "killing jobs in creative sectors" but the inability of executives like Cotton to understand basic economics and business models.

But, honestly, the most guffaw-inducing response to this comes from Tom Sydnor at the Progress & Freedom Foundation. Sydnor, who as you may know, has a long history of making claims that don't pass the laugh test, has really outdone himself this time (it's even better than when he accused a college that couldn't identify accused file sharers of harboring "terrorists, pedophiles, phishing-scheme operators, hackers [and] identity thieves" by giving them a "get out of jail free" card). So what's his take on kicking people off the internet based on accusations? Well, it's really about consumer relief. No, seriously:

"As a consumer, I would far prefer the successive warnings that French law would now provide to the sudden financial devastation of the John-Doe lawsuit that American law would now require. I thus urge American internet-service providers and copyright owners to work together to provide American consumers with similar relief."

Ah, yes, because the only options are to sue everyone or to kick people off the internet? Apparently Tom has such incredibly little faith in the innovation ability of content providers that he assumes that they cannot craft unique and innovative business models that don't involve suing everyone or kicking people off the internet. How insulting of him towards content creators. Every time Sydnor makes a statement like this and PFF promotes it, it just weakens the work that PFF does in other areas. It's tough to take an organization seriously that has someone claiming that kicking people off the internet based on accusations of private companies is "consumer relief."

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Nicolas Sarkozy Caught Mass 'Pirating' DVDs; Time To Kick Him Off The Internet

from the see-ya-later-nicky dept

Why is it always the adamant defenders of silly policies like kicking people off the internet for copyright infringement who are later found to be mass infringers themselves? French President Nicolas Sarkozy, of course, was the first major politician to support the concept of kicking people off the internet for copyright infringement (more commonly called a "three strikes" rule). He took credit for coming up with the idea originally nearly two years ago, and pushed very hard for the law -- which eventually passed but was then tossed out as unconstitutional in France. Sarkozy still stood by it and helped bring back a revised version.

Of course, in the middle of all this, there was a bit of irony in that Sarkozy was caught using music without authorization in some online videos, for which he paid a €30,000 fine. Of course, it now appears that may have just been the tip of the iceberg. Boing Boing points us to the news that Sarkozy's administration has been caught mass "pirating" DVDs of a documentary about Sarkozy. The publisher of the documentary only made 50 copies. Sarkozy's "audiovisual services" group happened to make itself another 400 without permission -- even replacing the name of the original publisher on the cover.

Once again, this should be a "teachable moment," to point out to Sarkozy and other supporters of such plans to kick people off the internet that the issue isn't quite so simple after all. When you're on the other side, sometimes it seems perfectly natural to make a copy of something, without even realizing it's potentially infringing. Unfortunately, why do I get the feeling that Sarkozy won't change his stance one bit -- or even recognize the irony of the situation?

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French Politician Proposes Warning Labels On Any Photoshopped Ad Or Marketing Label

from the no-digital-slimming-down dept

Mr. LemurBoy points out that some French politicians are pushing a law that would require a label on any marketing or advertising image that was photoshopped, airbrushed or edited in some manner. The idea, of course, is that they don't want ad campaigns to portray things in a manner that is not quite truthful. But shouldn't there just be a simpler rule against deceptive advertising (one I imagine must already exist)? If it's just a little edit to make the photo more reasonable, why should it require some special disclosure?

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And You Thought Your Job Was Stressful: France Telecom Employees Keep Committing Suicide

from the yikes dept

People commit suicide. It happens. But, when a company has had 24 employees commit suicide in 18 months, with many blaming stress from the company as a reason, it makes you pay attention. Apparently, that's the situation at France Telecom, where the 24th suicide in the last 18 months took place earlier this week. The company says that it's going to look into how it handles human resources, which seems like a decent idea at this point. In the meantime, if you're prone to not dealing well with stress, perhaps cross France Telecom off your list of desired employers.

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French Court Finds Violation Of GPL... Despite No Involvement Of Copyright Holder

from the interesting... dept

Guerby alerts us to the news that a French Appeals Court found that education tech company Edu4 violated the GPL by distributing a version of VNC without offering up the source code (and removing the GPL copyright notice). As the announcement notes, one interesting factor here was that it was filed by Edu4's customer, an education group, not the copyright holder. While it's nice to see a legal win for open source software, this does raise some questions. My guess is that the rationale is that this isn't a copyright case, but a licensing case. Thus the education group, AFPA, can actually be a party to the lawsuit. Still, it does raise questions over who has the right to make sure the GPL is enforced.

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Beyond Kicking People Offline, France Raises Fines For Copyright Infringement To $440,000

from the proportionate? dept

With France continuing to push for a version of three strikes legislation, the latest bill approved also happens to increase potential fines for infringement up to 300,000 euros, or approximately $440,000. Nice to see governments making sure that the punishment fits the crime, huh?

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French Porn Execs: Ignore Piracy, Focus On Quality; Japanese Porn Execs: Sue Everyone

from the a-bit-of-a-split dept

It seems that the porn world has had a "love/hate" affair with file sharing. Over the years, we've seen stories of porn film makers embracing piracy to their advantage, and others complaining about it. It's really not all that different than the rest of the entertainment industry. So, it should come as no surprise that different porn execs are responding quite differently in two recent stories. First, comes the news that Japanese porn film producers are looking to sue 65,000 people in South Korea for uploading. That's about double the number of people that the RIAA sued in the US for uploading. Wow.

Meanwhile, reader PrometheeFeu alerts us to quite a different story in France, where industry execs are taking a much more reasonable view on things (article in French, translation provided by PrometheeFeu). The execs admit that it doesn't make sense to try to keep things from users:

"Today all of our new productions simultaneously come out in DVD, download and streaming on our website and on our partner's VOD platforms. Back then, we looked at the music market as an example of what not to do and how to react"

And they know piracy happens, but they figure that it's just a part of the market, and you can't blame people (or sue people) for file sharing:

"If you leave unattended a bag of candy and some children, they will not understand why you punish them for eating the candy. Illegal files are 3 clicks away for just about anyone. It's normal that consumers will take advantage of those."

But, they're figuring out ways to compete, by focusing on high quality, high-end material:

"Of course, the large majority of free and illegal content is low-end. [...] The public rejects this mass of identical video. Whatever small amount of high end content obviously stands out."

The producers in Japan might want to visit France for a lesson on how this works.

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France Surrenders To Google?

from the headlines-that-write-themselves dept

You may recall that, nearly five years ago, folks in France sounded the alarm: Google's book scanning plan was a threat to French culture that needed to be dealt with. So, the government threw a lot of money at an ill-defined plan... and plenty of folks were quick to take the money, but not do much of consequence with it. Eventually, late last year, one small part of the project was revealed, and it looked decent. But, apparently that wasn't enough. France's national library (Bibliotheque Nationale de France (BNF)) has thrown in the towel and apparently signed up with Google to allow it to scan its collection. Of course, they could have done that five years ago and saved billions of taxpayer dollars... but what fun would that be?

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Google Maps Charged With Unfair Competition In France For Daring To Be Free

from the how-dare-you! dept

Once again, we get to see the entitlement culture at work -- this time over in France. JohnForDummies points us to the news that a French company, Bottin Cartographes, is suing Google over its Google Maps offering, because Google lets companies use its web mapping services for free (how dare they!). Bottin Cartographes, on the other hand, offers a similar service that it charges for. Apparently, it seems to think that "competition" itself is "unfair competition." Why should Google have to charge just because this other company has a bad business model? We're back to companies declaring felony interference with a business model.

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Two Separate Rulings In France Split Over Whether Google's Suggestion Algorithm Can Be Libelous

from the confusion-abounds dept

Reader Yann alerts us to an interesting set of lawsuits and decisions in France, both concerning the Google Suggest feature. One case involved a company named Direct Energie and the other with a company named CNFDI (both links to the Google translation of the news).

In both cases, the companies were upset that when people started searching on their company names, the first suggestion was their company name followed by the word "arnaque," which means "scam." Of course, as you probably know, Google Suggest works by finding the most common searches on what you've typed and letting you know. So, all this really meant was that an awful lot of people were doing searches questioning whether or not these two companies were scams. But, is Google liable for its algorithm accurately suggesting the most common searches associated with those company names? It appears the courts split on that decision (it's worth noting that there was one major difference between the lawsuits: Direct Energie sued under civil code, while CNFDI sued for libel -- which apparently makes it a criminal case in France.

With Direct Energie, the judge seemed to not really understand Google Suggest or how it worked, declaring that no algorithm could justify the prejudice caused by Google. He then got confused, saying that it was clearly Google's fault because the search on "direct energie arnaque" was not the first alphabetically in the list, nor did it have the highest number of results. Despite it being explained by Google, the judge seems to have totally ignored the reason why it was at the top of the list (the number of people searching for it). Because of this, he said it's no limit on free speech to force Google to change the results, and ordered Google to do so (though, did not allow for any damages to be awarded). This seems to get the basic facts backwards, and it seems quite ridiculous to find Google guilty of such a charge when all its actually doing is accurately counting up what people are legitimately searching for.

The CNFDI ruling, seems much more reasonable. There was one oddity (though it's probably got more to do with French law than with the judge), and that is that the judge ruled that Google could be liable for libel because the company had been informed by CNFDI of the issue, thereby removing any safe harbors. In the US, Section 230 safe harbors on libel thankfully do not get waived if you've been informed. Instead, they take the much more logical position that a third party service provider should never be blamed for actions of its users. Thus, it would be flat-out ridiculous to blame Google for the phrases people are searching for. But, even having lost its local "safe harbor" protections, the judge properly recognized that the suggestion came from the algorithm looking at what people were searching for, and noted that the suggestion was based on "a valid observation." On top of that, he pointed out that search engines are "important tools for the free circulation of ideas and information," and the fact that many people were questioning whether CNFDI was a scam was, in fact, important and potentially useful information, and thus not libelous by itself. Finally, the court also noted that forcing Google to remove such a suggestion would be too big a burden on free speech and citizens' rights.

It should be no surprise that I think the second ruling is much more sensible, while the first ruling makes little sense, and appears to have been decided without a full understanding of what Google's Suggest feature is or how it works. Still, I imagine we'll be seeing similar cases around the world... and hopefully they'll find themselves in front of judges more like the one that dealt with the CNFDI case...

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Will France's Three Strikes Law Also Allow Gov't Email Surveillance?

from the that-doesn't-seem-good dept

With the effort underway to have Sarkozy's new "three strikes" law approved in France, much of the focus has been on the slightly ridiculous five minute rule it gives to judges reviewing charges of copyright infringement online. An anonymous reader points us to a much more worrisome issue: that the law appears to sneak in provisions that allow for email surveillance by the government. The Senator pushing the law seems to see no problem at all with this, suggesting that it's fine to read through the emails of anyone "stealing intellectual property." Privacy rights apparently mean little to some in France.

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New French Culture Minister: Wish I Was Pirated More, Using Two ISPs To Avoid Getting Cut Off

from the um,-wow dept

Didn't expect this one. With France pushing forward yet again with a three strikes law, Laurent GUERBY points us to the news that France's new culture minister, Fredic Mitterand has said that he wished he was downloaded more often (translated by Google from French -- Updated to fix poor original translation -- thanks Laurent!) and that he got two internet connections, just in case he got cut off by a three strikes law. He also admits that his son downloads unauthorized content often. That's probably not what the entertainment industry wanted to hear.

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New French Three Strikes Law: Judges Will Get Five Minutes To Rule

from the speed-convicting dept

You've heard of speed dating, right? The system whereby single people meet other singles of the appropriate sex for a grand total of five minutes before moving on to someone else? It appears that Nicolas' Sarkozy's path to getting a "three strikes and you're off the internet" law passed in France involves something similar. As you may recall, Sarkozy's original law to force ISPs to kick file sharers off the internet for three accusations (not convictions) of copyright infringement was gutted as unconstitutional. The big concern was that a judge needed to be included in the process. But, Sarkozy -- who is married to a pop singer (bias?) -- has insisted this is a matter that needs to be addressed.

Michael Scott alerts us to the news that a new proposal has been put forth in France, and to deal with the whole "judge must decide" issue, it creates a special "fast track" for such cases, whereby a judge would be given a grand total of five minutes to decide such cases. Yes, you see, free society (which Sarkozy insists he's defending) apparently doesn't involve giving a judge ample time to consider whether or not it makes sense to completely cut someone off from the internet because they may have wanted to listen to a certain song without properly clearing the rights. Oh, did we mention that Sarkozy himself was recently caught violating copyrights? Would he have let a judge decide that case in just five minutes?

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Sarkozy Talks About 3 Strikes As Defending Freedom, But Only Freedom For The Industry

from the individuals-need-not-apply dept

It appears that French President Nicolas Sarkozy still cannot understand why so many people are opposed to a "three strikes" rule for cutting people off the internet. Despite it just being ruled unconstitutional in France, Sarkozy is still standing by the law fully, promising to "go all the way" in getting it implemented. His reasoning, however, is quite bizarre, and shows a very narrow view of creativity these days:

"By defending copyright I do not just defend artistic creation, I also defend my idea of a free society where everyone's freedom is based on respect for the rights of others. I am also defending the future of our culture. It is the future of creation."

That shows a massive misunderstanding of creativity, expression and freedom these days. He's basically saying that freedom of expression shall only apply to "professional" creators, who get rights. Everyone else's rights get trampled. I don't quite see how that's a "free society" at all. It sounds like a corporately owned society, where the rights of certain "professionals" outweigh the rights of individuals.

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Confused French Indie Labels Sue Google

from the let's-work-on-the-logic-bit dept

It appears that the collection society for indie record labels in France, SPPF, is a bit confused about how the internet works. It's sued Google over videos on YouTube, claiming that while Google had removed a bunch of videos that were using songs covered by SPPF, many of those songs had returned! Of course, that's probably because other people uploaded them. But rather than put the blame where it's due (on the uploaders), SPPF has just decided to sue Google. Even worse, SPPF never bothered to sign up for Google's totally free program that lets artists upload content they want protected so that Google can match the content and either stop it from being uploaded or allow the copyright holder to profit by putting ads on it. So, basically, SPPF is complaining that Google won't do what Google absolutely would do if SPPF only used the tools Google has provided. And, claiming that SPPF shouldn't have to be proactive on this makes no sense either -- because how is Google to know whether the use of the content is authorized or not? This lawsuit seems like folks at SPPF were just too lazy to actually understand how Google/YouTube work and so they sued.

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French Court Orders P2P News Site To Report On File Sharing Convictions

from the freedom-of-the-press? dept

Here's an odd one. Apparently a French news site that focuses on file sharing/BitTorrent/P2P news has been ordered by a court to report on the convictions of file sharers in France. It's not entirely clear under what laws, but perhaps it's a "fairness doctrine" type of thing. Apparently, the big entertainment companies took the site to court over its failure to report on the convictions. The site is more well known for pushing back against things like three strikes laws or the typical propaganda from the industry -- so the industry pushed it to also publish news of the convictions. What's weird is that these "conviction reports" include lots of personal information on those who were convicted, including names, addresses, and birth dates. I'm somewhat surprised the site didn't try to put these convictions into a bit more "context" to show how silly or unreasonable they might be -- but perhaps the court order forbids that.

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French Constitutional Council Guts 'Three Strikes' As Unconstitutional

from the sorry-Sarkozy dept

Well, that didn't last long at all... After some back and forth (and tremendous pressure from French President -- and known copyright infringer -- Nicolas Sarkozy), France passed a three strikes law that would kick people off the internet for three accusations of unauthorized file sharing. However, it looks like the law may be going nowhere fast. France's Constitutional Council has gutted the law, after finding significant constitutional problems with it. The Council specifically barred the heart of the law: the cutting people off the internet part, noting:

communication and liberty of expression are fundamental rights that only a judge can rule on.

Indeed. The council said that it could be okay to cut off internet users... but only with a judge's permission. It's expected that the law may be adjusted to push these issues in front of a judge -- but that's a much better (though still not perfect) situation, since a judge should at least require evidence rather than simple accusations. Either way, it's yet another defeat for an industry that continues to insist that somehow kicking people offline is going to "save" the industry.

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No Surprise Here: Three Strikes Law Creates Opportunity For Encrypted VPN Services In France

from the as-expected dept

Just as we saw how stricter laws on unauthorized file sharing increased the demand for encryption services in Sweden, Dan alerts us to the news that new encryption services are popping up in France in response to that country's recent approval of a law to kick file sharers off the internet. And so the cat and mouse game continues. Perhaps at some point, rather than fighting new technologies and consumer wishes, some of these politicians and copyright holders will decide to embrace the technology and use it to their advantage. Otherwise, they're just going to find that they'll keep passing ever more useless laws, driving people to newer and newer technologies to get around those laws.

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France Continues Its Campaign To Pass The Worst Internet-Related Laws Around

from the who-can-keep-up? dept

Perhaps it's a race of some sort to see which country can pass the worst laws related to the internet possible, and France feels that it's falling behind other countries? After approving a "three strikes" law that will kick those accused (not convicted) of file sharing off the internet, someone in our comments reminded us that France is also looking to implement a file sharing tax on ISPs (Google translation) -- even though there's already such a levy on storage media. So... your connection gets taxed in case you're sharing music, your storage gets taxed again for that same shared music... and you can get kicked offline for it anyway.

And then a bunch of folks have pointed out that French politicians are looking to implement new laws that give police the ability to use keylogging software, force ISPs to censor certain sites on a "banned" list, and create a massive database of information on citizens. All of these things have appeared in other forms around the globe. All with great controversy. So it's quite impressive that France is trying to take them on all at once. Who knows if this latest bill will pass, but it really cements the idea that Sarkozy seriously dislikes the internet, and would like to put as many controls on it as possible.

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Good Surprise: French Court Actually Sides With eBay On Counterfeiting Liability

from the getting-it-right dept

While US courts have generally been good about recognizing that eBay is not liable for eBay users selling counterfeit goods on the site, France in the past had gotten the story backwards, saying that eBay was liable, even though the actions were by its users, not by eBay itself. However, in a rather surprising move, a French court has actually sided with eBay against L'Oreal in a similar case. This is a surprise -- but a good one. This is L'Oreal's second loss in such cases against eBay. It lost another such case in nearby Belgium -- but (of course) has also filed similar lawsuits around the globe, hoping that at least one of those courts will side with it over eBay. Hopefully, all of them take notice of how both Belgium and France have ruled, and recognize that this is not eBay's liability.

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