Inquiry set for French file-sharing plan

By Reuters

Related Stories: Warner to start German file-sharing service
January 30, 2006; France may sanction unfettered P2P downloads
December 22, 2005; Judge: File sharing legal in Canada
March 31, 2004; Should ISP subscribers pay for P2P?
December 4, 2003

Government commissions slated to question culture minister on controversial law that would legalize file-sharing in France.

The story "Inquiry set for French file-sharing plan" published February 3, 2006 at 11:28 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

Content from Reuters expires after 30 days.

Add a Comment (Log in or register) 6 comments

P2P bandwidth
by dingleberry420 February 3, 2006 12:03 PM PST: Wasn't the idea for p2p that you paid by sharing some of your bandwidth? If I paid a service I would expect THEM to supply the bandwidth for everyone's downloads. For instance, iTunes. Apple pays for all of the bandwidth costs and you download directly from them. The new Napter I assume works the same way, downloading directly from their servers (I could be wrong on that I have never used it).

I guess they are trying to do something that doesn't totally screw the consumer, so that could be interpreted as a good thing.; Reply to this comment

Government responsibility.

by firebate February 3, 2006 2:17 PM PST

Actually this is nothing new. Here in Canada File Sharing is legitimate too. Our copywrite board made a decision a few years back to levy a fee on all recordable media. On the grounds that the media would be used to store downloaded music and such. The money collected was to be returned to the authors. Many of us fought against this new levy (myself included) because it made no distinction between a disk used to back up your hard drive and one that you filled with mp3 from the internet. This levy effectively made downloading music/movies in Canada legal. On the flip side a judge determined that placing files in a folder that is shared does not constitute distribution and therefore having files available for upload is also legal. The new french bill sounds like it just simplifies what we currently have in Canada.

As for the music and entertainment industries placing pressure on the government to squash this bill... Its time the governments remembered who their mandate comes from... the people, not industries. No matter how much money and influence industries flash around, in the end, the public votes in governments, not industry. And remember also that copywrite and patents are actually government granted monopolies and not actual rights. This bill might just be what is needed to wake everyone up to these facts.

Reply to this comment

Copywrite
by Jim Harmon February 7, 2006 2:24 AM PST: The word is actually copyright - as in the right to make copies. You're correct, the government does issue this - but it does qualify as a "right."; View reply
Processing

More Like This!

by David_Webb February 3, 2006 3:18 PM PST

We need more laws like this.I stand in favor of national and international laws of this nature. How can I start a petition in favor of this right now?

Reply to this comment

I'd wait for a while
by Jim Harmon February 7, 2006 2:29 AM PST: If France does completely undo copyright laws, I would expect the reaction to be along the lines of limited distribution of copyrighted materials to France. Less music, fewer films, etc. The idea being that people would rather have file sharing outlawed than having to wait 6 months to a year for "new releases" and pressure the government to make the change back to "the old way."

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