France to Authorise Online Music Sharing, page 1

posted on Mar, 7 2006 @ 01:19 AM

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In defiance of record companies and film producers, French MPs will meet again next week to vote on the matter of digital piracy and P2P file sharing. The French MPs have previously voted once to make file sharing legal.

French MPs vote on digital piracy

French MPs who have already voted once to legalise the online sharing of music and films are to consider the matter again next week.

In December they backed a move to allow internet users to download as much material as they want in exchange for a small fee.

If it becomes law France would be the first country to authorise the swapping of copyrighted music.

The surprise vote caused outrage among record companies and film producers, who say illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) copying costs their industries millions of euros every year.

It was an embarrassing defeat for the government, which had planned to introduce large fines and possible jail terms of up to three years for internet pirates.

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I'm not sure why they are for P2P. Perhaps they just want to be different. If it goes through, I foresee France becoming the European hub for digital piracy.

I suppose the local pirates peddling their wares in front of 7-Eleven here in Malaysia will soon carry plenty of French titles, or at the very least the films will now carry French subtitles in addition to Russian and Cantonese subs.

Perhaps BitTorrent trackers like IsoHunt and TorrentReactor will move their servers to France and start insulting MPAA and RIAA lawyers the way Sweden's PirateBay responds to legal threats.

Interesting times ahead.

Chris McGee

posted on Mar, 7 2006 @ 01:56 AM

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I love this idea. The artists still get paid, just not the extortionate sums they get at the moment. The record companies are just annoyed because they won't be able to rip people off anymore (in France anyway).

Great idea, bring it to the UK asap.

kojac

posted on Mar, 7 2006 @ 04:06 AM

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The artists still get paid, just not the extortionate sums they get at the moment

Ok, as a musician who gets nothing close to "extortionate sums" of money for music we put out i'd like to argue that point. Apart from the top 5% (like any industry) who do earn the big bucks, most musicians i know struggle to live week to week on the miniscule takings the average non top 100 musician takes home.

After paying for promotion, licensing and all the other costs that record labels seem to take, the left over margins are often tiny. Therefore, IMO anything that is going to make life harder for your average musician i don't agree with.

However, from a consumers point of view i can see the appeal. As long as a happy medium is found to not rob the artist of their livlihood, they have my conditional support.

maninblack

posted on Mar, 8 2006 @ 12:39 PM

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it meats supply and demand, its capitalism, sucks for the RIAA, and you as well, but hey, you could have gotten a job at a coffee shop, but didnt, so aint life a bitch.