French 'net piracy' bill passed

  Quote

A controversial French bill which could disconnect people caught downloading content illegally three times has been passed by the National Assembly.

 

The legislation, backed by President Nicolas Sarkozy, was surprisingly voted down by the Assembly last month.

 

The bill sets a tough global precedent in cracking down on internet piracy, and is being closely watched by other governments as a potential deterrent.

 

The global music industry has been calling for tougher anti-piracy laws.

 

The Creation and Internet bill was passed by a vote of 296 to 233 by the lower house and will go before the Senate for final approval on Wednesday.

 

Three strikes

 

The new legislation operates under a "three strikes" system. A new state agency would first send illegal file-sharers a warning e-mail, then a letter, and finally cut off their connection for a year if they were caught a third time.

 

It has been backed by both the film and record industries.

 

But some consumer groups have warned that the wrong people might be punished, should hackers hijack their computers' identity, and that the scheme amounted to state surveillance.

 

The socialist parliamentarian Patrick Bloche said the bill was "dangerous, useless, inefficient, and very risky for us citizens".

 

John Kennedy, chairman of the IFPI, which represents the global music industry, has described the bill as "an effective and proportionate way of tackling online copyright infringement and migrating users to the wide variety of legal music services in France".

- BBC

FUCKCKCKCKCCK, I thought this had been rejected a while ago. No good.

Will be interesting to see how this develops. Its only a matter of time till the US and UK start doing the same

  Quote

But some consumer groups have warned that the wrong people might be punished, should hackers hijack their computers' identity, and that the scheme amounted to state surveillance.

So if you create a wireless internet signal in your own home and someone else hacks into it, you can get in trouble for it?  This is retarded.

Goddamn liberals trying to control the internet! No offense to democrats but their anal attitude towards this and video game ratings (movie ratings... fuck censorship in general)... just ugh...

It's only a matter of time. The future is going to be a boring fucking place.

Hopefully if this ever comes stateside it will be ISP's at the reigns and not some newly created Department of Internetz Security.

I think I'm going to become a libertarian. This sort of stuff drives me crazy. It's happening in Shanghai now too, as they try to "clean everything up" for the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Cleaning things up basically means deadening and homogenizing local color - kicking out the red light shops, busting the vendors selling pirated dvds and food under the subway rails - basically everything I enjoy that makes this an interesting place. I think our drive to make everything safe and predictable is more of a danger to us than our violent tendencies.

  lumpenprol said:

I think I'm going to become a libertarian. This sort of stuff drives me crazy. It's happening in Shanghai now too, as they try to "clean everything up" for the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Cleaning things up basically means deadening and homogenizing local color - kicking out the red light shops, busting the vendors selling pirated dvds and food under the subway rails - basically everything I enjoy that makes this an interesting place. I think our drive to make everything safe and predictable is more of a danger to us than our violent tendencies.

join the team

They'll never catch me I'm the gingerbread man.

bet you a tenner it gets voted down in the Senate. Nobody really cares if the music industry is losing money. Does it look like they are?

  lumpenprol said:

I think our drive to make everything safe and predictable is more of a danger to us than our violent tendencies.

Like compressing diesel fuel.

I guess a lot of it comes down to personal taste. Some people's idea of heaven is living in a well tended apartment complex with gym and pool, a short commute to work in their hybrid car (stoplights on every corner are a small price to pay for safety), with maybe a stop at a chain coffeeshop where they can catch up on emails and news on their Blackberry before heading to their office in a high-tech business park with manicured grounds...in the evening stopping by a chain grocer for some organic food to take home to the family, and the pharmacy to pick up some ritalin for little Billy who needs to focus better for the big test coming up.

This is more or less my vision of hell.

Another attempt at France keeping tourists and refugees from coming to their country...

nope the internet will become conscious and unregulate itself

Just want to add that the most part of the representatives who passed the bill were unable to explain in front of cameras what P2P means. The minister who create the bill(a woman, ahem) even said she has a firewall installed right into openoffice.

Basically this is a bill voted by old people, about a medium mainly used by youg people. I really start to feel pissed of with representative democracy. It was quite brigth in the old times, but now that each person is able to express himself almost instantaneously (i.e. the internet), i do not want representatives anymore, but want to vote directly bills and other political stuffs. Who's with me on this point ?

I thought encryption would be the solution for not being spyed by the gov, but my dad who works in FranceTelecom/Orange told me the company is currently working on a way of overriding such encrypted packets. Then he said it was top secret, so i don't know more about the matter.

I've break into 3 wireless network in my neighbourhood, so technically i cant get caugth 3x3+2=11 times and still be able to download. hihihihih.

  lumpenprol said:

I guess a lot of it comes down to personal taste. Some people's idea of heaven is living in a well tended apartment complex with gym and pool, a short commute to work in their hybrid car (stoplights on every corner are a small price to pay for safety), with maybe a stop at a chain coffeeshop where they can catch up on emails and news on their Blackberry before heading to their office in a high-tech business park with manicured grounds...in the evening stopping by a chain grocer for some organic food to take home to the family, and the pharmacy to pick up some ritalin for little Billy who needs to focus better for the big test coming up.

jesus - this is so what is going to happen. what the fuck are we going to do? we need to buy an island WATMM. STAT.

Or don't download piracy.

what?

  BCM said:

what?

Don't pirate downloading.

pirate load downing don't

  BCM said:

jesus - this is so what is going to happen. what the fuck are we going to do? we need to buy an island WATMM. STAT.

I don't know. I once had a girlfriend (brilliant woman; MIT engineering grad in fluid dynamics) who sent me a link to a video that depicted exactly this sort of glossy, high-tech future and said "isn't it great?" - we broke up shortly thereafter. I couldn't understand how someone with her gifts would be drawn to such a boring vision of the future. I guess I concluded it was a sort of security blanket, the idea of the external world being as clean and structured as mathematics.

For whatever reason, I find myself gravitating towards the hidden sides of life, towards people with interesting life stories, people who've seen or done things outside of most people's experience. I'd prefer life be somewhat messy and unpredictable, not tied up with a bow. I think it's things like black markets, unregulated gambling, prostitution - all the little chinks in the social structure that can be exploited (or simply enjoyed) by enterprising people - which are going to dry up in the name of safety and progress.

I'm sure it will never happen completely - people being what they are - but then again, human nature is changing to keep pace with modern life. We're finding ways to alter ourselves to bring ourselves in line with the world we've created. The world is getting to be a pretty small place these days.