While many countries have made it illegal to distribute copyrighted material over the Internet, the French Parliament has actually voted to allow the free sharing of music and movies online, which was approved by 30 to 28. If their amendment succeeds in surviving, France would become the first country to legalise peer-to-peer file sharing.
On the other hand, if this law takes effect, this would be bad news for the entertainment companies that sue users across the globe since they would effectively be prevented from doing this with users in France. They already estimate that the piracy of TV shows and movies will cost them $5 billion in lost revenue this year alone. Unfortunately, while there are royalty taxes present on blank media, there is nothing covering these for file sharing services.
However,
as this amendment must go through the upper house, either the government can
still overturn it or the senate can vote it down. At present, the
parliament is also still debating on a bill that would put the 2001 EUCD directive into French
law, which along with the government's articles would make P2P the equivalent of counterfeiting, where violators could be fined up to €300,000 and face up to 3 years jail. The new amendment to this bill would replace the government's articles.
Thanks to gabek for letting us know about the following news:
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If the amendment survives, France would be the first country to legalize so called peer-to-peer downloading, said Jean-Baptiste Soufron, legal counsel to the Association of Audionautes, a French group that defends people accused of improperly sharing music files. The law would be a blow to media companies that increasingly use the courts worldwide to sue people for downloading or sharing music and movie files. Entertainment companies such as Walt Disney Co., Viacom Inc. and News Corp.'s Fox say free downloading of unauthorized copies of TV shows and movies before they are released on DVD will cost them $5 billion in revenue this year. ``The deputies used this vote to show their independence from the government, but they don't know what they are doing,'' Nicolas Seydoux, chief executive of French cinema company Gaumont SA, said in an interview on France Inter radio. ``We are not trying to ban anything, just to make sure the work of others isn't stolen.'' Some further details can be found here (in French). |
While the entertainment industries would be totally against this proposed amendment, in fact if coupled with a levy on Internet Service Providers in the same way as blank media is taxed, the artists would still get compensated. In fact, not only would they get compensated for every recurring ISP payment, but also for every disc a consumer purchases to burn their downloaded tracks or movies from. On the other hand, the levy would end up being flat and the levies collected are not distributed based on the Artists of the songs the user downloaded, so while this may help less well performing artists, it would effectively penalise well known artists.
The worst companies that would be affected by this
amendment would be those who sell downloadable music or movies. For
example, while research has shown that many consumers sample
music online to debate on their next CD purchase, this is unlikely to be the case when it comes to purchasing downloadable tracks, since while consumers can see a difference between downloading songs and buying CDs, many will wonder what's the difference between the songs that can be freely downloaded and the songs that must be purchased to download.
gabek added: Well, it's not completely done yet. The bill adopted last night still has to pass by the other chamber of the Parliament facing huge opposition from the actual government and the entertainment lobbies. Even if it is adopted in Senate (2nd chamber), it will still be contradicted by an incoming EC regulation. Nevertheless, the main idea is to legalize P2P downloads against the payment of a monthly fee of about 15 euros. For that price, an user will be allowed to download films, games, music etc. It also send a strong warning to the French government who attempted to have a private bill adopted, that would have been the most repressive legislation in the western world. Well fellows, that's good news, and I'll drink to that. Champagne !
Source: Bloomberg European News
