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French Filesharers Voice Defiance
March 20, 2006
Having started as an amendment to proposed legislation last December, the proposal was to introduce a global licensing system for French filesharers as part of wide ranging reform of copyright law to comply with the EUCD. Debate in the lower house concluded last Friday, with a vote scheduled for Tuesday, 21st March.The entire issue has been fraught with uncertainty, typified by a comment made by Christian Vanneste, who is a French legal commentator and renowned Parliamentarian, over the issue of iTunes and DRM. Having been quoted by Reuters' sources as having said amendments "will force some proprietary systems to be opened up ... You have to be able to download content and play it on any device”, there now seems to be some confusion as to whether he was simply referring to what he wanted as opposed to revealing the government's official position.
Whether that is true or not, the lack of information and the confusion arising highlights an almost contemptuous lack of transparency on the part of the French government.
Having reviewed the issues leading up to this in our previous report, Slyck has now been speaking directly with the French filesharing activists whose very actions have forced their government to sit up and listen.
Jean-Baptiste Souffron is the knowledgeable legal spokesman for ADA, the man behind 17 year old Aziz Ridouan, whose actions last December forced the amendment which spurred the current debate. In an exclusive interview, Slyck firstly asked him if the final vote signified an end to their campaign.
"This isn’t the final vote…We don't know what the outcome will be yet. We had quite the same process 2 years ago with the 'Loi pour la Confiance dans l'Economie Numerique' (a law relating to the development of the digital economy), and we ended with exactly the law we wanted plus very nice provisions on 'open standards'. But everything got decided at the very end moment, when it came in front of the constitutional court. Before that we had something like a 3 years debate with good times and bad times... The same thing is occurring now."
We then asked him about reports that they had waited until the eve of the Parliamentary Christmas recess in an attempt to win approval of their plans to draft an amendment to the proposed bill. Jean-Baptiste denied this, saying:
"Well, it's very simple. There are rarely more than 10 or 20 MPs in the parliament at the same time. If you look (at) the videos of the debate from past weeks, you will see something like 30 or 40 MP... just like in December. And that's a lot. It's traditional in France. MPs spend most of their time in their district, and they only come to Paris when the Parliament is debating about some topic they are interested in."
Whilst there are 577 representatives (or MPS), 364 belonging to the ruling conservative party, UMP, it does come as a surprise that many issues are actually debated with only between 30 – 80 members present at any given time in the lower house.
We then asked Jean-Baptiste how he predicted filesharers would react to the likely change in law, to which he replied:
"Well, they will go on sharing files, and we will go on helping them by finding lawyers who will win their cases. That's what we are currently doing for more than 200 people being sued by the French RIAA... and we're pretty good at it until now. I hope we could find another solution than only defending them judicially, but if there is no other way to do, that's always our last line of defense."
Given the confused reports over the level of statutory penalties being proposed by Parliament, we asked if Jean-Baptiste could shed any light on the issue:
"We don't really know since the proposal explains that the details of these penalties will be later defined by the government. Following what was mentioned the last day of debate, it should be something like 750 euros. We don't know if that's 750 euros / file or 750 euros as a whole. Last week, it was supposed to be 38 euros. I am sorry to say that it's difficult to catch up with the government..."
Little wonder, then, that the rest of us are struggling to make head or tail of developments, when people at the heart of these changes are being kept so much in the dark. Whilst the outcome of this debate appears to be much a forgone conclusion and this battle almost certainly lost, the war remains undecided. Whatever the final outcome, French filesharers have certainly raised awareness of filesharing to an unprecedented level, and demonstrated unity in their determination to fight this all the way.
Whilst there are 577 representatives (or MPS), 364 belonging to the ruling conservative party, UMP, it does come as a surprise that many issues are actually debated with only between 30 – 80 members present at any given time in the lower house.
We then asked Jean-Baptiste how he predicted filesharers would react to the likely change in law, to which he replied:
"Well, they will go on sharing files, and we will go on helping them by finding lawyers who will win their cases. That's what we are currently doing for more than 200 people being sued by the French RIAA... and we're pretty good at it until now. I hope we could find another solution than only defending them judicially, but if there is no other way to do, that's always our last line of defense."
Given the confused reports over the level of statutory penalties being proposed by Parliament, we asked if Jean-Baptiste could shed any light on the issue:
"We don't really know since the proposal explains that the details of these penalties will be later defined by the government. Following what was mentioned the last day of debate, it should be something like 750 euros. We don't know if that's 750 euros / file or 750 euros as a whole. Last week, it was supposed to be 38 euros. I am sorry to say that it's difficult to catch up with the government..."
Little wonder, then, that the rest of us are struggling to make head or tail of developments, when people at the heart of these changes are being kept so much in the dark. Whilst the outcome of this debate appears to be much a forgone conclusion and this battle almost certainly lost, the war remains undecided. Whatever the final outcome, French filesharers have certainly raised awareness of filesharing to an unprecedented level, and demonstrated unity in their determination to fight this all the way.
This story is filed in these Slyck News categories
File-Sharing/P2P Related :: International
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