[Ecommerce] legalization of file sharing in France?
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org
Tue Jun 22 15:53:02 2004
Story in French
http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/internet/0,39020774,39157528,00.htm
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: pho: French PROs want to legalize P2P
Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 18:17:45 -0700
From: Janko Roettgers <janko.roettgers@web.de>
Reply-To: Janko Roettgers <janko.roettgers@web.de>
Organization: lowpass.de
To: pho@onehouse.com
Looks like the two French PRO organisations Adami and Spedidam (each
representing about 25 000 members) want to legalize file sharing and
compensate rights holders with some sort of ISP traffic taxation.
Somehow eccentric Google translation follows
[SNIP]
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zdnet.fr%2Factualites%2Finternet%2F0%2C39020774%2C39157528%2C00.htm&langpair=fr%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools
Music on line: the "legal license" always as much source of polemic
By
ZDNet France
Friday June 18, 2004 Comment on this article React in this
article.
Wanted by the representatives of the artists interpreters and
supported by associations of consumers, the principle of the legal
licence on the remote loadings and the setting with file layout
musical is violently fought by the producers.
Adami does not back down: it is necessary to found a "legal license"
for finally settling the question of the wild exchanges of musical
files about the networks peer-to-peer. The trade association, trust company
collective which represents the artists interpreters, held a
conference Wednesday June 16 in Paris on the subject. For the event
the near total of the music industry representative in
France had travel there to expose their arguments for or
counters this project.
Concretely, Adami and its colleague Spedidam propose to create a
mode of compensation whose base would be a subscription fee perceived by
the
ISPs "a commission, gathering the authorities, having
the rights and the consumers would fix the amount", explains
Xavier Blanc, directing legal and international businesses of
Spedidam.
Two associations diverge however on a point: Adami supports the creation
of a legal licencs only on the remote loading ( download ), while
Spedidam would like that this license to apply also to the right
to place the files on the Net ( upload ).
This last solution encounters legal difficulties, continues Xavier
Blanc, because the European directive on the reproduction rights
(EUCD), considers that the making available of a work without
authorization
is counterfeiting. This text, adopted in May 2001 is still waiting for
implementation in France.
[snip] The French bill re royalties and rights must
normally be discussed before the end of July.
[snip] "It is necessary to make evolve/move the legislation", underlines
the
representative of Spedidam. "When a Net surfer downloads a file or make
it available to the public on a peer-to-peer network, that should be
covered by a legal authorization if there's no commercial goal." And
according to him, "that will not prevent
the legal offers to develop as from the moment when they bring a value
added (more information, better quality of the files...)".
These initiatives are supported by associations of consumers, in
particular UFC That To choose. "the legal license can be a solution,
it has its advantages and its disadvantages", declares Julien Dourgnon,
"One of the disadvantages would be that people who do not download or
download a little would pay too but this is already the case for
remuneration for copying on CD".
According to him the public agrees to remunerate the work of the
artists, but does not want to be ripped off by industries which try to
reinforce their dominant position. A blow of claw addressed to the
large houses of disc and to their representative, Snep (national Trade
union of phonographic publishing). In its advertising, it intends "to
inform" the pirates of upcoming legal
proceedings and is very badly perceived by the artists interpreters.
SNIP
UPFI and SACEM, same arguments
Their claim starts to attract the attention of certain members of
Parliament, who will work on the transposition of EU directive
in the weeks to come. Present at the time of the debates,
Didier Mathus, PS representative of Saone-et-Loire, was almost
convinced: "the current legislation is unsuited to the revolution of
the peer-to-peer", it underlined. "the tracks outlined by lAdami and
Spedidam allow to get closer to an intelligent solution for music".
The deputy, like the majority of the speakers, recognized that the
situation is different for movies
The distribution cycle (movie theater, then in DVD, then with television)
prevents the creation of such a license.
But these proposals encounter a strong opposition. Beyond even of the
arguments of the ISPs, who see negatively any tentative of puncture of
their incomes,
The music industry itself carries out a true combat against the legal
license. "You bring a bad
solution to a good question", counter-attacks Jerome Roger, general
manager of the Union of the independent French producers (UPFI).
"it's impossible legally and absurd from an economic point
of view".
According to him, a subscription fee would amount to increasing in a very
significant way the prices at the point where even the
government wants to develop the use of the internet. "a legal license would
create a strong signal of encouraging piracy", with for consequence
"drying up the sources of the labels". For the
representative of UPFI, which makes a point of dissociating with Snep,
the solution is in the development of paying business models on the P2P,
such as, for example,
the Wippit company in Great Britain.
The SACEM also made its dissension clear: "We do not support you [
on the legal license , because it would be suicidal for the authors",
launched the president of his Council Laurent
Petitgirard.
For Christophe Espern, one of the organizers of the EUCD.info
collective which is involved in the defense of private copying, the
introduction of a legal license will not solve anything. "One should
not make distinction between download and upload ", affirms it in
ZDNet . "the network is bidirectional and that is not used for nothing
to try to reintroduce an artificial scarcity on the Net".
It also estimates that it would be necessary in priority to regulate
the problems involved in the mode of calculation of the royalty for
private copy, before introducing a mechanism which would function in
the same way, while being certainly also not very transparent. "It
would be wiser to await the review of transposition of directive EUCD
by the European Commission, which must take place at the end of 2004",
it underlines, by hoping that the problems encountered by the various
Member States of the Union will lead Brussels to modify its text.
--
Janko Roettgers / icq: 118804546
roettgers@lowpass.de / janko.roettgers@web.de
http://www.lowpass.de / http://www.mixburnrip.de
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Manon Anne Ress
Consumer Project on Technology
www.cptech.org
PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
manon.ress@cptech.org, voice: 1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176