Parlament stemmer for deling af musik på nettet




Indsendt af: shahid_2dk.

Det Franske parlament har stemt for en ny lov, der gør det lovligt at dele musik og film via Internettet. Den nye lov har fået medie husene op af stolene, da de er stærke modstandere af den nye lov.

Hvilken indflydelse loven får, og hvad det så reelt er man kan dele, ja det må tiden vise.

Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The French Parliament voted lastnight to allow free sharing of music and movies on the Internet, setting up a conflict with both the French government and withmedia companies.

If the amendment survives, France would be the firstcountry to legalize so called peer-to-peer downloading, saidJean-Baptiste Soufron, legal counsel to the Association ofAudionautes, a French group that defends people accused ofimproperly sharing music files.

The law would be a blow to media companies thatincreasingly use the courts worldwide to sue people fordownloading or sharing music and movie files. Entertainmentcompanies such as Walt Disney Co., Viacom Inc. and News Corp.'sFox say free downloading of unauthorized copies of TV shows andmovies before they are released on DVD will cost them $5 billionin revenue this year.

``The deputies used this vote to show their independencefrom the government, but they don't know what they are doing,''Nicolas Seydoux, chief executive of French cinema companyGaumont SA, said in an interview on France Inter radio. ``We arenot trying to ban anything, just to make sure the work of othersisn't stolen.''

The government can overturn the amendment, either by re-opening debate or if the Senate votes it down when the billmoves to the upper house. French Culture Minister RenaudDonnedieu de Vabres has asked that parliament re-open debate onthe amendment today, Agence France Presse reported.

The amendment, which is attached to a bill on intellectualproperty rights, states that ``authors cannot forbid thereproduction of works that are made on any format from an onlinecommunications service when they are intended to be usedprivately'' and not for commercial use.

Parliamentary Debate

Parliament is debating a bill that would transpose a 2001European Union directive on intellectual rights into French law.The government had introduced articles into the bill that wouldmake file-sharing akin to counterfeiting, punishable by prisonsentences of up to three years and fines of up to 300,000 euros($355,000).

Consumer groups such as UFC-Que Choisir had protested thegovernment's proposed bill.

The amendment voted at about midnight yesterday, whichwould replace the contested articles, was introduced by AlainSuguenot, a deputy from the ruling Union for a Popular Movement.

The amendment was approved 30 to 28, with 22 members of theUMP voting in favor. While there are 577 members of the lowerhouse, few were present for last night's vote.

`At Risk'

``The vote puts the livelihoods of people in the music andfilm industry at risk,'' Gaumont's Seydoux said.

Soufron of Audionautes said any system that allowedunlimited downloading could be accompanied by a system similarto the royalty tax that exists for blank compact disks and DVDs.

Under the amendment, Internet service providers would paypart of their revenue to Sacem, a group that has handledartists' royalties since 1851, Soufron said. Details of thepayments are not in the amendment. The group redistributed 578million euros to musicians last year.

Legal music downloading sites such as Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes have French-language sites, as do major music companiessuch as Vivendi Universal SA. Last night's amendment would allowsomeone having bought a song from one of those sites to share itwith family or friends.