Ars Technica reports that the infamous “three-strikes” plan has passed the French Senate so it can be presented to Parliament. The plan has started as a memorandum of understanding between the government, ISPs, and Big Content in France. Essentially, repeat copyright infringers would have their Internet connections revoked. Enforcement will be overseen by a new state agency called HADOPI (High Authority for Copyright Protection and Dissemination of Works on the Internet). The EU has pre-empted this by passing a law where revocation of Internet connections without a court order is forbidden in the EU.
It will be an interesting fight between France and the EU.
The fact that one of the biggest mediaconglomerates in the world is French ( Vivendi SA )
will most likely have contributed to this enthousiastic and overzealous initiative. One must grudgingly have respect for the lobbying power of Vivendi and the other media companies, nicknamed “Big Content”.
In their fight to protect outdated business models that benefit mainly themselves and hardly the creative artists, they appear to succeed in signing up the lawmakers, the police and the courts as their unpaid royalty collectors. Let’s be very clear about it, I strongly believe that artists and inventors should be duly compensated for their efforts .There should be a strong incentive to innovate and create. They should be protected against those who wish to reap benefits from their work without compensation. Our society needs that.
We do not need to protect companies who are lacking ideas to create new value with new technology, who apparently are not able to reinvent themselves, who operate solely on the basis of controlling access to content and who take by far the biggest share of the income.
It is far out of proportion that copyright infringement is deemed to be a far greater menace to society than terrorism or child pornography: after all, these crimes will NOT lead to revocation of your internet-access.
A lot of facts show that the ability to access content freely only increases its value, and sureley increases the value of live performances. Many music bands have seen the light and make their money from live shows. Another famous example is Battlestar Galactica, first shown in the UK on TV, and within days available on file-sharing networks. Three months later the show was presented on networks in the USA and exceeded all (commercial) expectations. Why? The word was out that this was a good show, you could see that yourself and share that with your friends, creating demand.
Most people I know do not like Bittorrent. Cumbersome, for geeks, never know when it will be finished, you have to wait a long time, etc. But if that is the only reasonable way to get access to something you might like, like HD versions, than thats what it is going to be.
If there would be something much better, easy to use, userfriendly, instant access, affordable, with consistent quality…..the majority will switch instantly. And many others will start immediately using this service. In countries like Korea these services are replacing the traditional DVD-rental shops.
The three-strike plan also shows most policymakers do not understand technology. It will lead to an unintended by-effect: a spur of innovations by French softwaremakers. Many knowledgeable commenters have already warned that there are many ideas on how to bypass detection methods, leading to a flourishing “Darknet”. This may lead to the next big thing in software, one never knows….
