France's P2P Fee: Fiasco or Fair?<< Surviving Cannibals | Main | NBCU: “U” also Stands for “Ubiquity” >> Todd Chanko | February 06, 2006, 06:15 PM From the country that brought us "le droit moral" - certain inalienable rights an artist retains in a work in perpetuity - comes an 11th hour "ironie." The Assemblée Nationale voted to authorize P2P file sharing: in exchange for a monthly fee of seven euros (about $8.40), Internet users would be allowed to download unlimited music files. EMI has already challenged the ruling, as has the French Government itself. However, blanket license fees are a typical European solution to a thorny civic problem: how to balance the public's need to enjoy certain mass media with the rights of the intellectual property owners? This is how French public television is maintained, as is the BBC. So the crie de cœur seems a bit shrill. The real losers in the event this bill is upheld are not necessarily the copyright holders. Rather, it may be the newly legitimate legal downloading services such as www.ecompil.fr. La Vie en Rose, indeed. |
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