Universal have the support of the record industry's "union" orgs, of BSA, and of SACEM, the official French musical royalties collection agency (influential, lotsa money).

The amendment seems to have got through the special commission (Sirinelli Commission) and will be considered 7th December in a plenary session of the High Council for Artistic and Literary Property. Maybe it can be stopped there.

See this page in English for information and links.

Go to this page (in French) to sign a petition against the amendment.

Universal, Microsoft, Sony, would love to get in the thin end of the wedge, even in one country. The danger to open-source software (all of it, everywhere) is obvious.

Loi DADVSI : le droit d'auteur menacé de perdre l'équilibre
L'Assemblée nationale doit se prononcer en procédure d'urgence ce mois de décembre 2005 sur le projet de loi « Droit d'auteur et les droits voisins dans la société de l'information » (DADVSI). Devant la menace que cette loi ferait peser quant à l'équilibre du droit d'auteur, la FFII appelle ses sympathisants à soutenir l'initiative EUCD.info, à contacter leurs députés et à signer la pétition lancée par EUCD.info.

For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college--when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.

This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her--but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong--something that only pirates would do.

And there wasn't much chance that the SPA--the Software Protection Authority--would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment--for not taking pains to prevent the crime.

There were ways, of course, to get around the SPA and Central Licensing. They were themselves illegal. Dan had had a classmate in software, Frank Martucci, who had obtained an illicit debugging tool, and used it to skip over the copyright monitor code when reading books. But he had told too many friends about it, and one of them turned him in to the SPA for a reward (students deep in debt were easily tempted into betrayal). In 2047, Frank was in prison, not for pirate reading, but for possessing a debugger.

It was also possible to bypass the copyright monitors by installing a modified system kernel. Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers--you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that.

Dan resolved the dilemma by doing something even more unthinkable--he lent her the computer, and told her his password. This way, if Lissa read his books, Central Licensing would think he was reading them. It was still a crime, but the SPA would not automatically find out about it. They would only find out if Lissa reported him.
Of course, if the school ever found out that he had given Lissa his own password, it would be curtains for both of them as students, regardless of what she had used it for. School policy was that any interference with their means of monitoring students' computer use was grounds for disciplinary action. It didn't matter whether you did anything harmful--the offense was making it hard for the administrators to check on you. They assumed this meant you were doing something else forbidden, and they did not need to know what it was.

Image what happens to democracy when documents can be made invisible at will by the government by flipping a digital switch in your viewing software so that the items are no longer accessible. Several per month services already block the material you have already downloaded if you let your subscription lapse.

Rights management is a threat to democratic societies and must be battled on that front. Those who don't want to pay for entertainment can take their issues elsewhere.


Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

Not good 1): The DADVSI bill is designed to place France in conformity with EUCD (EU directive similar to the American DMCA), but goes beyond what is necessary. The EU Commission warned France (in July) it was late getting in conformity, so the DADVSI bill was fast-tracked. It will get its final reading during the night of 22 to 23 December 2005, when there will be few representatives present. It's entirely possible there will be little scrutiny and debate.

Not good 2): The Ministry of Culture is right behind this bill, which will get govt backing, and the govt has a healthy majority (as shown above by Migeru). So the bill can't fail to get through.

Not good 3): The Sirinelli Commmission is a technical commission dominated by copyright orgs and "culture" majors (Micro$oft has a representative, so does BSA, that makes two for Micro$oft on my count). The Vivendi Universal/SACEM/BSA/FT amendment that proposes to outlaw open-source software because it does not and cannot contain secret tracking ware, has the backing of this commission, and, after one more meeting in a week's time, will probably have the backing of the Ministry of Culture. So the amendment is in with what looks from an outsider's point of view to be a good chance of being adopted.

Not so bad 1): The CNIL (French National Commission on Information Technology and Freedom) ruled on 24th October 2005 against the use of compulsory hidden tracking software.

Not so bad 2): If the amendment gets through, it will certainly be challenged before the Constitutional Council, and the above-mentioned CNIL ruling will presumably be of some use then.

It seems so crazy it's hard to believe, but the fact is they've managed up to now to slip this under the radar. The EUCD.info petition is smoking, gone from 6,000 to 12,000 in less than 24 hours, and they say they've had DOS attacks. So it may be that the cavalry will get there just in time.

Here's a piece describing DMCA and EUCD, showing how Europe has gone further than the US on intellectual property rights.

Here are a couple of notions, noted here and there, that point towards the anti-constitutional nature of this law and/or its amendments, a law which if passed, would be passed "anticonstitutionnellement" (haha I just had to write that word, it's not every day that you get to write the longest word in French):

French Human Rights Declaration, 1789, Article 12:
"No one will be subjected to arbitrary intrusions in his private life, his family, his house or his correspondence. Every person is entitled to protection by the law against such intrusions." (nota bene: the word "correspondance" in French, in 1789, refers to snail mail, but i think emails could easily be accepted as "correspondance", because the action they denote is the same)

Prelude to 1946 French Constitution, confirmed by 1958 French Constitution (5th Republic), Article 13: "The State guarantees equal access for children and adults to instruction, professional training, and CULTURE"

French Human Rights Declaration, 1789, Article 27:
Every person has the right to engage freely in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy art, and to participate in scientific progress and the benefits that it incurs." (nota bene: "enjoy" isn't quite right as a translation, but I can't think of another term)