What does the new French copyright bill do ?
The copyright bill, known as DADVSI, was voted on June 30 by the French Parliament. The following text lists some of the known problems of DADVSI, including references to the articles in the bill.
Concretely, the DADVSI bill constitutes, or organizes:
- an abusive extension of copyright (articles 7, 7 bis A, 8, 14 bis): turning the right to make copies for private use and the right to read into exclusive rights, the author being able to authorize or prohibit these acts using systems for access and copy control
- a generalized presumption of guilt for the public (articles 13 and 14): prohibition to disable or publishing a means for disabling a technical measure of copy control, including for instance if this technical measure infringes on privacy or prevents a legal use of the work; merely decoding by a personal intervention is punished by a fine of up to 3750 EUR, and proposing a software which allow such a decoding to others is punished by up to 6 months in jail and/or up to a 30,000 EUR fine;
- censorship for authors of free software (article 7 bis A): - creation of an administrative authority empowered with the ability to prohibit the publication of free software accessing protected works -- this infringes on the moral right of divulgation of the authors of free software, that is, the right for them to publish their works, thus infringing on creative freedom, a fundamental right - developers of free software who would still publish such software for accessing protected works would risk the aforementioned fines and/or jail sentences
- responsibility for crimes committed by others for Internet users (article 14 ter A), authors and publishers of software, Internet service providers and online services (articles 12 bis, 14 quater), in order to impose filtering systems upon all, even if these infringe on privacy, freedom of communication and freedom of speech; article 14 ter A thus makes it compulsory for Internet service provider to give filtering systems to their users, and compels users to install them;
- infringement on free competition (article 7 bis A): by imposing so-called RAND licenses on interoperability information and creating a surrealistic obligation of result in terms of usage control for authors and publishers of software capable of playing works protected by DRMs designed by third parties
- private law enforcement (articles 14 ter A, 14 quater): requires private organizations to permanently provide means intended to protect public order, whereas such missions are normally exerced by the State, with the judicial branch capable of exercising checks and balances;
- infringement on the neutrality of technique (article 12 bis): pretends that communication software can be "evidently designed" for the exchange of copyrighted data, and punishes by up to 3 years in prison and/or up to a 300,000 EUR fine any person who would design or publish such software, or even incite to the use thereof
Read more on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI.