The insanity of France's anti-file-sharing plan
By Eric Bangeman
November 25, 2007 - 11:06PM CT

It's hard to engage in file-sharing if you don't have any Internet access. That's the threat behind a new memorandum of understanding between the government, ISPs, and Big Content in France that would see repeat P2P infringers lose their Internet connections. In exchange, the French music industry would make its French-language archive freely available available sans DRM.

In addition, DVDs would be on store shelves within six months of a film's theatrical release, instead of the current seven and a half months. The proposal is backed by French president Nicolas Sarkozy and arose from the findings of a independent review commission appointed by Sarkozy shortly after taking office. That commission was headed up by the chairman of French consumer electronics retailer FNAC, Denis Olivennes.

Given his position, it's not surprising that Olivennes is no friend to ISPs and fans of P2P. He recently authored La gratuité, c'est le vol: Quand le piratage tue la culture, in which he argued that P2P not only harmed retailers, as well as the music and film industries, but also directly impacted French culture by reducing the amount of tax income from movies and cable television. P2P users are killing French culture, he says.

It should be no surprise, then, that the plan's trade-offs fall almost entirely in the favor of Big Content to the detriment of just about everyone else, including people who don't use P2P software. Like it or not, the total cost of Internet service will rise because French ISPs have signed on to the plan.

Ars Technica
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