France to ban illegal downloaders from using the internet under three-strikes rule

This is a dumb idea. Restricting what is quickly becoming one of the necessities of modern life and learning is a retarded way of dealing with enforcing copyright. People in the know will start using services such as relakks and other ssl vpns to hide their ip's. This is going to deter only superficially.

Way to make a country retarded!

The depressing thing is that the government will be spending over $25M per year of their citizens' money in order to enforce rules that benefit what? 5% of the population?

Lots more information here (mostly in French):

http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/actualites/index-9.htm

At least they recognize this:

Until now, when companies defending the interests of creative artists detected a computer being used for illegal file-sharing, the only option open to them was to lay the matter before the criminal courts, alleging infringement of copyright.

However, criminal proceedings and the associated penalties (up to three years imprisonment and a €300,000 fine) are completely disproportionate when applied to mass illegal downloading.

From: http://tinyurl.com/5npg7w [link to PDF on that site]

Here is another interesting link (in French):

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/chat/0,46-0@2-651865,55-1059643@51...

It is a chat with Christophe Espern, member of a forum on the rights on internet, who explains how the new law is not going in favor of the public, but is rather another tool for major music production/distribution companies.

It's things like this that make me an anarchist. I know that theoretically governments exist because protection services will be underprovided in the marketplace. But is this "protection"? Is this really for the good of society? Must we put up with such indignities? Is anarchic capitalism so much worse that we should never try it?

Also, I doubt that they can effectively enforce this.

Yes, I'm sure harsher punishments is what's necessary to change the behavior of 20% of the country. Can't possibly be that the laws need changing.

This is a good business opportunity to start a VPN service in Korea or Taiwan...

That would definitely keep me from illegally downloading...

Depressing news

What I like about this is the following: Recording industries retract all laws regarding media types, once you buy content you are free to convert it as you please.

This is a step in the right direction. However I am just waiting on people using ToR and such networks to hide their traffic causing this whole mumbo-jumbo of a law to become completely useless. Its just necessary to have a "seamless" integration into your favorite downloading software.

I hope this renews interest in cryptography and attack resistance in network applications.