Frances pushes ahead with enlightened copyright law

Filed in archive International on May 13, 2006

The French Senate followed the National Assembly by passing a consumer-oriented copyright bill that limits DRM and P2P fines.

The bill was weakened from previous versions due to Apple and music industry complaints. But it still ensures some measure of interoperability so that purchased digital music can be played on multiple devices but with similar copy protection.

The bill also reduced consumer copyright violations, such as from P2P use, to the level of a traffic fine.

olivia Regnier of the international music association IFPI said "This law risks removing all deterrence against piracy. If you can download 1,000 films and songs and only face a 38-euro fine, that's not much of a penalty."