Experience with tougher copyright laws in France

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

So I've read the whole thread from page one, and enjoyed the compelling and intelligent arguments from everyone. However, I am genuinely confused. It seems that many people are opposed to the efforts, and from what I've read so far, it doesn't seem all that bad (but consider where I live, haha). We received a notification back then from the police, telling my brother that he was hacking, but it wasn't him. So essentially, had we not received a visit from the police, we wouldn't have known that someone was tinkering with our IP.

My question is this: what exactly is it that you want to happen? No government involved? Limited involvement, what?

Do you think that your benefit was worth 11 million euros?

Originally Posted by stonetools

Interesting thread. So after two years of a tougher copyright enforcement law, what have we learned?

1. France has some how not descended into tyranny
2. A lot more people are obeying the law at a comparatively modest cost in law enforcement.

Who woulda thunk it?

Score one for law enforcement!

Your opinion of modest cost aside, I don't think that the data from 2009 shows what you think it shows:

"South Korea and Sweden in particular saw striking returns to growth," said global recording industry trade group IFPI, "showing how an improved legal environment can help impact on legitimate music sales."

And it might be true! The data, though, is ambiguous. Sweden did get a new law in 2009 that gave rightsholders a court-mediated method for getting the names of accused infringers, and The Pirate Bay admins went on trial. But both of those tactics have been usable in the US for years (remember the Grokster case, and all those P2P lawsuits against individuals?). So why did the US account for the majority of the worldwide recording industry losses in 2009 even as Sweden's record industry grew? It can't just be the "improved legal environment" in Sweden.

And how do you explain the case of Australia? This is the country where a federal judge recently issued a 200+ page opinion in which he ruled that ISPs have no responsibility even to act on warning letters from rightsholders, much less have any responsibility to disconnect users from the Internet. Yet revenue is up. Mexico isn't cracking down hard on P2P users, yet revenue is up.

Originally Posted by stonetools

While its true that the big guys can better enforce their IP rights by hiring teams of lawyers to pursue pirates across state lines and to file one DMCA notice after another, I'm not sure how that helps your point. The poor shlub who can't afford all that high priced legal help just has to take his lumps, even to the extent of going out of business .
An example is the Art4LOve case, detailed HERE

You don't need a lawyer to file a DMCA notice.

[azazel1024]

Actually in the US it is cheap and easy to file copy right requests from the USPTO. It isn't FREE, which is a bit of an issue, but it is very, very cheap. If you are attempting to profit off of intellectual property you have created, then the cost of a copy right filing is just about insignficant, unless of course the potential derived income is also nearly insignificant.

I forget the exact cost right now, but I think it is in the $20 range and a 1 page form. Granted, for someone like a photographer that can get expensive for hundreds or thousands of images. At the same time, I would hope to some extent they aren't going to be plying their real money makers about on the internet and ones they commercialize they'd be filing for copy right on in which case a $20 filing fee is a relatively small portion of probably a several hundred dollar image.

Not having filed for a copy right has not stopped IP owners from winning big lawsuits in cases of rampant commercial infringement. If it is a case of rampant non-commercial infringement, well unfortunately that is much harder to go after. It is like trying to stamp on an ant hill and hoping you manage to crush all of the ants (which makes it harder when you are no bigger than an ant trying to stamp on the ant hill for the little guys).

So yes, little guys are disproportionatly impacted a lot of times. That said, that is always the case in the world with ANYTHING. It sucks, but it is true. Big companies and rich people always have significantly more power and almost always are impacted significantly less from things.

Even little guys has inexpensive tools at their disposal to attempt to reduce/stop IP violations and have excellent tools to stop commercial IP infringement.

[gweeks]

Originally Posted by azazel1024

I forget the exact cost right now, but I think it is in the $20 range and a 1 page form. Granted, for someone like a photographer that can get expensive for hundreds or thousands of images. At the same time, I would hope to some extent they aren't going to be plying their real money makers about on the internet and ones they commercialize they'd be filing for copy right on in which case a $20 filing fee is a relatively small portion of probably a several hundred dollar image.

It's gone up to $35. You can sometimes file multiple items on a single form for a single fee. It depends on what type of work it is.

http://www.copyright.gov/docs/fees.html

You must file the copyright before you can take the claim to court. You don't have to file before the infringement, just before the court filing. If the infringement occurs before the copyright filing, you can only collect actual damages, not statutory damages.

My last dealing with the copyright office cost me $75. It looks like the fees have gone up quite a bit since then.

Greg Weeks

[azazel1024]

Hmm good to know. Though still, you do have relief available and depending on what you are doing, at least if it is commercial/income generating from IP, the cost isn't necessarily that extreme to protect your IP in advance and if you decide to do it after the fact you do still have some recourse and protection.

[anamardoll]

I find this thread particularly ironic in light of this.

France is clearly all about author's rights and we are all so very equal under the law.