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Nicolas Sarkozy Caught Mass 'Pirating' DVDs; Time To Kick Him Off The Internet
from the see-ya-later-nicky dept
Why is it always the adamant defenders of silly policies like kicking people off the internet for copyright infringement who are later found to be mass infringers themselves? French President Nicolas Sarkozy, of course, was the first major politician to support the concept of kicking people off the internet for copyright infringement (more commonly called a "three strikes" rule). He took credit for coming up with the idea originally nearly two years ago, and pushed very hard for the law -- which eventually passed but was then tossed out as unconstitutional in France. Sarkozy still stood by it and helped bring back a revised version.
Of course, in the middle of all this, there was a bit of irony in that Sarkozy was caught using music without authorization in some online videos, for which he paid a €30,000 fine. Of course, it now appears that may have just been the tip of the iceberg. Boing Boing points us to the news that Sarkozy's administration has been caught mass "pirating" DVDs of a documentary about Sarkozy. The publisher of the documentary only made 50 copies. Sarkozy's "audiovisual services" group happened to make itself another 400 without permission -- even replacing the name of the original publisher on the cover.
Once again, this should be a "teachable moment," to point out to Sarkozy and other supporters of such plans to kick people off the internet that the issue isn't quite so simple after all. When you're on the other side, sometimes it seems perfectly natural to make a copy of something, without even realizing it's potentially infringing. Unfortunately, why do I get the feeling that Sarkozy won't change his stance one bit -- or even recognize the irony of the situation?
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Sarkozy
To quote William Shakespeare, "Hoist with his own petard."
Kick him off the internet.
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Re: Sarkozy
and fine him 50000 euro for each infringing copy!
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Because
Unfortunately, why do I get the feeling that Sarkozy won't change his stance one bit -- or even recognize the irony of the situation?
Because that's not what his corporate overlords are paying him for. They are paying him to pass laws that defy common sense no matter what era in time you are from.
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Re: Re: Sarkozy
I agree. I think a personal fine of 20,000,000 Euros should probably be enough to remove all the money he received from his corporate overlords.
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An answer from inside the Helmet:
"Why is it always the adamant defenders of silly policies like kicking people off the internet for copyright infringement who are later found to be mass infringers themselves?"
Uh, well, I usually like to go off on massive diatribes with tons of quotes and so forth, but this one can be answered simply:
Because most of them are politicians and politicians as a rule are absolutely 100% mega full of shit.
Next question, please....
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Most laws dont apply to French politicians,though.
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In my experience, politicians never seem to notice that laws also apply to them. Didn't know that that's actually true in France. Gaming the system is easy. If you make the laws, why make them apply to you? For instance, where I live a member of congress has a limited set of driving rules applying to them (much like ambulances and police cars do, but it makes sense for ambulances and police cars).
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because thats not the problem
The problem of P2P is not the copyright infringement is that everybody, anybody can do it so the distribution of information and art is not controllable anymore. The editor-distribution music companies want the control to gain money from the scarcity created by the control and the politician want to control it because thats what all politician want control. Imagine the mess if the politician would have to explain themselves not only to other politician and a couple of journalist but to everybody with a internet conection
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this isn't innocent infringment
While I agree that people infringe without meaning to all the time, this is different. He knowing copied a DVD 400 times AND removed production credit from the case. This is clearly a criminal act.
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Yes, but..
While this is a very worthy revelation about a two-bit hypocrite, this is actually not as much about "piracy" as it is counterfeiting. Yes, he probably "pirated" the source, but once you step out of just file-sharing and go into production, and even removing/changing credits on the covers, you have moved beyond simple infringement into a REAL criminal arena. I would venture to say that counterfeiting is a far worse crime than sharing. Of course, copyright maximalists will disagree, and say that "if it werent for piracy!" etc. being the indoctrined sheep they are.
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He will claim he did not know and some poor little guy will have to take the fall for him.
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Re: Re: Re: Sarkozy
he'd probably use taxpayer money to pay for it in an indirect fashion.
coming up with 30 thou euro and clearly not even batting an eye is a ton of money.
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Taking the hipocritic oath seriously
"Unfortunately, why do I get the feeling that Sarkozy won't change his stance one bit -- or even recognize the irony of the situation?"
Because he is a politician (liar), has no ethics (sleazeball), and takes the hipocritic oath he swore to when he first ran for public office quite seriously...
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He should resign...the world should boycott Belgium until he does.
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Unfortunately, why do I get the feeling that Sarkozy won't change his stance one bit -- or even recognize the irony of the situation?
Because he's French and the leader of one of the G8.
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Lily, Sarkozy, wonder who's next?
Michael Lockyear ... eh, he's French.
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Kick him off the planet...
No soup for you!
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Re:
Um, he's French. Leave Belgium alone, they make wonderful beer.
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Re: Because he's French and the leader of one of the G8.
Yeah, because we all know that an American President would change his stance and admit doing wrong...
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Re:
Intentional or no, that IS quite funny. For the US man on the street Belgium is the "waffle capital of the world". While in Europe Belgium faces the same sort of unreasonable scorn as do rural states and Florida here in the U.S.
Of course, maybe you meant "boycott the EU (Brussles)", which is also an interesting concept... bring pressure from his "peers".
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Re: Re:
I've changed my mind, I'm with Michael on this one: Boycott Belgium until Sarkozy resigns from the German Parliament. And while we're at it let's ask the Dutch to send soldiers into the Netherlands and drive out the invaders from Holland.
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He cannot be accused to anything while he is president. So he has green lights to keep pirating and distributing illegal copies without fear of anything:
Article 67 : The President of The Republic is not responsable for acts accomplised in this quality, [...].
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What a prick!
The funniest thing is that if they'd produced the documentary themselves and stuck it on a p2p network it would have got far more views anyway!
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Re: Yes, but..
Even in the eyes of the MPAA, RIAA and their international counterparts, "piracy" isn't just about copying things online, that's just the latest iteration. This guy isn't just a pirate because he copied the movie, he took the next step and took credit for the movie.
He didn't step out of the piracy arena by stepping into the criminal arena, he stepped further into the piracy arena while stepping into the criminal arena (they overlap).
Even if copyright was limited back to the way it was, this guy would still be slammed by it.
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Kick'em off the World Wide EARTH!
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Re: An answer from inside the Helmet:
"Why is it always the adamant defenders of silly policies like kicking people off the internet for copyright infringement who are later found to be mass infringers themselves?"
Because they see copyright as a fence - with us at one side and them at the other. The copyright laws don't apply on "their" side of the fence unless they are in their favour!
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Re: Re: An answer from inside the Helmet:
yup, If anyone else pirates it , it loses its vAlue to them!
Like I said,
Kick'em off the World Wide EARTH!
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Ah, you funny US americans with your canadian tacos.
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Why kick him off the internet? Did they do this on the internet?
Mike REEEEEEEACHES again.
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That's only 2 strikes...
But on the next strike, I expect the hacker communities of the world to join together to DDOS the French president's internet connection....
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Re:
Look, up in the sky, over there, above your head, it's the point!
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Re:
Yeah, and you reeeeeeach around on your mum
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Re:
Good point. How did they distribute these then, by mail? Fine, he should not be allowed to use the mail anymore, neither sending nor receiving. Or was it by truck? OK, no more automobiles for Sarkozy, he can bike or take the subway.
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The people ought to make money with information have invested interest to shackle down the internet. The evil-doers.
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If you kick him off the internet then in turn he could kick you off the internet
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Re: Re:
Intentional!
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Re: Re: Re:
Searched my house for Belgian, French or German products I could toss on to the bonfire of my disgust...sadly couldn't find any (what DO these guys do for money?)...I really do hope that the Scots never do or say anything stupid as I would really hate to boycott their fine exports :)
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De minis infringement, but if it makes people feel better making a mountain out of a molehill then so be it.
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Im A Pirate
There is NO way in stopping it
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People, let's boycott Uganda till Nikolia pays fines for what he did. Lol
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Wait, I have to ask this question:
Sarkozy (actually, someone in an office somewhere near his) makes 300 copies of something, and you guys are calling out the hit squads.
Yet, many of the people posting here have put movies, music, and whatnot that they don't own the rights to on the internet, where perhaps millions of people have copied and profited from it.
Don't you think maybe you should call the hit squads on yourself first?
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Re:
Yet, many of the people posting here have put movies, music, and whatnot that they don't own the rights to on the internet, where perhaps millions of people have copied and profited from it.
Well, first, I haven't done any of that... but the point isn't that making copies is bad. The point is that if you're going to claim making copies is bad and then pass laws that go against those who make copies... and then it turns out that you are illegally making copies, shouldn't those laws apply to you first?
I would think that was sorta common sense. The people aren't arguing that the "hit squads" are a good thing. They're just using them to show the hypocrisy from Sarkozy.
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IP law in a new age
It's time to revisit IP law. I'm reusing the same words that someone else created. I have a quote in my e-mail sig, who should I talk to about paying royalties? I just downloaded Audacity and edited a nice ringtone for my phone. I used a few seconds of Beatles music, and a few seconds of Ella Fitzgerald music. I'm not going to sell ringtones, is this personal use?
Where is the line drawn? Protection has mutated to control. It's time to overhaul IP law from the ground up, else the present outdated mindset loses control because they refuse to adapt. When communication is available, information will flow. Intellectual property law will change, whether done in a controlled fashion, or having been forced to change because of the things that are reasonable and possible in the modern age of communication.
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French Gov. to protect (rich) PIRATES
GROUPAMA was caught in a software PIRACY case of $200m and has made an unofficial affidavit (claiming that it was not guilty) to divert BEFTI investigators from the evidences officially collected one month ago at a different office.
In its affidavit, GROUPAMA argued that bank secrecy entitled it to limit the scope of Police investigations to a building that was not the place where evidences about the infraction were officially collected.
After the fraud was discovered and denounced by the victim, as GROUPAMA managed to have the General Prosecutor of Paris to state that Police was 'right' to ignore the criminal file and focus only on the irrelevant information provided by GROUPAMA itself, there is room for serious doubts in the way that affair was conducted.
As a matter of facts, FINAMA and GROUPAMA have reported false information to the markets regarding their own accounts (where the fraud describbed below has never been reported).
This unfortunate event is more than likely to compromize the confidence ratings of French (bank and insurance) regulated markets on the proven basis that the numbers cannot be trusted.
All the details, including the General Prosecutor reply, the BEFTI investigation file and the unofficial affidavit cooked by GROUPAMA have been made publicly available:
http://remoteanything.com/archives/groupama.pdf
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