[Fsfe-france] Suede et droit d'auteur

[Laurent GUERBY]

Des remous politiques apres l'intervention musclee des forces
de police contre les serveurs de "Pirate Bay" et quelques
victimes collaterales.

Laurent

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/18/business/levies.php
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Politicians smell votes in Sweden's file-sharing debate
By Ivar Ekman International Herald Tribune

Published: June 18, 2006
STOCKHOLM The Jolly Roger-waving, pro-piracy demonstrators are no longer
in the streets here, but the police raid in late May on the popular
file- sharing Web site, The Pirate Bay, is still making waves,
increasing pressure on politicians to change Sweden's copyright laws.
 
The Swedish debate ties into events in France over the past few months,
where an effort to legalize peer-to-peer sharing of films and music,
charging downloaders a global fee, was recently voted down in the French
Parliament.
 
"The process for change has now begun in Sweden, but it's clear that
this problem cannot be solved by one country alone," said Lars
Ilshammar, an information-technology historian who recently suggested
that Sweden impose a fee similar to the one proposed in France. "More
countries have to come out of the closet."
 
The fallout from the May 31 raid on The Pirate Bay has made clear just
how widespread and deeply entrenched file-sharing has become in Sweden.
Online forums have been filled with protests against the raid, and a
pro-piracy demonstration in early June drew close to 1,000 people. A
poll published in early June showed that three out of four Swedes
between 18 and 21 supported file-sharing, even if it was illegal.
 
With parliamentary elections coming in September, five of the seven
major Swedish political parties have in recent weeks expressed a will to
take a new look at the Swedish copyright laws, which, in accordance with
an EU directive from 2001, makes unauthorized downloading or uploading
of copyright-protected files illegal.
 
"We're talking about as many as one million potential voters that the
political parties now have discovered," Ilshammar said. "Suddenly they
feel they need to treat them with some care."
 
Even the justice minister, Thomas Bodstrom - who was recently called a
"lackey to the American record industry" by Anna Sjodin, the chairwoman
of the youth wing of his own party, the Social Democrats - has expressed
a will to listen to "new suggestions" on the issue.
 
"As a country at the forefront of information technology, we also have
to be at the forefront of how we legislate the issue," Bodstrom said in
an interview by telephone. "Above all, we have to say yes to
technological development, and encourage people to use computers and to
download."
 
The idea of a levy, which would be collected in a manner similar to the
television license fee that many European countries require citizens to
pay, has for some time been part of the wider debate over how to handle
intellectual property in the digital age.
 
What is new, with the events in Sweden and France, is that the idea is
now gaining political momentum.
 
But the global fee concept is highly controversial on both sides of the
piracy debate. The record and film industries have repeatedly said that
legalizing unauthorized file sharing would effectively end copyright
protection as we know it, while a general levy would be both
insufficient and unfair as compensation for the artists. The pro-piracy
forces, on the other hand, complain about how such a system would be
unmanageable and unfair.
 
"This is an idea that they've thrown out there in a panic," said Rickard
Falkvinge, the chairman of Piratpartiet, a pro-file-sharing Swedish
political party that has more than tripled its membership, to 7,000,
since the raid on The Pirate Bay. "It creates more problems than it
solves."
 
The European Commission, which, as part of the Lisbon Agenda of economic
goals, is striving to harmonize European copyright legislation,
wholeheartedly agrees. In a recent consultation document, the commission
warned against the proliferation of levies in recent years.
 
Across Europe, various levies are imposed on blank CD and DVD disks,
hard disks, disk drives, computers, printers and cellphones, among other
things. Additional levies, like one on broadband, would carry "a serious
risk of a backlash" according to the document.
 
Instead, the commission prefers the continued spread of digital rights
management and other content-protection technologies. But the recent
events indicate that momentum for change is building. Besides the Pirate
Bay hullabaloo in Sweden and the debate over levies in France, the past
few weeks have also seen increased attacks on the "walled garden"
digital rights management approach of Apple's popular iTunes music
store. Once again, France has been the vanguard, coming close to passing
a law that would have required Apple to make iTunes songs compatible
with all portable music devices.
 
This week, Norway, Denmark and Sweden followed the French example, with
government consumer protection agencies in the three countries saying
that iTunes breaches Scandinavian consumer laws, and that Apple will
have to lift restrictions on playing music from iTunes on rivals'
devices. On Wednesday, Apple was given an extended deadline, until Aug.
1, to respond to the agencies' accusations.
 
Many experts say that, in the end, an alternative to current copyright
legislation will have to be created, and that a global fee is one likely
solution.
 
"The way it works now, it is a little as if you give the consumer a
lollipop, and then smack them over their heads, saying that they can't
use what they've bought," said Uma Suthersanen, a professor of
international copyright law at Queen Mary, a college at the University
of London. "The industry and the politicians will simply have to sort it
out."
 
 
STOCKHOLM The Jolly Roger-waving, pro-piracy demonstrators are no longer
in the streets here, but the police raid in late May on the popular
file- sharing Web site, The Pirate Bay, is still making waves,
increasing pressure on politicians to change Sweden's copyright laws.
 
The Swedish debate ties into events in France over the past few months,
where an effort to legalize peer-to-peer sharing of films and music,
charging downloaders a global fee, was recently voted down in the French
Parliament.
 
"The process for change has now begun in Sweden, but it's clear that
this problem cannot be solved by one country alone," said Lars
Ilshammar, an information-technology historian who recently suggested
that Sweden impose a fee similar to the one proposed in France. "More
countries have to come out of the closet."
 
The fallout from the May 31 raid on The Pirate Bay has made clear just
how widespread and deeply entrenched file-sharing has become in Sweden.
Online forums have been filled with protests against the raid, and a
pro-piracy demonstration in early June drew close to 1,000 people. A
poll published in early June showed that three out of four Swedes
between 18 and 21 supported file-sharing, even if it was illegal.
 
With parliamentary elections coming in September, five of the seven
major Swedish political parties have in recent weeks expressed a will to
take a new look at the Swedish copyright laws, which, in accordance with
an EU directive from 2001, makes unauthorized downloading or uploading
of copyright-protected files illegal.
 
"We're talking about as many as one million potential voters that the
political parties now have discovered," Ilshammar said. "Suddenly they
feel they need to treat them with some care."
 
Even the justice minister, Thomas Bodstrom - who was recently called a
"lackey to the American record industry" by Anna Sjodin, the chairwoman
of the youth wing of his own party, the Social Democrats - has expressed
a will to listen to "new suggestions" on the issue.
 
"As a country at the forefront of information technology, we also have
to be at the forefront of how we legislate the issue," Bodstrom said in
an interview by telephone. "Above all, we have to say yes to
technological development, and encourage people to use computers and to
download."
 
The idea of a levy, which would be collected in a manner similar to the
television license fee that many European countries require citizens to
pay, has for some time been part of the wider debate over how to handle
intellectual property in the digital age.
 
What is new, with the events in Sweden and France, is that the idea is
now gaining political momentum.
 
But the global fee concept is highly controversial on both sides of the
piracy debate. The record and film industries have repeatedly said that
legalizing unauthorized file sharing would effectively end copyright
protection as we know it, while a general levy would be both
insufficient and unfair as compensation for the artists. The pro-piracy
forces, on the other hand, complain about how such a system would be
unmanageable and unfair.
 
"This is an idea that they've thrown out there in a panic," said Rickard
Falkvinge, the chairman of Piratpartiet, a pro-file-sharing Swedish
political party that has more than tripled its membership, to 7,000,
since the raid on The Pirate Bay. "It creates more problems than it
solves."
 
The European Commission, which, as part of the Lisbon Agenda of economic
goals, is striving to harmonize European copyright legislation,
wholeheartedly agrees. In a recent consultation document, the commission
warned against the proliferation of levies in recent years.
 
Across Europe, various levies are imposed on blank CD and DVD disks,
hard disks, disk drives, computers, printers and cellphones, among other
things. Additional levies, like one on broadband, would carry "a serious
risk of a backlash" according to the document.
 
Instead, the commission prefers the continued spread of digital rights
management and other content-protection technologies. But the recent
events indicate that momentum for change is building. Besides the Pirate
Bay hullabaloo in Sweden and the debate over levies in France, the past
few weeks have also seen increased attacks on the "walled garden"
digital rights management approach of Apple's popular iTunes music
store. Once again, France has been the vanguard, coming close to passing
a law that would have required Apple to make iTunes songs compatible
with all portable music devices.
 
This week, Norway, Denmark and Sweden followed the French example, with
government consumer protection agencies in the three countries saying
that iTunes breaches Scandinavian consumer laws, and that Apple will
have to lift restrictions on playing music from iTunes on rivals'
devices. On Wednesday, Apple was given an extended deadline, until Aug.
1, to respond to the agencies' accusations.
 
Many experts say that, in the end, an alternative to current copyright
legislation will have to be created, and that a global fee is one likely
solution.
 
"The way it works now, it is a little as if you give the consumer a
lollipop, and then smack them over their heads, saying that they can't
use what they've bought," said Uma Suthersanen, a professor of
international copyright law at Queen Mary, a college at the University
of London. "The industry and the politicians will simply have to sort it
out."
>>