France: Parliament vs. Government
Seems like the parliament and the government of France have a contrary position about intellectual monopoly rights.
While the government want to introduce an implementation of the EUCD which could even ban Free Software. The French Parliament has voted last night to allow free sharing of music and movies on the Internet. Heise has published a good summary in German.
The amandment states “authors cannot forbid the reproduction of works that are made on any format from an online communications service when they are intended to be used privately”
I think this is a decision into the right direction. The freedom to share music and movies (non-commercial), which is a part of our all culture, is the absolute minimum of freedom everyone should have.
But i think the French government will use their power to overturn the amendment already because it was approved with only 30 to 28 votes while there are 577 members of the parliament.
Let’s see what will happen.