French President Busted For Copyright Violation

An anonymous reader writes "ZeroPaid has an interesting take on the story of Nicolas Sarkozy being accused of copyright infringement. The irony, of course, is Sarkozy's pushing of a 3-strikes law — disconnecting from the Internet those accused of file sharing — in France and across the EU. The French president had apparently offered to settle the copyright infringement accusation for one Euro, but the band rejected the offer, calling it an insult. The article notes that each year since 2006, a high-profile anti-piracy entity has been on the wrong end of a copyright infringement notice. In 2008, Sony BMG was sued for software piracy. In 2007, anti-piracy outfit BASCAP received a cease and desist order related to pirated software. And in 2006, the MPAA was accused of pirating 'This Film is Not Yet Rated'."

Re:The band in question

[bedonnant]

Also, for information, the 3-strikes law will be discussed next week, and implies juicy stuff like "guilty until proven innocent" and "you can only prove innocent if you have installed official government trojan horses on your computer" and "these malware have no requirement of interoperability, which hurts the choice of costumers (!)". Citizens and bloggers (such as myself) following the Quadrature du Net association are calling for a "blackout" (link in French, sorry) [laquadrature.net] of the French side of the internet in protest.

He's not directly involved

[Anonymous Coward]

The french president Nicolas Sarkozy is not directly sued for this copyright infringement. His own party (UMP) used the song during a meeting, and didn't reported it to the french RIAA (SACEM) for artist compensation, wich generally is pretty low.

The UMP party is sued for this, but not the french president, who was not in charge for the organization of this meeting, and has presidential immunity.

But's that's pretty funny anyway.

Re:The band in question

[thoughtfulbloke]

New Zealand, the government has put the law on hold pending agreement between rights holders groups and internet groups on the law's implementation. If no agreement the law will be suspended (whatever that means). NZ Herald news link [nzherald.co.nz]

Re:Smart move

[Translation Error]

The song was used multiple times for his party's political campaign when the license purchased didn't allow that. From the much more informative article [www.cbc.ca] linked in the article, it sounds like they were permitted to use it once but then went on to use it multiple times and, additionally, put it on the internet. Then, rather than paying the difference for such use, the party offered €1. I can't imagine why the band wasn't amused...

In short, this wasn't a case of Joe User downloading a song; it was unauthorized commercial use.

The title is inappropriate

[French31]

I know Nicolas Sarkozy being an omnipresent president and all, but it's not like he personally chose the song, right? It's actually some people among his political party (the UMP) that decided to play the song in two meetings.

Otherwise, the result is the same: the political party from which Nicolas Sarkozy is has been busted for copyright infringement. It's a further proof that copyright laws are being way too tentacular. Can't they just see it?

Re:Smart move

[Skuldo]

Something similar that made me laugh:

For most of its history, the band chose to stay away from the political realm. However, in 2004, upon learning that George W. Bush's presidential campaign was using "Times Like These" at rallies, Grohl decided to lend his public support to John Kerry's campaign. Grohl attended several Kerry rallies and occasionally performed solo acoustic sets. The entire band eventually joined Grohl for a performance in Arizona coinciding with one of the presidential debates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_Fighters#One_by_One_.282001-2004.29 [wikipedia.org]

Presumed innocent?

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

Well, as I understand it, that is one of the guiding principles of French law. The burden of proof is on the accused.

Well, you got that wrong then. It were the French that introduced the concept of presumption of innocence in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen [wikipedia.org] and later structured the way laws are written down in the Napoleonic Code [wikipedia.org]

Of course, The Enlightenment was the source for these ideals as well as the inspiration for the the US Declaration of Independence and the constitution...

This had a major influence on European law making since Napoleon occupied most of it...

Re:The title is inappropriate

[Aladrin]

It wasn't just played in 2 meetings.

"The party has admitted to using the popular track, Kids, at its national congress in January, in two online videos and in political advertisements. " - From the link inside TFA. (TFA is more of a blog post than an article.)

But the ire at Sarkozy isn't from the playing of the song and violating the agreement, it's at him trying to offer 1 euro to buy his way out of breaking the law he wrote.

Re:Smart move

[Runaway1956]

You're comparing an independent group with the average dummy who signs a contract with a major label. Unlike those who sign on the dotted line, independents OWN their music. They can charge as much or as little as they like, because they haven't sold their souls to the devil.

Naboleon

[Nicolas MONNET]

Sarkozy compares himself to Obama a lot. It's beyond ridiculous. Especially considering the fact that he LOVED Bush, and that he is about as inspiring as him in his speeches. His vocabulary is ~1000 words at most. He's hit quickly hit 35% popularity (although he's bounced back up a bit).

Re:FUCK ARTISTS

[agnosticnixie]

Okay, before my hearing got out of control, I was a musician: here's a big secret, the model that you're defending is one wher 1% of musicians are doing 99% of the music, and 1% of that 1% is a bunch of overpaid pretty faces overlording over underpaid musicians. The recording industry as it works now is the worst enemy of the artists, so fuck you. The real income for music is, AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN, live performance. If the corps had their way, half the music in the world wouldn't exist today because it's derivative work (hell, italian composers ripped off heartily from each other) or because there's blatant tributes.

Re:The band in question

[fizzup]

You are misinformed. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, adopted in 1789 and part of the French constitution, explicitly enumerates the presumption of innocence. There is no official English translation of it, and slashdot does not do accents correctly. The original text is here [justice.gouv.fr]. Article 9 is the one for you.

In English that means, "Everyone is presumed innocent until they have been declared guilty, if it is deemed essential to arrest, all onerous treatment that is not necessary to hold that person must be severely circumscribed by law."

Many democracies have similar explicit constitutional guarantees of this right. Curiously, not the USA: it was read into the constitution by the Supreme Court in Coffin v. United States [wikipedia.org] . Damnable activist judges!