James Delahunty
4 Feb 2005 21:53
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has said it was very pleased with the French ruling earlier this week that forced a French school teacher to pay €10,200 for sharing music on P2P networks. The man was accused of making 30GB of illegal MP3 files available for download, which they some how translate into 10,000 songs or 614 albums. The man also was forced to cover the costs of publishing the judgement in two French broadsheets, Liberation and Le Parisien.
However, while all this was going on a group of French artists, politicians and intellects made their opposition to these lawsuits known. The campaign is the first in it's kind in Europe to unite artists and consumers against recording industry action. "We denounce this repressive and disproportionate policy, whose victims are just a few scapegoats," said signatories of the campaign, led by weekly Le Nouvel Observateur in its edition published Thursday. "Like at least 8 million other French people, we also have downloaded music online and are also potential criminals," the open letter said. "We demand a stop to these ridiculous legal pursuits."
Manu Chao, Matthieu Chedid (M) and Yann Tiersen, score composer for the hit French film "Amelie" were among the famous artists to sign the campaign that has been given the title, "Free up music!". In addition, more than 8,000 people had signed into the campaign online by 8pm on Thursday. Well-known Green Party and Socialist Party lawmakers and French anti-globalisation protester Jose Bove were among other French personalities who had joined the campaign, the magazine said. French Industry Minister Patrick Devedjian said he agreed that "every campaign of blind and brutal repression is not only ineffective, but harms all people concerned."
Sources:
MSN Australia
P2PNet