Hi, I don't know if you're aware of the recent adoption in the First Chamber of a worrisome amendment about distribution of (at least) P2P clients. This was inserted in a transposition of the EUCD directive : http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/lex/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32001L0029:EN:HTML [1]
I'll try to outline the amendment below, but keep in mind that IANAL, and I am not in any way certified to translate legal text. Here is the offending bit (Article 12 bis) : « Sanctions up to 300 000 € and three year imprisonment shall be required in the following cases : 1° To willingly edit, distribute to the public, or inform the public about, in any form, a device[2] whose obvious purpose is to permit unauthorized distribution of protected works 2° To willingly, also through advertising, incite to use of software[3] mentioned in 1° These provisions are not applicable to software destined to be used for collaborative work, for research purposes, or for exchange of files which are not subjected to copyright-resulting[4] remuneration. » For french-speaking readers, the draft[5] is here : http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/dossiers/ta-report/droit_auteur.pdf Now, since Debian distributes many P2P clients in main, I fear this could become problematic -- are those to be considered as a device as mentioned in 1°, or as software used for exchange of unprotected files as defined in the second paragraph ? If courts were to go for the first interpretation, my opinion is that french Debian (and other distributions) mirrors could be endangered. Simon [1] Note that this is only the directive, local transpositions may be much more restrictive [2] The French "dispositif" has a broader sense than the English "device", meaning not only physical devices, but also immaterial ones, such as software -- that's my understanding. [3] Note that 2° says "logiciel" (software), where 1° says "dispositif" [4] "droits d'auteur" in french law is more than simple copyright, but as far as remuneration is concerned, I think the meaning is preserved. [5] This draft still has to pass through the second chamber before becoming applicable law -- there is however little chance that this article will be removed. -- Simon Vallet http://www.castalie.org/pubkey.txt Due to massive spam, the address shown in the From: header only accepts mail from Debian hosts. If you wish to mail me personally, just use the 'user' local part.
