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[FYI] (Fwd) <nettime> France - Burn the e-books ?




------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Thu, 06 Apr 2000 11:05:35 +0200
From:           	Christine Treguier <lagadu@altern.org>
To:             	nettime-l@bbs.thing.net
Subject:        	<nettime> France - Burn the e-books ?

LIBERTICIDE LAW IN FRANCE

Reminder :
On march 22, the audiovisuel law, including an internet chapter, went
in second lecture before the national assembly. The resulting modified
articles state : ----- Art 43-6-4  : On line services other than
private correspondance,are submitted to an obligation of
identification which can be direct or undirect, wheter they are
published by an individual or a moral personality. The penalty goes
from 6 months jail and 50 000F to the closing of the service and
interdiction of activity for a moral person. Identities have to be
collected by  hosting services or by  third parties. If there are no
ID datas available, the hosting service or third party will be held
responsible, and a 6 months jail and 50 000F penalty will apply. If
the ID datas are false, the author/publisher will be held responsible,
and penalty applied

----Art 43-6-2 : The hosting service are submitted to an obligation to
proceed to the "appropriate diligencies" on any request after a simple
notice. That is to close the "incriminated" pages or suppress the
litigious content. The law says that the judge is ultimately
responsable for declaraing the content licit or illicit. (this point
is very unclear)

Apart from the obvious banning of anonymity for web authors and
publishers, and a severe restriction of freedom of expression on the
web in general, this law turns the hsoting services into police
auxiliaries. The fact that they can legally collect datas that are
submitted to penalties raises questions. The fact that one has to give
his identity before speaking and before there is a proved trouble to
public order is also questionnable.

What's going on now :
After the change of governement, the minister in charge of this law
will be Mr Chritian Paul, already in charge of the consultation for an
information society law based on auto-regulation. A mixed commission
(Senate/assembly) should gather to homogenise the texts before the
vote, which will happen before the end of the parliementary session,
in june this year. Internet associations have published communiques
against this law project. But we have to say there is a poor
consensus, or let's say a majority consensus in favor of a priori
identification. Under the usual arguments "why protect yourself if you
have nothing to hide". All people with juridic competences, in France
AND abroad,  should scrutinize these texts and find out ways to
overcome them.

We are very worried about the situation considering that :
- France is going to take the presidence of the EU commssion and seems
to be eager to take a leader's position on Internet policy - there are
serious cases of liberty infringement in other european countries -
England has proposed the RIP (obligation to give your encryption
keyson request of a judge) and has come with a bad jurisprudence on a
newgroup case. - Belgium, relying on a french jurisprudence of "non
prescription on internet content" obtained in appeal court against
artist JL Costes, tries to condemn supposedly diffamatory words
written in a newsgroup. - USA, which is bound by a strong first
article,  is wanting to install a systematic surveillance system for
all internet traffic and has asked the top ten providers to evaluate
the cost of the necessary infrastructure.

The question is : DO THEY WANT TO BURN THE BOOKS AGAIN, in order to
keep the Net safe and clean for kids, families and e-grocerers ? The
zero-politically-incorrect-content operation seem to have started
worldwide. It is time for insurgency. Unless we all live for Croatan ?


Useful links:

http://www.altern.org
http://www.medialibre.org CPML
http://www.iris.sgdg.org    IRIS
http://www.isoc.fr – ISOC France
http://www.afa-france.com AFA


http://www.senat.fr/seances/s200001/s20000119/sc20000119005.html
texts and debates -19 janvier au Sénat
 http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/2/cra/2000032215.htm#P203_50318
texts and  debates - 22 mars à l’assemblée

discussion on Slashdot
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/03/24/1240210.shtml

French press
www.liberation.com
www.lemonde.fr
www.zdnet.com

write to the gouvernement
http://altern.org/defense/vote/

English affairs
http://www.mmedium.com/cgi-bin/nouvelles.cgi?Id=3428  (français)
http://www.vnunet.com/News/601517  (anglais)
The Observer ( seulement si vous acceptez leur cookie)
http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/observer/business/story/0,3879,145935,0
0.html

Transfert
http://www.transfert.net/revueweb/rev0120.htm
http://www.mmedium.com/cgi-bin/nouvelles.cgi?Id=3428 (français)
http://www.vnunet.com/News/601517 (anglais)

Rip Information Center de la Foundation for Information Policy
Research
http://www.fipr.org/rip/index.html
 http://www.ispa.org.uk

AUTRE AFFAIRE GB :
Diffamation: une société internet accepte de payer 397.000 euros
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/000330/32/aneh.html



AFFAIRE COSTES + BELGIQUE (encore plus grave car ça touche les
newsgroup)

http://costes.org
Références :
Le texte de la décision est disponible sur le site du défendeur :
http://homestead.deja.com/user.le_kgb/files/jugement.htm A lire sur
Juriscom.net : Alexandre Braun, "Prescription des infractions commises
sur Internet: une impunité qui ne dit pas son nom ?", Juriscom.net,
mars 1999, http://www.juriscom.net/espace2/delit.htm Alexandre Braun,
"Les infractions de presse commises sur Internet prennent un caractère
continu", Juriscom.net, janvier 2000,
http://www.juriscom.net/espace2/delit2.htm Sur le site de Sébastien
Canevet (http://www.canevet.com) : L'arrêt de la Cour d'appel de Paris
dans l'affaire Costes : http://www.canevet.com/jurisp/991215.htm

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