FITUG e.V. Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft

<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/0,3879,145935,00.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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