Lawmakers Clueless About BitTorrent and P2P
Written by Ernesto on March 21, 2009The entertainment industry managed to convince the French government to draft a law that will make it possible to disconnect people from the Internet, if they receive more than two copyright infringement warnings. Sadly, most of the politicians who plan to sign the law into action have no clue what they’re dealing with.
According to France’s Minister of Culture, Christine Albanel, the effects of illegal file-sharing are disastrous. She claims, based on statistics provided by the music industry, that piracy seriously hurts the economy and hinders cultural development. The public has to be made aware of the harm they are causing, she argues.
In order to clamp down on piracy the French have proposed a new law that requires Internet service providers to cut off Internet access for persistent offenders. Under the new law ISPs have to warn alleged copyright infringers, and if they they ignore these warnings their Internet access is terminated for up to a year.
The public has actively opposed the law, claiming it restricts their freedom and privacy, while deeming the measure to be ineffective. In a recent poll 90% of the people spoke out against the legislation. Despite this protest, the law is backed by a majority in the French parliament and is expected to be adopted quite easily in the beginning of April.
However, do the politicians that will vote on the law have any clue what they are dealing with? Are they aware that the evidence gathering against alleged infringers is far from accurate, and that it’s not unusual for the wrong person to be accused? Or do they even know what BitTorrent is?
In order to test their knowledge on the subject, a reporter from Hebdo Cinéma questioned some of the politicians. They were asked what they thought was a bigger threat – BitTorrent or P2P. The results were quite revealing, and almost none of them could come up with the right answer.
Most politicians have simply no idea what they are talking about, with Herve Mariton commenting “It is beyond my skills, I admit.” Arnaud Montebourg used his trip to Washington as an excuse for not answering the complex question. “Give me a minute, because I am not aware of the details of the last amendments,” he added.
Patrick Ollier on the other hand, didn’t even understand what was said and asked the reporter to repeat the question in French. Maxime Gremetz’ response wasn’t any better, “I don’t know, I am not a technician,” he told the journalist. Interestingly, Georges Tron said that P2P was more of a threat than BitTorrent, although his explanation for it was utterly vague.
Claude Bartolone was the only one who made sense really. “From a technological point of view, I think the consequences would be the same,” he said, adding “From a consumer point of view it’s always more pleasant to listen to whatever you want whenever you want.”
The lack of knowledge demonstrated by these lawmakers signals a major problem. They are clueless about file-sharing technology and how it works, and oblivious to the potential negative consequences of the new law. Their main advisers are fed dubious and one-sided information from the entertainment industry, while the people on the streets seem to be ignored. Sad but true.
P2P vs. BitTorrent? (French)
Previously: Psycho-Thriller ‘Blank’ Premieres For Free on BitTorrent
Next: Poll: Why Do You Use BitTorrent?
104 Responses
lol =’] french is hard =’/
Looks the french surrendered to the entertainment industry.
This is why politics fail.
If this law goes in to effect I would love to see some war drivers sit outside of these politicians houses a couple of nights and get there ISPs to terminate their service.
I bet the law would get changed pretty quick if they found their service was canceled from an action they had no control over. (Other than having an unsecured network.)
Zarbuck, I doubt that these politicians would have the know-how to set up a router, never mind a wireless one.
p2torrents is the larger threat.or was it the other way round?
I can only respond with one word, “idiots”.
all these states and nations trying to ban P2P, cause they’re being fed bullshit from the music and movie industry… and all I can think is ‘only dead fish follow the flow’.
I’m french and just to show how much I love the government, I’m gonna download even more.
Bunch of morons if you ask me.
So is there a way of, say, solving the problem of your Internet connection being cut?
Ah les P2Ps?? Merde.. C’est terriblé..
Viva la BEET TORRENT!
“So is there a way of, say, solving the problem of your Internet connection being cut?”
Go with a different ISP for the year xD
So, as soon as the law is enacted, we start flooding the ISP’s with violation lists, hit everyone we can, over and over again until the entire damn country is banned from the internet.
problem solved?
Yes, there is a way: Stop downloading copyrighted music. And please stop buying it.
@13
i think you have something there… lets do that!
on the other hand i can see a major power shift during the next French elections….
Ha ha ha… Seriously, just imagine your Internet connection is cut after the three warnings. What to do? There must be some hardware and/or software that allows you to keep your connection, or something!
(I’m a newbie, in case you didn’t notice)
“So, as soon as the law is enacted, we start flooding the ISP’s with violation lists, hit everyone we can, over and over again until the entire damn country is banned from the internet.”
Are you kidding? The evidence gathering methods are so totally scattershot, the entire damn country’s going to get banned fom the Internet without anybody even trying.
The day they enact this law, the countdown begins to see how long it takes to be repealed.
I’m betting a month.
Christine Albanel is so fu**ed… she will be booted out of office in a hurry!!
They are clueless precisely because the only one who is informing them are the ones pushing for the laws. An opinion poll is not a protest; only a proper public protest, or something of the like can put it to the attention that it needs. If there is no protest from the people, then the legislation will pass without difficulty.
This is the wonderful world we live in, these “elders” making decisions of NEW Technology they have not a clue about. I like #4’s idea.
just one more reason to not move to france any time soon lol pretty soon it will be a ghost town
keyward
retard
the slowing of mental processes
sounds about right
next one i run into i’m calling him that.
i like 4’s idea too
+1
Wow! 2009 … it seems that we go back to 1944! The next step are a few Konzentrationslager for filesharing people! … mercy.
terrorism sounds better and better everyday….
Haha, the Drench are always the first to give up. :D
LOL, The French are always the first to give up.
I really can’t believe that people made that decision – this is madness and deepest middleage too!!!
fools
Do the politicians really have to know as much about BitTorrent and P2P as we do in order to make legal decisions concerning its use? Is or is not the act of downloading copyrighted material illegal?
P2P => pair-à-pair
bittorrent => torrent des bits
Does the video have an english translation. or is there one with subs.
Maybe they should try the sh!t in germany.. they treat fascism differently these days.
Voice your disaproval, they might reconsider if they see that a large global community is against the bill!
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/nav/index-contact.html
They’re not going to ignore money interests as that’s where the state’s power lies. Money is a principle necessity of the state, so why would they threaten themselves by the entertainment of a notion that threatens to reduce that power?
Prove to them there’s more to be gained as a consequence of allowing than repressing the occurrence of unauthorised file-sharing and they won’t care for the industry’s wants.
P.S. – TorrentFreak, why don’t you quit silently dropping Tor proxied posts, fucking cunts.
I’m from Quebec in Montreal and this is very bad for the french.
They don’t fucking listen to the people! They are politician for the big monster company!
All the way to flood ISP french from my country :)
Watch that even if this is french. Translate to goole.
http://lcn.canoe.ca/lcn/infos/regional/archives/2009/03/20090321-104525.html
It’s not as if France was going to win any war.
“based on statistics provided by the music industry”
That actually made me laugh. I don’t get why the music doesn’t give up. No matter what you do, there will always be piracy and songs being downloaded illegally.
This is funnay certainly – but you don’t have to know what P2P or Bittorrent is to know that you transfer copyrighted files over the internet people. I’m wagering you could ask most people here the difference between TCP and UDP and they’d be equally clueless but still know that these are “used” (in a manner of speaking) to transfer copyrighted materisl).
The law isn’t going after P2P or Bittorrent as technologies, it’s going after the transfer of copyrighted files.
(Waits for accusations of being a **AA troll from *extremely* intelligent 15 year old)
Oh what, so all my responses are going to be moderated now?
http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/
“EPIC FAIL”
“Pirates win in
3
2
1…”
@30
No it is the sharing of files.
The internet was used long ago to trade cooking recipes.
Technology has advanced quite a bit since those days.
Hi All,
Well pity the poor French. The government there tried to keep the Internet a secret from the beginning.
In regard to P2P, Sony set the case.
Most lawmakers are about as dumb as the day is long.
RT
http://www.online-privacy.pro.tc
well, if the French students are against it, they’ll probably do something about it. and the entire country will come grinding to a halt once again.
until Thursday, and their 3-day weekend starts…
Politics fail. I don’t care for the law, I care for justice. :)
@Ernesto
i applaud you for bring up such a negative political issue!!! which is the worst one that the world is dealing with today.. esp the free world!!! not because its bitTorrent but because its about corruption!!!
i dont think Lawmakers care About BitTorrent and P2P its not need…
this is where the biggest ignorance of the general public lies… u think the lawmakers care about you because u vote for them…lol you are wrong!!!
voting for someone doesnt put money in your pocket but it does theirs because now they can get special incentives (from special intrest groups) from your local RIAA to enter new laws in their favor or vote for them as they come up for vote. you as a voter (in the lawmakers eyes)have not done anything for them they owe u nothing!!!
there’s a lot of other internet providers
fuck them
also, if filesharing is so popular, they can’t just disconnect all of them
the internet providers will probably try to find a way not to do it
The French people are not very bright to begin with. And their government officials revealed themselves that they are the world’s most ignorant and stupid when compare to other government from all around the world. Even the poorest countries and the non-industrial nations know a thing or two about P2P.
This will be a very interesting experiment.
I can’t wait to see how the French youth deal with this situation – will it accelerate the development of encrypted file-sharing?
will people share more offline instead of online? After all, you can fit the world’s music in a small usb drive.
Either way, the music industry will go down and probably take France with it.
No big loss I think.
Sadly, most of the politicians who plan to sign the law into action have no clue what they’re dealing with.
i don’t see any problem to that . what most important for those politicians will be , how much money they will be getting from The entertainment industry.
i don’t see what to be sad. The entertainment industry happy = the politicians. who care about peasant
Dumbshit…
hinders cultural development?
so because I am no longer able to search for and find new foreign films and listen to foreign music without a great deal of hassle, I am hindering cultural development…
Ultimately, politics fail because only the voice of corporations with economic power is heard while the voice of Joe the Plumber is ignored. Sad but true.
…Google “French Military victories”
@50,
They mean THEIR cultural development. They don’t like it when you watch and listen something they dont control since they can’t make you pay for it.
this will be “interesting” – EVERYBODY in france downloads pirated media. it’s part of the culture ;-)
So just randomly accuse a french politician of copyright infringement.
If 50 people accuse the same politician of it on the same day, there’s got to be something to it, right?
Make sure it’s of that politicians’ taste in music – with a little luck, there’ll actually be some mp3’s of that music on their PC..
The real worry is that if they can try to bluff their way through this subject, how many other (more) important decisions are being made ‘blind’?
@56
I though Sarkozy had already pirated music for his own party promotion. Do not forgot he is married to that Italian couche toi la, who makes music for.. ( I am not sure who listen to her).. money?
With corrupted friend head of TF1, I am sure it wasn’t difficult to persuade him.
Sarkosy is a (proven)crook and a fascist in the making. Time to get the guillotine back to work again.
Et putain, les francais ne savent toujours pas voter. Pourquoi elire La Creme de la Merde?
As for the one requiring translation of the video, just look for “I don’t understand what your speaking about” in the dictionary.
Zush: “Ha ha ha… Seriously, just imagine your Internet connection is cut after the three warnings. What to do? There must be some hardware and/or software that allows you to keep your connection, or something!”
There’s a few options, some cost money:
1. Get a seedbox (a remote server running a torrent client that you control from home). Torrents are transferred to and from other users from the seedbox meaning your home IP is not in the swarm to be detected – you FTP files to and from the seedbox. Many seedbox providers do not allow their servers to use public trackers due to high detection rates from anti-P2P. They are great to use for private sites as usually (and you should get) transfers are unmetered so you can upload a huge amount and you can add as many torrents as you wish. (cost: variable – $10 – 100s USD)
2. Get a VPN service: this is basically a proxy that encrypts all traffic to and from your computer meaning your home IP is not in the swarm. (cost: variable ?)
Good guides and reviews for seedbox providers and BT friendly VPN can be found at:
http://www.filesharefreak.com
3. Avoid torrents and P2P – or avoid *new* content from torrents as this is more likely to be tracked: avoiding means you cannot be tracked.
Good alternatives are:
-using sites that provide 1-click hoster links (RapidShare, MegaUpload etc.) – you can use JDownloader or Universal Share Downloader + addons to completely automate downloading and not pay. (cost: free or paid)
-using Usenet: most people that get Usenet service never look back and this is my preferred method of downloading files. Usenet has way more content than BT; currently 4,836,738 files (source: Newzbin), has an average of 5TB of files added daily, is always as fast as your connection and files are there as long as your providers retention lasts. (cost: variable – Astraweb: $15 USD, GigaNews $25 USD, both 240 days retention going up by 1 day every day)
Hope that’s helpful.
FTA: “The lack of knowledge demonstrated by these lawmakers signals a major problem. They are clueless about file-sharing technology and how it works, and oblivious to the potential negative consequences of the new law. Their main advisers are fed dubious and one-sided information from the entertainment industry, while the people on the streets seem to be ignored. Sad but true.”
They don’t have to know a damn thing about how filesharing works to know that copyrighted content is transferred – I doubt many here would know much more beyond they connect to other users and find torrents on a tracker. AFAIK, they are not attacking or legislating against any P2P application or protocol but the sharing of copyrighted content.
And it is simply unrealistic – nor does it happen regarding other subjects – to expect politicians to know about the technical details of subjects that they represent. This is what they have specialist advisors for. I doubt the minister for transport could tell you what is the difference between two types of truck engines; however he would still know that a truck transports cargo.
And the question that was posed appears to be a trick question – it’s hardly a fair thing to put to representatives that have little clue in the first place. P2P is BT… it proves little and has little to do with their ability to legislate that copyrighted content should’nt be shared IMO.
Just put of interest, what portfolios do these politicians represent that are mentioned?
Agreed that they are fed dubious infomation by the entertainment industry though – particuarly regarding the harvesting of IP addresses which is a joke.
1/ And in french what does it means?
2/ hum, I am not very technically aware.
3/ Here you are going beyond my knowledge, I have to admit.
4/ I haven’t followed the proceed, I don’ t know the law. (which is a crime in itself hehe)
5/ Give me a break, I haven’t followed the amendment, I have just come back from WASHINGTON, if you excuse me. (prat)
6/ technologically, I believe this is the same, as for the consumer, it is far more agreeable to listen to what either one wants, when one wants.
7/ (p2p v BT) is worst, as in the sense that it is not good to fell in an excess, to be able to correct another excess.
8/(last journalist says: A lots of the deputies, do not seem to know the difference between, streaming, p2p, and BT) HAHA, they receive from their political party and the ministry of culture, cards (documents). If they want them, I will provide them to them.
59 Mar 22, 2009 at 13:15 by _NubCakes_
I love you, mate.
…
If I recall Sarkozy himself has breached copyright, and tried to fob off the independent studio by a token €1 settlement.
Someone report him to be disconnected.
Lol what a bunch of retarted politicians! They dont know what theyre voting for??
“Sir, you have recently voted for the application of the new anti piracy law, do you know what it prevents?”
“Yes, it prevents media industry to loose more money”
“Of course, but can you explain what it is this all about?”
“I cant explain it now, i have to go home cause i think the W bush movie has finished downloading, i cant wait to see it”
“Download? have you payed for it?”
“Not at all, i download them all for free, why?”
“Sir, the law that you voted for, forbiddens that…”
“mon dieu… what have i done?”
This article is dumb, like the other one about Sarkozy and MGMT (it was a website from his party, not himself). There is so much to say about this Hadopi law in France, you can read http://www.pcinpact.com or http://www.laquadrature.net but torrentfreak is just too dumb to put a good article. And worst, the comments insulting France, about his military past are so dumb, you are just showing your non culture, and how Bush’s government manipulated US masses against France interest to make you accept the war in Iraq.
@40 troll lolol xD
im sorry guys im an idiot and cant help myself. i love lawmakers because i love my daddy
héhéhé, the article is right on the current situation, the little video si just funny and irrelevant because it asks the questions to the lawmakers that are NOT involved in the current law debate, but as a french who knows those clowns its just a must fun. The current people involved in the debate are actually much more aware of the subject (except for the minister herself ><)
The article don’t cover other ideas of the governement, that the bunch of french-racist people down here will appreciate even more :
- If it happens that your connection is suspended you are then blacklisted and unable to change your ISP to another, and (take a breathe) you’re forced to pay the ISP for a service you no longer have ! yes !
- Next big problem with the public wifi access that can be used to copy copyrighted content. “Well easy” said the ministre (Albanel) we make a whitelist of websites acceptable from public hotspot. Allrrriight !
- And the biggest : the whole process of warnings (two) to disconnection is managed without justice representatives, and the alleged infringer is found guilty by default and as to PROVE IS INNOCENCE. Which is the opposite of a normal justice case in france.
Just to say that what happens here is worst than what covered the article, to those willing to have a clue of what they cook, check http://www.laquadrature.net
Frenchs != French governement
meh.. just find some open wi-fi networks and start getting hotels, cafes, libraries, and even government offices banned.
The Milestones of Mayhem!
Scientists and technology experts should run the world not politicians.
If they really realize that: this is a large step back for humamity and rights …
Naaaaabs. And I elected them …
I think it’s time for bittorrent to evolve with some damn good encryption.
As for the french, proove that you are men, not sheep, and stand up for your rights.
Don’t worry, this is France we’re talking about. There will probably be some violent actions to oppose this law, like they always do in France. They will put some cars on fire, raid the police and throw rocks and then the government will drop this silly law =)
It would be really nice if this had subtitles… can someone translate this for us?
just disasterous , ya like poor people barely able to afford a net connection getting some joy and such out of liife
that they would NOT be buying your crap anyways has nohting to do with it we need htese parasites off the net so that we can raise pricing agan and go back to selling crappy vinyl records
YES the future is NOW and were going to WRECK YOOURS int he process THE hell with mankind and civil progress
SCREW YOU ALL
/sarcasm
yes lets take all the disabled poor suckers off the net so we can have the rich people who can get away with it cause they paid with there blood
Wait. Isn’t BT P2P?
This law won’t help the entertainment industry but it’s going to cost the Ministry of Justice a fortune !
use rapidshare or usenet and zultrax o rshare anonymous p2p.
It’s not only the bankers trying to protect their income. The French president’s wife is the singer Carla Bruni so her royalties are in jeopardy also.
Royalties have special significance for someone aspiring to even greater heights, especially when they’ve gone as far as they can go…
This is why I like Pirate Bay so much. Even in the US, it feels like they are the only ones that actually try to defend bit torrent. Sure at random times, the crowd of us that specifically follows this stuff hears about polls, etc that make a point against the RIAA. But for the most part its a one sided attack against bit torrent, with nobody able to make counter arguements.
“Their main advisers are fed dubious and one-sided information from the entertainment industry, while the people on the streets seem to be ignored. Sad but true.”
Illuminating article, thanks. Is this really a surprise though? As the function of lobbyist is to spew propaganda and make it sound convincing.
U.S VERY GREEDY nowaday and the WORLD ALSO!!!
i pray the god to destroy mankind while it still can save!!!
If not we will destroy ourself sooner or later because of Greed and so on!!!
«C’est la même chose !» (“It’s the same thing!”)
If the programme makers can’t even get it right, why are the politicians supposed to? It’s like asking which are more entertaining, movies or DVDs? The DVD is a concrete example of movie distribution. BitTorrent is a concrete example of P2P.
Don’t flame me, I’m as pro-P2P as the next poster on here. But, the first rule of pedantry is to make sure you yourself are right.
Yeah well, that’s hardly surprising, I might be biased because I’m french but I often think the french politicians are among the worst morons in the world…
Time to get independent of ISPs all together.
Time for large-scale mesh networks for filesharing. That’ll be quite impossible to stop.
f*ck the french!
It appears that the U.S government is giving in to entertainment industry as well according to the article reporting on CNet.com. What the hell is wrong with all the stupid ass politicians? They are supposed to represent the people from their district. Fuck all the Governments!!!
I say we wait for the law to be passed, get a list of those who voted for it and start making allegations. Maybe a year without internet will force these people to read up on what they vote for next time. After all, a well thought out system like this could *never* be abused.
they are clueless about anything. period. :)
Bittorrent is an example of P2P. Maybe it could be described peers-to-peers.
@96: All of them? Like, you want to end up in some ‘funny sex disasters’ documentary on Discovery? I can see the header… ‘Anonymous dead from overfucking in France’?
@97: Fuck governments… Umm, sorry, I think I’d rater hit something random from the TPB ads than stick it in a fat, hairy politick butt.
You could always try to Get Rich Quick and then Rule The Country In Question? Cause sticking your penis into things rarely helps anything…
And today the Entertainment Industry took over Poland in a combination of Air and Land assault. The polish had their politicians set up to defend the attack, but they were ill equipped to handle the Entertainment Industry onslaught, trying to fight movie & music executive limos and planes when they were on horseback.
@2 nice one covered my screen in beer when i read that one.
at least the ministers at the start admitted they knew nothing
I call epic fail.
There should be some intelligence check to make sure these people actually KNOW about the subject they’re passing a law on before they can do so.
Then the world would make just a little more sense
Vive la France!
You’ve to know that in France, for a few years, people pay taxes to the SACEM (or something like that) when they buy hard disc, usb-key, blank cd and dvd… The SACEM is an ornagnism which is charged to collect money for the artists like the ASCAP.
In a certain way, they allow people to save music, movies,… on taxed products and then accused them for downloading files. Strange, not?
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