If somebody uses your internets to download copyrighted material, YOU are blamed, not the hacker / friend / child of yours. The connection's owner is the one who's blamed for not securing their internets. That's the beauty. Oh, it is also interesting to know that the email / mail you will get will never mention what files you are accused of having downloaded. It's a bit like automatic speeding radars, but you don't know how fast you were going.

Encrypted VPNs are getting very, very successful thanks to HADOPI. Perfect demonstration of how a law can lead people to giving money to russian mafia I guess ;-)

For the record, I think there are about 21 million DSL internet connections in france, more or less.

No need to remind me about it, as far as I'm concerned. Even though this clearly wasn't my vote...

Amen to that.

This article deserves some more details.

TMG, the company tracking P2P downloaders, has so far requested the identification of 800 IP addresses, not 10K yet. You should be amused to know that one of our ISPs has sent the names by fax on a piece of paper, since they have no obligation to send an electronic version.

On a global scale, things aren't as bright as the government says. What is actually condemned by HADOPI isn't downloading copyrighted material; the process they were looking wasn't accepted with such an approach. Instead, they will condemn the lack of security on people's internet connections. Of course, no proper way to secure your internet access exists yet, but a call for offer has been published month ago, asking for software projects. These security apps will basically monitor "illegal" downloads, and keep them in a secure logfile the user shouldn't be able to temper with. We are still waiting.

About the identification process cost, it has been decided that nobody would pay for it. Except us customers of course. The cost for such an ID is evaluated to 7 to 10 euros.

This whole thing basically is a very, very big mess, and most of us think that this can't really work, and that the ultimate goal is to implement DPI at ISP level in order to completely block illegal downloads.

Since it hasn't been mentioned, I think it's worth highlighting the fact that ShapeWriter is currently free and available on the android market, with features similar to those of Swype. As far as I'm concerned, it has really changed the way I use my android phone's keyboard (HTC Desire).

It comes as a surprise to me that some would conclude apple doesn't want flash because of videos... It doesn't happen much, but flash & videos is one of the few areas where I agree on the long term: flash has brought us http video streaming, but it has now been accepted as a mandatory feature, and HTML5 will make it available without flash, and will let us benefit from HW decoding. Flash for videos is dying, imho.

Now, as many have said, it is about apps and games. It is very easy to implement any kind of app or game using flash, and there are tons of skill developers around. If flash was available on iPhone, it would just mean less iBucks for apple, and that is not gonna happen.

Well, I wish you guys good luck with this.

We have done our best in EU to fight against france three-strikes law, but it ended up voted anyway, despite a VERY strong opposition. We are now waiting to see how it will be applied, since nothing concrete was published yet, except a few names and theories...

Our best hopes is that internet users have always been one step ahead of control powers, and this will end up a technical joke. But on the other hand, our worst fear is that another law voted a few days ago also allows for network filtering, officially against terrorism and child pornography, but isn't closed to any other reason. And we all know that fighting file sharing is at least as important (financially) as fighting terrorism...

As I think I've said earlier or later in these comments, I also do not agree to the current copyright laws. Ever since it has been possible to copy music to tapes, the absurdity has been visible. This can not be assimilated to counterfeit, as quality and product ARE equivalent to the copied one, unlike manufacted goods.

But what the majority wants still isn't reason enough to allow any kind of behaviour. Let's face the truth, what the majority wants is very commonly driven by selfish motives (like speed limits).

We do need copyrights of some kind, as everyone should be rewarded when his work is used in any way. But we also do consume so much more medias than we used to, and this volume doesn't imply more work from artists than it used to. A few years ago, having thousands of hours worth of music in your pocket or backpack was... hardly imaginable (or would have required a bloody large pocket). Global fundings of different types have been proposed many times, but were systematically rejected by the right wing, who argued it wouldn't be fair, and we couldn't measure in a realistic and effective way who should get what, and that those who don't use digital media would pay for nothing. Which is exactly what is happening these days for TV here, as you pay a yearly contribution (100 bucks or so) as soon as you own a TV set.

But I refuse to place books on the same level as that. Maybe I'm more attached to the book physical object than I am to CDs or DVDs.

Whatever happens, we can't just say "screw copyright, I'll read/listen/watch for free whatever I want". It does not work that way. When you do believe in proper democracy _ which would be the one you described, people driven, you try to change things, not decide how it should work and establish your private law. For instance, create a legal music streaming website that demonstrates how advertising alone can help provide everyone with a fair way of listening to music without spending fortunes while paying a fair amount to the artists (artists or majors, this still has to be changed, but at least it's getting better).

Thank you for that, this was really insightful.

It is a fact that our system doesn't really promote usage of foreign languages. I do work with an international company, and have mostly worked with french customers/partners. The simple fact of providing training materials in english is often badly accepted. But it seems to be getting better.

One of the reasons why most french people's english is at best mediocre is that you can perfectly live your whole life without having to speak or maybe even read a simple word of english. We get all movies & tv shows dubbed, books translated. Even foreign words / sentences in TV ads are required by law to be translated. But this is slowly changing. Our educational system is slowly being changed to introduce language courses for young kids, our since earlier this year, a dozen TV channel offer the option to watch movies & tv shows in subtitled original version.

Weird, they showed up first when googling for editions du seuil or editions du seuil publishing, and 4th with editions du seuil publishing house (which, you'll have to admit, is a very unlikely search).

Hmmm... masochist ? Suicidal ?

New poster, yes. Definitely not a new reader.

I told myself this topic would be a good opportunity to see the kind of reactions such a post, made with an open-mind, would get as replies.

Care to elaborate ? That was a tad empty.