...and like Noah, the mythical ancient god of selective breeding, we can learn to ride the swell, wait for the ebb, and build a new and better world at the new high water mark, or we can choose to struggle impotently against the rising tide until we are crushed and drowned beneath a cascade of torrents.

'Ware the skepticism of the unicorn and the hubris of the brontosaurus. Neither beauty nor might will save you. The vision to see the oncoming flood and the industry to keep yourself afloat before it will mark the intelligently designed progenitors of the new digital age. The blind will be lost to myth, and legend, and faulty archeological dating practices. It has always been thus - since the world began, five thousand long years ago.

So fill your ark(ive) with two of every artistic temperament. The furry, the flighty, and the fishy smelling. The slothy, the shrieky, and the rage-filled poo flingers. Bring every down and out busker and overrated teen-diva you can, and join us in a wonderful new future!

I think banning the Internet in France is a GREAT idea!

Firewall them at the border. That should work.

Thanks, France, I needed the laugh!

This is the equivalent of a bank thats been robbed, suing Ford ford making the transit van. Because transit vans are commonly used for theft, and the transportation of stolen goods....

GET A GRIP YOU MUPPETS.

Sourceforge has in NO WAY been responsible for the infringement of any record labels copyright.

Where did they get these lawyers from, "IP Law for dummies...."

Like Kentucky, just cut France and her dominions off the Intertubes!

Walla!

"TorrentFreaks, which flagged the story, notes enforcing a ban on platforms that can be used to distribute unauthorized content is certainly ripe for abuse."

and reporting a story about security officials leaving laptops on trains wouldn't be authorised, would it, so that would mean any newspaper ......... oh, sorry - was that the sort of platform you meant that people should distribute stuff on - the ones at Vauxhall and Waterloo?

Shouldn't it be possible to sue the labels themselves for selling CDs that can be copied easily? Aren't they supposed to provide "a way to block the transfer of unauthorized copyright works"?

PH, because the lawmakers were obviously clueless

You can add Windows File and Printer Sharing, TCP/IP, and the whole Microsoft Windows Networking architecture to that list. Only solution - ban Windows. Er, Linux and MacOS have similar architectures as well. Ban them too. Oh, and modems and routers - these definitely facilitate copyright infringement. Yeah, ban the Internet AND all other forms of computer networking, that'll stop those pesky freetards!

Wait... Floppy disks, CD-Rs and DVD-Rs can also be used to copy stuff. So can USB sticks and external HDDs. Better ban those too, just in case.

Maybe France should simply ban computers and be done with it!

But I can't get real mad at it today for some reason. Best I can come up with is that going after P2P because it can be potentially used for doing something illegal means that you should also go after sellers of guns, knives (kitchen or other), pencils, large rocks, razors... hell, anything, as they can potentially be used as a murderous weapon.

I think the best part of this story is LimeWire and Morpheus. Has anyone used those particular programs since... 2005 or so?

I really don't get this, why are they always going after the wrong target? why don't they simply order all ISPs to block the servers that participate in illegal music/movie/software distribution?

P2P is legal and is going to be the future method of distribution movies, software and patches.

any way, I stopped caring sometime ago.

down with the bourgeois interweb

Blacklist all french ip adresses from accessing any opensource projects. Permanently.

Good job that ban worked too, or there would be no music left to pirate now.

Still, if they do decide to ban the internet I do still have a cassette recorder attached to my radio.

If only I had some cassettes...

As they ban all postal services (could carry pirated disks), transport (ditto), destroy all roads ( whose main purpose is to carry aforementioned transport), including railway lines and airport runways.

Not forgetting to smash all radios (pirate radio stations).

At least then we will not have to cope with their smelly armpits!!!

...will France then sue the French postal system?

Paris because, well, even she'd realise this is a dumb piece of litigation.

I'm sick to death of the theives that refuse to pay for music.

If you like the music, stick your hand in your pocket and get some money to the guys who made it - all the way down the chain to the musos who performed. Otherwise wait for it to come on the radio - or don't listen to it. But don't come up with feeble excuses for stealing, like justifying it on record companies' over pricing (even if it's true)....

As for the law suit - well it's frivolous, stupid - BUT WILL COST THE OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY A LOT OF CASH DEFENDING IT..... So now the open source community as well as the musicians and other workers in the music industry has to pay to support or defend the mentality of the many undesireable members of our community.

So I'd like to ask - how many music and video file sharers will stick thier hands in their pockets and hand over cash to defend Source Forge????????? Do I detect a deafening silence, broken only by the same lame putrid excuses for theft? Thought so.

Thumbs down for the court case and the theives.

...as they can be used to share anything if your computer happens to be running, well, any version of Unix from the late 1960's onwards. Hang on, I could create a low quality MP3 on a BBC Micro and share it as a data tape to other BBC Micro owners. Or a stack of punched cards. Or a reel of punched paper tape.

Or why not just burn a CD copy? Time to ban CDs then. Take away people's cars as they can drive to a friend's house with a copy, and while you are at it chop their legs off for good measure because they could walk round instead.

Two of France's biggest telecom operators, Orange & SFR, are pushing FTTH throughout Paris.

Not the Paris on the picture, the other one, the city, and no, it's not in Texas.

I should know, starting from Thursday, I'll be "banned from using the internet" with a 100M download and 50M upload FTTH connection.

so sue my ears and my mouth.

P2P is only a tool, it's the use of the tool which may _potentially_ be illegal, not the tool itself.

What silly people and obviously a quiet day in France.

ttfn

PH 'cos Paris is in France.

"As they ban all postal services (could carry pirated disks), transport (ditto), destroy all roads ( whose main purpose is to carry aforementioned transport), including railway lines and airport runways."

Done, La Poste where I leave is only delivering 70% of the letters at the right address. Railways is done also, crushed with weekly strikes (like this week). Air traffic, done also on strike, this week. Roads are on the way, all toll highways sold for half their prices to greedy companies that are raising prices 10% per year, making it flying less expensive than the toll only.

"Not forgetting to smash all radios (pirate radio stations)."

On its way, all medias nowadays belong to 3 blokes, so competition is not happening.

If they begin to screw internet, I'll leave the country.

WTF? Please stop your knee from jerking in future and read befor posting. I think you will find that Mr AC was using part of our collective folk history to make a poetic point.

France is the country that has (had?) a law which *forces* radio stations to play French music. To "protect" their Gallic culture, they are obliged to broadcast a certain percentage of indigenous music.You'd think they'd be begging people to listen to the stuff for free, not sue them!

p.s - the only french artiste I like is Olivia Ruiz (got the CDs). Nolwenn was *hot*, but her post-Star Ac stuff has been pants.

Paris, cos being inside that version would be infinitely more fun than Département 45.

It can be used to redistirbute unauthorised copies of copyrighted work.

Much better idea is we invade France for once. This has many more benefits over and above the Interweb at large. We can then give them our sensible laws... like the one that says backing up your music collection is STILL illegal. I wonder if our French cousins would find that a refreshing and liberating law like we do?

I currently live in France, and have found the perfect solution. I have simply purchased a disused radio telescope, hooked it up to my wifi card with a couple of alligator clips, and connected to my parent's wifi network in Victoria, British Columbia. Ahhhh Canada, my home and native land, where downloading is legal, but "making available" is not.

I'm currently selling bootleg cds of music for 1 euro less than the price in the shops, and predict retiring to Aruba by mid-2009.

Aliens, because, well, I pick up their wireless networks too...

Yam! Bam! mon chat Splash

Git sur mon lit a bouffe

sa langue en buvant tout mon whisky

quant a moi peu dormi, vide, brime

J'ai du dormir dans la gouttiere

Ou j'ai eu un flash *

Oooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!

En quatre couleurs *"

Allez hop! un matin

Une louloute est venue chez-moi

Poupee de cellophane, cheveux chinois

un sparadrap, une gueule de bois

a bu ma biere dans un grand verre en caoutchouc

Oooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!

Comme un indien dans son igloo

I recommend that the remedial action taken to solve this issue is the blocking of the entire of Frances' IP range from all SourceForge websites to prevent the French from downloading the application. Anybody from France found using proxies or alternative routing services to access SourceForge websites is obviously accessing computer systems illegally, and should be extradited to the US for prosecution.

I somehow think that a lot of pressure will be put on the Government when the Techs at the major ISPs can't update their SNMP traps and reliability becomes one 9, not 3. See the flock leave the shepherd.