[Ultra Sonic 007]

Here's a more detailed article.

Those silly French.

[A. Pole]

Friday November 18th, 2005, French Department of Culture. SNEP and SCPP have told Free Software authors: "You will be required to change your licenses." SACEM add: "You shall stop publishing free software," and warn they are ready "to sue free software authors who will keep on publishing source code" should the "VU/SACEM/BSA/FA Contents Department"[1] bill proposal pass in the Parliament.

Is it from The Onion?

[strategofr]

I can't say that I disagree with the first part. I believe, the authors and creators of materials should be compensated for their use.

"Update: The French Department of Culture has also threatened to ban Free/Open Source Software:"

This is a separate issue and quite ridiculous. I guess it does fit in with the French mentality, because big software companies are threatened by open-source software, and France is always going to side with a big companies in that situation.

[fat city]

Of course, this will all be undone when the UN takes control of the internet in the name of "Global Freedom". /sarc

[Ultra Sonic 007]

'Those crazy French' ping.

[mmercier]

France should be teaching their domestic population Farsi rather than worrying about controlling merchandise that will be totally unavailable there in five years.

[Appalled but Not Surprised]

that does not integrate both a watermark and DRM >>>

Die roll modifier? So I can't own the software unless I can add +5 to every die roll or saving throw?

[snowsislander]

* A prohibition on all software that permits transmission [disposition is unclear without greater context] of copyrighted material that does not integrate both a watermark and DRM

It's going to be kind of hard to run all those computers without an operating system. :-)

[springfieldillinoishunk]

Isn't Australia the same as the French with copyright?

[atomicpossum]

Cool. Nice of the Frenchies to tie their hands competitively. Now we just need to get the whores in Congress out of the pockets of the big media interests who have bought them body and soul to produce their version of copyright law here.

[MediaAnalyst]

Interesting. What the MSM doesn't mention is how this will affect Americans who travel to the Republic of France (or the Islamic Republic of France, beginning in 2030, or so). Will having unregulated software in a laptop, digital camera, phone, memory stick, etc. be treated the same as smuggling narcotics, and, in this case, get a bunch of unsuspecting Americans thrown in jail?

[CORedneck]

Well damn !!! I cannot take my iBook that runs Linux that also has DVD playback software known as Ogle into France. No region code and no macrovision BS. Oh, I can also skip the mandatory commercial ads as well.

[Cheburashka]

If this actually happens, my predictions are:

1) Linus Torvalds will declare war on France, and

2) France will be the first country to surrender to a software engineer.