VSO Products to be banished...

[lacywest]

VSO Products to be banished...

December 07, 2005

Webpage Link >> http://www.vso-software.fr/

The French government is about to pass a bill known as the DADVSI (Droits d'Auteur et Droits Voisins dans la Société de l'Information n°1206) prohibiting everything that could be considered as a tool or a solution to bypassing protections or read copyrighted formats. VSO Products may be banished as well as P2P clients, instant messaging, emails, internet servers using GNU licensing, and free software including the most popular media players.

Today, French citizens may no longer be able to make a safe backup of their purchased CDs, Movies, Games, etc. or use a software/hardware reader of their choice. Tomorrow, other countries may use this law as a model.

“In addition to killing off the right to private copying while keeping the fees associated to it, according to the DADVSI bill, the simple act of using software to read a DVD that is not authorized by the DVD editor could lead up to a 3-year jail sentence and a 300 000 Euros fine.”
http://eucd.info/index.php?2005/12/04/202-dadvsi-what-s-the-trouble

Invasion of your privacy is also in this law... all the French ISPs will be forced to install a global filter system to prevent any P2P activity and check all email attachments. This will be by far the most restrictive copyright law ever in the world, turning legal users into criminals by the millions.

Please join VSO Software defending your rights to a choice , take a minute to sign the petition.

Go to http://eucd.info/
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This is a bummer ... I like their programs

CopyToDVD - General purpose burning sofware ... good for Dual layer DVDs

Convert DivXToDVD - Your videos on a DVD ... great for converting my Divx/Xvid movies to DVD

BlindWrite - Data, Games, Audio CD/DVD Copy ... I use to use it alot

[CBC]

The French are a strange people...


http://tinyurl.com/am4be

[dvdguy4]

The French are a strange people...


http://tinyurl.com/am4be

You can say that again.

[thecoalman]

internet servers using GNU licensing,

That could probably have the broadest impact of all. Apache is used on 70% of the servers worldwide. I'd imagine an equal percentage are using PHP and MySql as well which are all free. Apache isn't specifically released under the GNU license but a quick glimpse of the diocumentation states it's GNU GPL compatible.

This could have a significant impact on thier economy in a bad way, at least as far as ecommerce or any other small business that relies on the internet for business. I compared plans from the place I purchase my hosting, just for example the $10 Unix/Apache plan is fare better than even the $40 Windows plan.... You can bet the windows plan would be far more if it didn't have to compete against Apache. They beter think long and hard before doing anything like the legislation they propose. I don't see how it's going to do anything but hurt they're econ0omy in the end.

[RottenFoxBreath]

well yeh seems strange,seeing as they have just "legalised" downloading music and video as long as its for private use.

[adam]

Well none of this is finalized yet for one thing. Both the legislation relating to VSO software and the legislation regarding legalizing P2P are amendments to the bill. They haven't even been added to the bill yet, and of course the bill itself could still not pass. The whole DADVSI bill is a document in flux.

But more importantly, the article linked to is flat out wrong and shows a clear ignorance of the language of the DADVSI. This is why you have to read the language of the law yourself and not some idiot's blog.

VSO software, P2P, burning software, etc... are NOT prohibited under the DADVSI. The part of the actual bill (existing bill, not part of any proposed amendment) requires that such software include mandatory DRM. Now this is certainly still a good reason to not support this bill but nevertheless all of the abovementioned software may still be manufactured and distributed in France under the DADVSI so long as it contains the required DRM.

Now what the blog is referring to is a proposed amendment to the DADVSI which outlaws opensource software. This means that existing open source software will have to update its licenses and stop distributing source code along with the software. The reason is because if its open source then there is no way to enforce the DRM requirements. With the source available, anyone could just remove the DRM and distribute a clean version, and for that matter open source software typically takes on a life of its own and cannot be linked to any particular author. So rather than try to go after someone to include the DRM, the amendment would just make distribution or use of such software illegal in and of itself.

But the point that I am trying to make is that as far as the manufacturers are concerned these amendments, assuming they even pass, mean that they must include DRM in their software and not distribute the source code along with the software. If they do this then then can continue releasing their software and consumers can continue using it.

VSO products will not be banished in France.

[dnix71]

VideoLan is in France. VLC will play commercial dvd's and dump the stream wherever you wish(among other things). VLC is open-source as well.

I imagine this proposed law would not be to their liking.