From: Markus <ma...@ai...> - 2005-12-06 21:44:35
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Hello. Recent news draws only a blurry picture of the exact legal changes that Fre= nch=20 developers will be faced with next year: http://www.fsffrance.org/news/article2005-11-25.en.html As I take from a German news source=20 (http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/67057), publishing software is=20 illegal if it could possibly be used to violate copyrights.=20 According to http://www.boingboing.net/2005/12/02/france_about_to_get_.html= ,=20 this involves "A prohibition on all software that permits transmission=20 [disposition is unclear without greater context] of copyrighted material th= at=20 does not integrate both a watermark and DRM." In particular, this makes fre= e=20 software illegal, since users who have full control over source code could= =20 always disable DRM and watermarking. Now, obviously, any wiki can be used to publish copyrighted material, and = =20 implementing DRM is not really feasible in the wiki way either. Are wikis=20 becoming illegal in France by the end of this year? Anybody who is developi= ng=20 wikis in France right now? (Michel?)=20 Also note that there is a petition against it, though it is not clear wheth= er=20 this can affect the legislative process at this stage:=20 http://eucd.info/petitions/index.php?petition=3D2 Anyway, it does not say that only French citizens are allowed to sign, so f= eel=20 free to forward this to interested community members. Best wishes, Markus =2D-=20 Markus Kr=F6tzsch Institute AIFB, University of Karlsruhe, D-76128 Karlsruhe ma...@ai... phone +49 (0)721 608 7362 www.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/WBS/ fax +49 (0)721 693 717 |