The French Parliament decided to change, at the last minute, the course of a draft law on the protection of copyright, which aims to transpose the European directive with the same theme into that legal system, by introducing amendments that will legalize the unlimited copy of files between individual users, in exchange for paying a certain amount that will cover license prices.
Approved with 30 votes in favor and 28 against, the introduced amendment establishes that «authors cannot prevent the reproduction of their works regardless of their format in a communication service. online when these are purchased for personal use and not for commercial, direct or indirect purposes «.
In the original, the French government’s bill aims at imposing more severe penalties on individual users who share pirated material on the Internet by introducing heavy penalties, such as fines of more than 300,000 euros and prison sentences of more than three years. .
The final version of the Law will, however, only be approved after the parliamentary vacation, when the Government returns to analyze the issue and the last minute turnaround introduced with the amendment.
Across the Atlantic, the Motion Picture Association of America reacted unfavorably to Parliament’s decision – as expected – calling the amendment «an unfortunate development». «More alarming is the apparent disregard for the potential impact on the French film industry, which will be greatly affected if this vote moves forward,» said Gayle Osterberg, one of the MPAA vice-president, quoted by the international press.
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