This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

221755Z Dec 05

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 008623 
 
SIPDIS 
 
BRUSSELS FOR USEU 
STATE FOR E, D, EB, EB/TPP/IPE, EU/WE AND EUR/ERA; 
COMMERCE FOR CHRIS ISRAEL 
COMMERCE PLS PASS TO USPTO 
USTR FOR VICTORIA ESPINEL AND JIM SANFORD 
GENEVA FOR USTR 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ETRD KIPR SCUL FR EUN
SUBJECT:  FRENCH LOWER HOUSE VOTES TO LEGALIZE PEER-TO-PEER 
DOWNLOADING ON THE INTERNET; GOF VOWS TO FIGHT 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY.  In a vote that surprised the Government, 
France's lower house, empty on the eve of the holiday 
season, voted 29-28 late Dec 21 in favor of amendments that 
would legalize peer-to-peer downloading on the Internet.  To 
the dismay of French and U.S. industry as well as mainstream 
legislators on both sides, a number of pro-Government MPs 
from the government party in the Chamber of Deputies voted 
for the amendments along with leftist parties, who see this 
as a vote-getter with younger voters.  The amendments were 
part of the implementation of the EU Copyright Directive. 
President Chirac's adviser on media and education told DCM 
Dec 22 that they are clearly aware of the "terrible signal" 
this sends to both French and U.S. content industries. The 
GOF is scrambling to reverse the vote, either by a 
parliamentary procedure or when the Senate takes it up in a 
month.  Embassy continues to monitor events, but at 
industry's request, will refrain from public statements on 
the subject. END SUMMARY 
 
¶2. (U) In what the French news agency AFP called "a rare and 
possibly short-lived victory" for millions of French 
Internet users who download music and movies, France's lower 
house of parliament voted 29 votes to 28 in a nearly empty 
chamber late December 21 to legalize peer-to-peer file- 
sharing.  Two amendments to a government bill implementing 
the EU Copyright Directive provide that downloading 
copyrighted files could be legal as long as they would be 
for private use and the internet user was charged a fixed 
royalties duty.  Such a fee could, for example, be added on 
to the monthly subscription charge for broadband Internet 
access at the cost of a few euros, supporters of the 
amendments said. 
 
FRENCH BILL AIMED AT TOUGHER STANDARDS 
-------------------------------------- 
¶3. (U) The bill implementing the EU Copyright Directive 
would actually provide tougher digital copyright protections 
than Brussels requires; in implementing a EU Directive, 
Member States are authorized to go beyond the basic tenets. 
(For example, France's media laws governing radio and 
television quotas go beyond the relevant EU directive.) 
The government, caught off guard by the vote, which was 
backed by 22 MPs from the ruling UMP party, has called for a 
second vote in the National Assembly on December 22.  Under 
the GOF draft bill, anyone convicted of deliberately 
disabling the copy-protection on CDs, videogames, and DVDs 
could be fined 300,000 Euros (USD 360,000) and jailed for up 
to three years. 
 
¶4.  (U) The Government plan prompted consumer associations 
"Que Choisir" and "UFC" to put out a report that concludes 
that file sharing actually increases purchases of CDs and 
DVDs.  Other "open Internet" activists delivered a 110,000 
signature petition to the Culture Ministry, which had 
drafted the government bill.  Groups representing companies 
in the French cinema and music industries, for their part, 
issued a joint statement decrying what they described as 
"the expropriation of authors' rights on the Internet" and 
calling for the government to step in.  The statement was 
signed by the SFA-CGT entertainers' union, the USPA union 
for audiovisual production and the BLOC federation for 
cinema organizations, among others. (Interestingly, their 
statement notes that effective protections for copyright are 
an essential element of cultural diversity.) 
 
GOF ASKS INDUSTRY TO REFRAIN FROM PUBLIC COMMENTS 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  Industry contacts told us that they had been 
sought out by an GOF advisor close to Minister of Culture 
Donnedieu de Vabre, who pleaded that industry 
representatives or media companies not exacerbate their 
predicament by public statements from Europe or the United 
States that decried the impact on the U.S. majors.  The 
advisor, Marc Herubel (protect) made it clear that the GOF 
sees the situation with just as much concern for the French 
cinema sector and that all public comments needed to convey 
this message.  Herubel reportedly also assured industry 
associations that the GOF was going to devote itself to 
correcting this potential disaster.  One option was a 
parliamentary procedure that would require a revote. 
Finally, the whole package also still needs to go to the 
Senate, the upper house, currently expected in late January. 
 
CHIRAC ADVISOR: "TERRIBLE SIGNAL" TO INDUSTRY 
--------------------------------------------- 
¶6. (SBU) DCM spoke with Alain Seban, President Chirac's 
newly-named Special Assistant for Education and Culture at 
the Elysee Palace. He said he was very appreciative of our 
(quiet) support.  Seban acknowledged what a mess the vote 
was and said they were doing everything to get it reversed, 
but "it's not yet certain that we can do it". 
 
¶7. (SBU)  Seban described last night's vote as a misguided 
effort by MPs to garner favor with "the youth". He noted 
that, in the event they can't reverse this in the National 
Assembly, they will do so in the Senate, but that won't be 
for a month and in the meantime a "terrible signal" will 
have been sent to the industry.  He repeated that he 
appreciated the call and noted that we have been working 
closely on these issues for several years now. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) COMMENT: Clearly mortified by the unexpected turn 
of events, the government is working to rectify the mistake. 
They are aware of the potentially devastating effect this 
bill could have on the global entertainment industry in 
France.  French and U.S. industries are on the same page in 
this dispute - strongly against the establishment of any 
"open internet" downloading rights.   But in urging U.S. 
industry not to be vocal, the GOF signals its awareness of 
the potential political downside of publicly defending the 
"U.S. majors" and private interests on the Internet at a 
time where the GOF is already defensive about being 
insensitive to alienated youths in the suburbs.   END 
COMMENT 
 
STAPLETON