The French legislature passed the Hadopi bill yesterday.
According to EU Observer:
“French culture minister Frederic Mitterrand cheered the bill’s passage: ‘Artists will remember that we at last had the courage to break with the laissez-faire approach and protect their rights from people who want to turn the net into their libertarian utopia.’”
Yes, I hate the idea of the Internet as a libertarian utopia too.
Lame!
Here is a Google translation of the French Pirate Party’s response.
I just read an interview with Christian Engström, the deputy leader of the Swedish Pirate Party. He is a newly elected MEP who has recently arrived in Brussels.
Piratpartiet
I really liked his respectful critique of Europe’s communication strategy. The EU has for sure done a lot of “pushing” information online. It throws documents on to
Europa.eu left and right without any organization. It’s a nightmare trying to find specific information there.
Worse, the EU seems to do a horrible job of “pulling” people into its information sphere. It is not very good at participating consistently in the conversation that is the Internet.
Hopefully the Pirate Party will be able to position itself to influence Europe’s communication strategies.
Sweden’s Pirate Party has won two seats in the European Parliament!
Piratpartiet
From
The Local, one of my fave expat websites:
“Among voters aged under 30, some 19 percent are believed to have cast a vote for the Pirate Party.
“They are the biggest party among young people, bigger than both the Social Democrats and the Moderates,” said politics professor Sören Holmberg.
Pirate Party voters said they considered the freedom to file share by far the most important issue when deciding their party allegiance.”
The French legislature passed the Hadopi bill yesterday.