Wait, There’s More!

The Czar needed help with this one.

Read this AP release first.

The Czar did, and wondered what the hell this was about. The French government wants to shut down internet access to people who repeatedly steal copyrighted material? Good for them! If your store is being robbed, you close the door, right? But the EU says non? That stopping people from theft of copyrighted material infringes on their personal rights? What about the personal rights of the guy who owns the copyright?

This is so stupid that the Czar just knew that AP got it wrong.

So let us look to the AFP, wherein their version of the story adds in one pertinent fact: “...without a court order.” Well, now that’s a bit different.

The Czar is inclined to think that, yes, a better approach would be for a content provider to notify the authorities, the authorities to get a court order, and the court order allow the authorities to backtrack the IP address, identify the likely offender, and shut down the computer connection until the homeowner can be contacted and the identify of the actual thief verified.

The Czar guesses that AP couldn’t be bothered to make sense of that, and just decided to leave that all out. Dumb front lumps.

Thank goodness the increasingly left/progressive Europe still acknowledges such a thing as copyright, though, oui?