France: ARMT was useless

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

At the end of December 2008 it was publicly presented the first yearly
report of the French Authority for Regulations of the DRMs (Autorité de
régulation des mesures techniques – ARMT) that should have ensured the
interoperability of the DRM systems and allow the private copies.

This could be very well the last report, since the new law on Internet
and Creation, could create a new authority (HADOPI – Haute Autorité pour la
diffusion des oeuvres et la protection des droits sur Internet) that will
take the place of the old one and will have a different scope: to issue
warnings and potentially cutting Internet subscriptions in cases of
copyright infringement.

ARMT report admitted that, in 20 months of activity, it didn’t take any
decision on interoperability or on copyright exceptions. The authority
claimed that the main problem was that nobody send them a specific request.
It also acknowledged the fact that the DRM issues have decrease in
importance, especially in the music sector, with the new DRM-free music
available on the market.

The authority has accepted that the DRMs have been an obstacle ” to the
legal music offers” that were in direct competition with the p2p networks,
where the same content is available without DRM.

However, the Authority does not want to admit that DRM is dead and it
explains that this might be case only in the musical sector. It also claims
that the DRM play a “major role” in the movie industry and considers that
giving up DRMs on the online video services is not an option today.

The ARMT’s report also observes that the penal measures to protect the DRMs
were never used in the French courts in the past 2 years, since the DADVSI
law is in force.

As expected, the ARMT considers that its life was very useful, contributing
in preparing “the field for a more ambitious strategy for public powers”,
namely the 3-strikes procedure.

If remains to be seen if the new Hadopi law will be voted by the second
chamber of the French Parliament and if the new Authority, estimated to have
budget close to 7 million Euro, will have better results.

ARMT finds its futility before becoming HADOPI (only in French, 18.12.2008)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/11577-L-ARMT-constate-son-inutilite-avant-de-devenir-l-HADOPI-MAJ.html

ARMT annual report 2008 (only in French, 18.12.2008)
http://armt.fr/IMG/pdf/rapport_annuel_armt.pdf

Albanel views that DRM withdrawal must lead to the graduated response
(only in French, 9.01.2009)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/11656-Albanel-estime-que-le-retrait-des-DRM-doit-conduire-a-la-riposte-graduee.html

EDRi-gram: France establishes the DRM-regulation authority (12.04.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.7/drm-authority-france

EDRi-gram: One more step for France in adopting the graduated response
(5.11.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.21/french-senate-adopts-3-strikes