France: New copyright and related right law passed the Senate

Last night the Senate has concluded the debate on the new copyright and related rights law and voted. It passed the Senate. Socialists, greens and communists voted no. UDF abstained. UMP voted for. 292 votes, 164 for and 128 against (some UMP and RDSE dissented).

Article 7 (Interoperability) in its first version protected cpmpetition, innovation (free software) and consumers.

However, last night, the "Vivendi amendment" passed without major modification.

Article 7 has been entirely re-written and provisions regarding competition and free software have been deleted. See new text at:
http://pasunblog.org/article.php3?id_article=32

Regarding regulation and the role of judicial authorities for the choice about technical measures, it looks as if the Vivendi amendment which imposes implementation of TPM by judicial authorities will pass.

Regarding exceptions and limitations, the law appears to create a body that will regulated TPMs. The new regulations authority, maybe known as mediators, is the body one can turn to if there is a concern that the TPM unduly restricts access to the work, but only as it relates to interoperability.

I haven't been able to wade through the other articles to understand how the French will deal (if at all) with other access issues, such as the ability to overcome a TPM to get access to public domain work.

There is some additional regulatory control of TPM that has concerns data protection (privacy) and security.

But look out for amendment 18, additional provisions for article 7, regarding the "Regulatory authority for technical measures" that has replaced the mediators' version and could prohibit the publication of the source code:

« Le titulaire des droits sur la mesure technique ne peut imposer au bénéficiaire de renoncer à la publication du code source et de la documentation technique de son logiciel indépendant et interopérant que s’il apporte la preuve que celle-ci aurait pour effet de porter gravement atteinte à la sécurité et à l’efficacité de ladite mesure technique. »
Espérons que la défense de l’interêt général sera plus consensuelle lors de la prochaine séance...

Roughly translated "The owners of rights on technical measures cannot impose on the beneficiary the prohibition of publication of the source code and the technical documentation of its interoperable and independant software unless he can prove that doing so would be seriously detrimental to the security and efficiency of the technical measure"

Next step: end of May a mixted commission will meet and make a final decision.
http://www.senat.fr/role/fiche/cmp.html

So, there are disagreements between the Assemblee and the Senate and there might be some more debate during the second reading of the text but few reasons to be optimistic.

It is rather confusing to many observers, see:
http://www.ratiatum.com/news3113_Le_Senat_adopte_le_projet_de_loi_DADVSI.html

Some say this is worst than other implementations in Europe (see Ireland, UK, Germany).
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