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Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The French Parliament voted last night to allow free sharing of music and movies on the Internet, setting up a conflict with the government and media companies. If the amendment survives, France would be the first country to legalize so called peer-to-peer downloading, said Jean-Baptiste Soufron, legal counsel to the Association of Audionautes, a French group that defends people accused of improperly sharing music files. The law would be a blow to media companies that are suing people for downloading or sharing music and movie files. Companies such as Walt Disney Co., Viacom Inc. and News Corp.'s Fox say free downloading of unauthorized copies of TV shows and movies before they are released on DVD will cost them $5 billion in revenue this year. ``The deputies used this vote to show their independence from the government, but they don't know what they are doing,'' Nicolas Seydoux, chief executive of French cinema company Gaumont SA, said in an interview on France Inter radio. ``We are not trying to ban anything, just to make sure the work of others isn't stolen.'' The amendment was approved 30 to 28 at close to midnight yesterday. While there are 577 members of the lower house, few were present for the vote. French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres has asked that parliament debate on the amendment again today, Agence France Presse reported. Media Crackdown Legal music downloading sites such as Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes have French-language sites, as do major music companies such as Vivendi Universal SA. Last night's amendment would allow someone having bought a song from one of those sites to share it with family or friends. Media companies have cracked down on such illegal downloads. Grokster Ltd. last month shut down its online file- sharing service and will pay $50 million to settle a lawsuit by music and film studios accusing the company of helping people pirate copyrighted songs and movies. The entertainment industry has fought free movie and music file sharing for more than five years, saying it loses billions of dollars annually. Napster Inc., which closed in the wake of an industry lawsuit in 2000, now operates as a paid service and gives some user fees to music and film companies and artists. Upper House The French vote needs to go through more steps to become law. It can be overturned if it is debated again and voted down in the lower house. It also needs a vote from the upper house, or the Senate. The amendment, which is attached to a bill on intellectual property rights, states that ``authors cannot forbid the reproduction of works that are made on any format from an online communications service when they are intended to be used privately'' and not for commercial use. Parliament is debating a bill that would transpose a 2001 European Union directive on intellectual rights into French law. The government had introduced articles into the bill that would make file-sharing akin to counterfeiting, punishable by prison sentences of up to three years and fines of up to 300,000 euros ($355,000). `At Risk' ``The vote puts the livelihoods of people in the music and film industry at risk,'' Gaumont's Seydoux said. Consumer groups such as UFC-Que Choisir had protested the government's proposed bill. Soufron of Audionautes said any system that allowed unlimited downloading could be accompanied by a system similar to the royalty tax that exists for blank compact disks and DVDs. Music companies ``are not looking for a new model, they want total control,'' Soufron said. Under the amendment, Internet service providers would pay part of their revenue to Sacem, a group that has handled artists' royalties since 1851, Soufron said. Details of the payments are not in the amendment. The group redistributed 578 million euros to musicians last year. To contact the reporter on this story: Gregory Viscusi in Paris at gviscusi@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: December 22, 2005 10:39 EST |