How might this bill affect Wikipedia, if I go through with plans to set up a French nonprofit?
http://www.computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/UNID/C1F6A082562EB682CC256E160006A48...
The portion that concerns me is that "Internet access providers" (but what is the definition of that in the bill?) will be obligated to filter "illegal content", which has a much wider scope in France than in the US, including "material excusing crimes against humanity".
Currently, if the French government were to find material on Wikipedia not to their liking, they would have little recourse against either me, the Wikimedia Foundation, or the French end users who wrote the material. I am in the U.S., the Wikimedia Foundation is in the U.S., and therefore I can freely ignore the judgments of French courts.
French end users are protected by this arrangement as well -- in order for the French government to pursue an end user, they will need to pierce the veil of anonymity given by Wikipedia usernames. Of course, I would completely ignore any court order from France to hand over such information.
On the other hand, if we had a French mirror operating under the auspices of a French nonprofit subsidiary, that subsidiary could be legally liable in such matters, thus putting us all at risk.
Perhaps this is all merely of academic concern -- Wikipedia is self-consciously uncontroversial to a large extent. We don't advocate anything, by design. Likely the law would not be abused to the extent that Wikipedia would become a target. But I do know that French users have often expressed concern that this article or that might be a violation of French law. I don't have an opinion about the realism of such concerns.
And so that's why I ask. As we move towards a European organization and European subsidiary, what concerns should we have as to the proper location of the organization?
--Jimbo