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
Hi Jimmy,
[french net censorship law]
I'm not a legal expert in any way, and neither am I from France, but I think that a European non-profit organization might best be set up in Scandinavia - Sweden or Finland, for example. From what I know, these countries do tend to have the strongest commitment to freedom of speech, freedom of the press and similar issues.
Of course, that's just a general hint; before setting up a European organization, one would have to look at the various countries and their laws in detail.
You can consider a Scandinavian country such as Sweden.
--Optim
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:
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 _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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Forward of a mail I received today
---------
De la part de http://www.ovh.net
Bonjour à tous,
Une loi concernant chaque citoyen utilisant internet a été adoptée en deuxième lecture par l'Assemblée Nationale et doit être examinée en deuxième lecture par le Sénat le mois prochain (http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/dossiers/economie_numerique.asp et http://fr.news.yahoo.com/040113/1/3l7js.html )
Cette loi, porte atteinte directement à la vie privée, elle prévoit la co-responsabilité :
1)- de l'hébergeur de sites internet et de l'éditeur de sites
2)- de l'achemineur de mails et de vous, émetteur de mail
Ainsi cette loi conduira - par peurs (de sanctions, de pénalités, de pertes de conformités,..) - l'hébergeur à filtrer à priori le contenu qu'il héberge, c'est à dire sans décision de juge ni aucune autre décision. Aussi bien pour les sites que pour vos email.
Cette loi conduira l'hébergeur à effacer le contenu qu'il jugera pas bon (pas bon dépendra d'éléments très subjectifs évidemment).
C'est comme si l'imprimeur ou le libraire était responsable du contenu du journal que vous achetez ou le facteur co-responsable de vos écrits!
Si la loi passe au Sénat, s'en est fini de la libre circulation des idées et des pensées, fini de la vie privée.
Ce sera la porte ouverte à:
- donner le pouvoir aux sociétés privées
- légaliser le viol de la vie privée, de la correspondance
Tous les hébergeurs vont devoir arrêter des sites, modifier unilatéralement les contrats, détenir le pouvoir d'effacer n'importe laquelle page d'un site, n'importe lequel de vos email sans préavis, sans accord et à n'importe lequel moment ou de suspendre l'hébergement sans préavis.
Certains hébergeurs estiment cette loi absurde car les conduisant à:
- mettre en place des robots pour détecter sur vos mails et les sites des mots (pourquoi pas comme mp3, divx, liberté, critique, amour, développement personnel, alternatif, etc,...) qui iront effacer la page internet ou le mail immédiatement (toujours sans préavis ni explication). D'autres mots pourront être ajoutés sur la liste. Evidemment certains hébergeurs - non sans ironie- réfléchissent sur la solution où le mail ou le site utilise le chinois ou une autre langue qu'on ne connait pas forcement.
- mettre en place des rapports systématiques -tenue à disposition de la justice- entre les administrateurs des sociétés d'hébergement et les administrateurs de sites, prouvant que l'hébergeur à fait son travail de filtrage et effacé ce qui pourrait déclencher une procédure en justice.
Pour les dix grands fournisseurs d'accès participant à une conférence de presse, cette mesure, qui restait jusqu'à présent le privilège d'Etats peu démocratiques comme la Birmanie, la Chine ou l'Iran, est inefficace et entraînera des coûts exorbitants.
Les hébergeurs pensent que le moment est venu d'expliquer au Sénat le problème. Sinon bienvenue dans le monde de parano où l'hébergeur est le juge et efface le contenu de vos sites et mails pour éviter les poursuites judiciaires et les procès.
Il reste le Sénat et la protestation populaire pour éviter qu'une loi bâillonne nos libertés fondamentales.
Votre liberté est entre vos mains !
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Hi Jimbo and all,
Le Wednesday 14 January 2004 14:27, Jimmy Wales a écrit :
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/C1F6A082562EB682CC256E160006A4 8E?OpenDocument
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".
Yes, this law project is very bad. Obviously French politicians understand very little about the Internet. :o( However this law project is not yet written in the books.
1. There is quite a big protest from webmasters and non profit organisations going on now against it. But this has meet little answer from politicians upto now. 2. Since today big ISPs have started to protest as well, mainly because it would cost them millions to check everything according to this law project. Probably they will have more weight. 3. A similar attempt was made a few years back, but was dismissed by the constitutional court (it was contrary to the constitution). I except this one to meet the same fate. (I think it is even worse that the previous one.)
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.
Any way, we will need to check that the content of Wikipedia is valid under French law before setting a mirror in France. I am mainly concerned about images put under "fair use" as the law is quite different in France about this.
As long as a mirror in France would not improve the availibility of Wikipedia here, there is little reason to set up such a mirror. And as I understand what I read in wikitech-l, it would not help the current situation.
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?
OMO the main objectives of a French subsidiary would be helping to promote Wikipedia and collect funds. We have already three more requests for talks. And we are getting more and more interests from schools and universities.
--Jimbo
Yann - -- http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclopédie libre http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux
You may also like to compare with the [[Greek electronic game ban]], Greece's law that banned games and ****encryption software*** in Internet Cafes.
Recently they arrested more people because of this law.
--Optim
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From: "Yann Forget" yann@forget-me.net
OMO the main objectives of a French subsidiary would be helping to promote Wikipedia and collect funds. We have already three more requests for
talks.
And we are getting more and more interests from schools and universities.
--Jimbo
Yann
Such a foreign organization is more of an affiliate than a subsidiary of Wikipedia for the purpose of assisting in the same goals as Wikipedia, and helping to provide resources, promotion, and awareness of Wikimedia projects.
The question of mirroring Wikipedia does raise questions dealing with copyright, contract and extracontractual obligations (delicts in civil law known as torts in common law) and is not necessarily related to the issue of having international Wikipedia organizations that assist the operations of our group (using the word group in the largest possible meaning, not limited only to the legal implications of having a foundation that can accept donations and support Wikipedia through various means).
Alex R. (en:user:alex756;fr:utilisateur:Alexei756)
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org