French Parliament Votes to Allow File Sharing

The French Parliament voted last night to allow free sharing of music and movies on the Internet, setting up a conflict with both the French government and with 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 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.