Is France about to join the "net neutrality club?" According to this Ars Technica report that is a distinct possibility, but some things need to be worked out first… The French government has put forward a new plan that could enshrine net neutrality into national law, and should it pass it would become the second country in Europe.

TorrentFreak (based on a Numerama report) is reporting that France's anti-piracy agency Hadopi expects to send out more than 1.1 million strike warnings this year - up dramatically from 668,000 in 2012 - and the agency is increasing its activities even after it saw a 25 percent cut in its 2013 budget.

The AFP reports (picked up by Polygon) that the French military has issued a statement saying that an unnamed French soldier acted inappropriately when he wore a scarf around his face with a grinning skull similar to the character Lieutenant Simon "Ghost" Riley from Call of Duty.

A new print ad from Sony Computer Entertainment France is getting some attention for pushing the boundaries of sexism to promote the company's PS Vita hand-held. The ad (pictured left and courtesy of MCV) shows a female body with four breasts and compares those four breasts to the PS Vita's front and rear touch screens.

The tagline for the ad is "Touch both sides, twice the sensations."

Some are chalking the ad up to what is acceptable in French advertising and cultural standards.

Until now France's Hadopi system only took claims from the recording and movie industry, but apparently a new partner is about to join in on the action. According to French publication PCInpact (by way of TorrentFreak), next year France's Hadopi agency will get strong backing from the video game industry in the country.

While the agency running Hadopi (the three-strikes copyright infringement enforcement system that disconnects repeat offenders from the Internet) is defending itself in the face of threats to drastically cut its funding by the French government, some new data shows that Hadopi produces plenty of notices but very few disconnections or court cases. While we have no idea how much it costs to send out millions of notices, the system seems to be effective in making people stop sharing illegal files - even if it might be only temporary.

You may remember that the newly elected French president said recently that it might not fund the country's Hadopi agency. Hadopi, in case you'd forgotten is a copyright protection enforcement regime that uses a "three-strikes" policy that disconnects repeat offenders from the internet. President Francois Hollande hinted during his campaign that he might reform the agency to make it less repressive and more cooperative. Later in August he said that he would be scaling back funding for it. Now Hadopi is fighting back against the notion of having its resources clipped.

France's new culture minister has indicated that she will drastically cut the budget from the internet copyright infringement agency Hadopi. She will also encourage the agency to lay off on kicking people off the Internet, much to the delight of internet advocates. Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti has appointed former Canal+ pay-TV CEO Pierre Lescure to conduct a review of France's Act II, a set of rules for protecting culture in the digital age - which includes the use of the Hadopi agency for enforcement.

Two French gamers decided that it would be a grand idea to reprogram a Sega Genesis so that every time a player made a mistake or took damage in a game they would get some punishment from shock collars. You can't make this kind of stuff up, folks. Also it goes without saying that you shouldn't try this at home.

The two gamers try everything from Sonic to Golden Axe 3, with amusing results. You'll notice in one of the shots that alcohol might be involved in the production of this little experiment...

Last week's presidential election saw Socialist Francois Hollande rise to the highest political post in France. While this election may have serious repercussions all over the world, one side effect of it might be the end of the supposed "three-strikes" copyright infringement law better known by French citizens as "HADOPI." When we say end, we mean that HADOPI might not be enforced against internet users even though it might still take aim at large websites that traffic in copyrighted materials.

We like when politicians get cute and use video games to promote themselves, so it's a requirement that we write about French presidential candidate François Bayrou using the "Konami code" on his website. If you visit the site at bayrou.fr and enter the familiar cheat code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A), the site will greet you with 8-bit visuals of the candidate, some retro game-like music, and some French text about something. Since I don't know any French we'll leave it to our readers to figure it out.

Nintendo has begun providing the Louvre art museum in Paris, France with Nintendo 3DS systems that offer an exclusive audio guide. The Audioguide Louvre Nintendo 3DS will become available at the Louvre for visitors beginning today. The audio guide will provide audio and visual tools to the 8.9 million annual visitors which will help them learn more about all the exhibits on display.

France's video game trade association Syndicat National du Jeu Vidéo announced at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this morning a new brand to promote French video game creativity. The brand, "Le Game," is backed by the trade group and the French government, and has the backing of Game Connection USA. So what is Le Game all about, you wonder?

Agence France-Presse (AFP) is reporting that, beginning in March of 2012, the Louvre in Paris, France will use 5,000 3DS hand-helds to guide its 8.5 million annual visitors through the 35,000 art objects on display. The hand-helds are being supplied by Nintendo as part of a new partnership between the company and the iconic museum.

The 3DS systems the museum will use let visitors locate themselves on the museum's grounds, select from themed tours tailored to both adults and children, and listen to commentary about exhibits in seven different languages.

Two armed robbers managed to steal 6,000 copies of Modern Warfare 3 in France, according to multiple news reports. According to published reports (as translated by Eurogamer), at 8:00 AM on Sunday morning a car crashed into a van 10km southeast of Paris. The van was carrying unspecified video game cargo worth €400,000.

Nintendo may not be excited about its declining stock prices, eroding investor confidence or the fact that a majority of their investors want them to make games for the iPad, but they sure are delighted by a recent French piracy ruling. It’s all about having your priorities straight. Recently six companies were found guilty of importing and selling those nefarious R4 cartridges that allow users to play copied games on DS systems.

Two new research reports from Newzoo - the 2011 French National Gamers Survey (L’Etude Nationale des Jeux Video) and the international Games Market Revenue Report - reveal that 24 million French citizens spend a total of 27 million hours per day playing games. Interestingly, less than half (42 percent) of those gamers ever spend money on games. According to Newzoo, total consumer spending is expected to reach €3.2bn in 2011, down 10 percent from 2010. Almost three quarters (73 percent) buy PC, Mac or console games, including second-hand trade, digital downloads and import.

UK video game industry trade group TIGA has joined forces with members of the European Games Developer Federation (EGDF) to voice its concern that the new EU funding programs planned for media and culture and for research and innovation for 2013 - 2020 do not place "sufficient emphasis" on the video game development sector. The groups voiced their concerns at Gamescom this week in Cologne, Germany.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has opened the first e-G8 forum in Paris, with leaders in technology such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Wikipedia's founder Jimmy Wales, News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch, BBC director general Mark Thompson, and Google's Eric Schmidt set to give talks about Internet technology.

But even as the French president is excited to be thoe host of the technology gathering, many critics have said that the gathering is more about control than internet innovation. Attempting to address some of those concerns, Sarkozy said that the Internet enables and fosters the ability to engage in revolution without all the blood and death:

"The global revolution that you incarnate is a peaceful one. It did not emerge on battlefields but on university campuses," he said.

Next week France will serve as the host of a conference on online freedom of expression - a French-Dutch effort to draft a code of conduct against Internet censorship. Sounds good, right? However, a leaked memo from French President Sarkozy is undercutting the effort before it even starts. The leaked memo from the President of France urges the Minister of Foreign Affairs to push the country's anti-piracy legislation instead.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is a strong proponent of anti-piracy efforts. Earlier this year he had a major victory when he managed to get Hadopi - the three-strikes anti-piracy bill - signed into law. Opponents of the law have seized on the memo as evidence that the President wants to convince the rest of Europe that Hadopi is the right way to deal with piracy.

The memo was exposed by the advocacy group La Quadrature du Net.

While France’s three-strike "Hadopi" law targeting illegal downloaders of copyrighted material came across as harsh to some critics, the country has come up with a novel approach to cut down on music piracy—the government will partially fund the purchase of music.

France’s plan is to sell pre-paid cards to be used to purchase music, with the catch, according to the BBC, that cards valued at 50 euros will cost only 25 euros when bought. The government will pick up the other half of the tab.

A proposed bill currently sitting in front of France’s Parliament seeks government assistance in promoting the risks that the overuse of videogames might have on that country's youth.

GP Reader Soldat_Louis pointed us towards the possible legislation (translated) and also broke down for us exactly how the bill made it from the country’s “Children’s Parliament” all the way to the real one:

In response to the implementation of France’s “Hadopi” or three-strikes law, which targets illegal file sharers, a French ISP began offering its customers a service that would block file-sharing on their connections, but the software came with its own problems.

Orange was the ISP offering the service, for the small price of two Euros per month, and it was intended to allow users to “control the activity of computers connected to your internet line” by blocking access to an unknown series of blacklisted sites and addresses.

Unfortunately though, according to Torrent Freak, the Windows-only software, as detailed by a techie named Bluetouff, communicated with a public server that still had the default username and password of admin/admin. Oops.

Torrent Freak that it was:

Seven months after being knifed virtually in an online round of Counter-Strike, a 20-year old French gamer tracked down his online assailer and stabbed him in the chest.

Julien Barreaux hunted down his victim, identified only as Mikhael, after falling under his knife in a November 2009 game of CS, according to the Telegraph. It turned out that Mikhael lived only a “few miles” from Barreaux, who visited the house and stabbed Mikhael in the chest when he answered the door, just missing his heart. Mikhael apparently survived the attack.

Barreaux was arrested within an hour of the attack and sentenced to two years in jail, and also will be forced to undergo psychiatric tests. The attacker was dubbed a “menace to society” by Judge Alexiane Potel, who added, “I am frankly terrified of the disproportionate reaction you could have if someone looked at you the wrong way in the street.”

As part of a campaign designed to boost recruitment, the French Army introduced a new campaign that uses the slogan “Devenez vous-même” or “Be Yourself,” and directs interested parties to visit the website DevenezVousMeme.com.

The French Army ad appears to have caught the eye of Electronic Arts, as an article on LusoGamer (translated) points out that an ad for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 appears to have somewhat appropriated the French Army slogan. The similarities were not very difficult to notice as the giant ads appeared right next to each other (picture) in a French subway station. EA’s ad directed users towards the (inactive) website DevenezPlusQueVous-meme.com, which translates to “Be More Than Yourself.”

Army General Philippe Pontiès didn’t find much humor in the matter, telling French website Ecrans (translated) that:

We are clearly in a situation of abuse of slogan. So far, our campaign is working very well, we have very good returns.

The General also noted that the army has been advertising in videogames, with good results, and, ironically enough, has advertised in select EA game, such as NHL 10, NBA Live 10 and Need For Speed Pro Street. The General made it clear that the Army advertises only in racing or sports games, never army or military-themed games.

The ad appropriation issue has apparently been resolved through dialog between the Army’s agency and Electronic Arts.


Thanks Emanuel!

Lawmakers in France have approved the draft of a law that would enable ISP-level Internet filtering.

Dubbed the Loppsi II bill, the measure passed a National Assembly vote in a count of 312 to 214 reports the Good Gear Guide. The bill will next be read in the Senate, which could be its final reading if no amendments are introduced, as the government has pinned an “urgent” tag on the bill.

Among the bill’s Internet measures are provisions to make online identity theft a crime and allow police to tap Net connections, in addition to allowing authorities to order ISPs to filter Internet connections to remove child pornography materials.

Critics of the bill are concerned that any Internet filtering could lead to more widespread government induced censorship online.

Other parts of the bill deal with “boosting the amount the police spend on ‘security,’ multiplying penalties for counterfeiting checks or credit cards, increasing use of CCTV cameras, extending access to the police national DNA database and authorizing the seizure of vehicles driven without a license.”

It’s estimated that the filtering technology would cost France €140 million (approximately $190.0 million U.S.)and would be “largely ineffective” against the distribution of child pornography, which experts say is done via P2P networks.

France’s controversial “three-strikes” law aimed at taking down illegal downloaders appears to have suffered a delay while the government seeks mandatory approval of the law from an independent authority.

France needs an opinion from the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) to enact the law writes Paid Content. So far, CNIL has chosen not to issue a decree, reports La Tribune, thus effectively blocking the implementation of the law, which was scheduled to be put into motion this month.

This bump in the road could mean a delay of three months until the law, also known as the Hadopi Law, is enacted.

Internet pirates will be warned twice under the law—once by email and once in a physical delivered letter—before a third strike is issued, which could result in fines, prison terms and/or the loss of Internet service.

In a ruling very similar to one handed down in Spain just last month, a French court has decreed that makers of Nintendo DS flash carts are not breaking the law.

French company Divineo was one of the defendants brought to court by Nintendo for making flash carts for the DS, which allow non-authorized games and media to be played on Nintendo’s handheld game system. The court ruled that the carts are legal and extend the usefulness of the DS, states MaxConsole.net.

The court also apparently took umbrage with Nintendo for “illegally” protecting its system and locking out users and developers, though it should be noted that the MaxConsole site, according to various sources, is owned by Max Louran, the same individual that heads Divineo.

This is not Louran’s first brush with console modification enforcers either: a 2007 GP story indicated some relation between Louran’s Divineo company and a firm (Supreme Factory Limited) at the center of a mod chip raid in Hong Kong.

Assentek, a fellow defendant in the case and also a manufacturer of console modifiers, was pleased with the ruling, but cautioned (Google translation):

However, in our view, this is probably a first episode in the general confrontation between France and Nintendo players in the world of gaming consoles including Assentek in particular.

|Via TechDirt|

Authorities in Beauvais, France believe they have prevented a possible school shooting by a 13-year old “computer games enthusiast."

A TimesOnline story details the unfolding events under the unfortunate headline “Computer Games Fan ‘Planned School Massacre.’” Suspicion was initially raised when the boy, named Bastien, left extra early for school, eventually leading his parents to a blog post of his that read: “This is my last message because Tuesday November 17, 2009 will be the last day of my life. Sorry to leave you..."  Police were alerted and sealed off the boy’s school, Saint-Esprit. The teen apparently saw police at the school and avoided it, ditched a shotgun and 25 cartridges in a field along the way. He was found later at a cyber-café.

A friend of Bastien said that, “He always wanted to go into the Army. He loved battles. He was passionate about history, warriors. He played video games up to one or two in the morning...” Other buddies told reporters that Bastien was a World of Warcraft player.

Even the Mayor of Allone, Christian Sadowski, painted Bastien as a gamer, saying that he knew the boy was a fan of computer games, adding, “Many young people end up finding it difficult to tell the difference between dream and reality. He played his little fantasy on the net and then carried it out.”

The boy was anxious about an upcoming parent-teacher conference as a result of receiving less-than-stellar grades.

GP: Glad they caught him obviously, but the secondary focus on games in this article is gratuitous as is usually the case.  But as we, and Lorne Lanning, know, this is how the mainstream media rolls. At least they didn’t call WOW a “murder simulator.”

Update: GP reader Soldat_Louis rounded up and translated a handful of other stories and media outlets that played up the videogame link:

• "Considered as a good student coming from a normal family, the middle school boy, a video game adept, (...)" (Le Point)

• "According to a police source, 'bad grades could be the cause of the murderous intentions' of the student, a video game adept."  (France-Soir)

• "It's on his blog that the student, a video game fan, has published his intention to make a name of himself (...)" (Le Télégramme)

• "The kid is considered as a good student. He comes from a normal family. He is a video game adept and maintains his own blog. (...) [The attempted shooting] revives the memory of [the Winnenden shooting]. Perpetrated by  Tim Kretschmer, 17-years-old, also a video game adept, (...)" (La Dépêche)


Soldat_Louis also pointed us towards (and again translated the relevant part) a debate over “How to protect your children against the dangers of the Internet” that took place on French radio station RTL this morning.

Véronique Fima of the Action Innocence nonprofit group apparently came to the defense of games and gamers in the debate, while noting that in the case of the Beauvais story, the Internet played a positive role and assisted in stopping any violence.

On the point of videogames, she stated, “First of all, I wouldn't want them to be incriminated in the first place (...) rather than knowing that he was a video game aficionado, I would like us to ask the question : what was the deep discomfort that made this child act that way (...) All children and teenagers all play video games, yet they're not all mass murderers."

In light of France officially approving a tough, three-strike law against illegal downloaders, the European Parliament has exorcised an amendment to its Telecoms Package that would have made it more difficult to disconnect pirates from the Internet.

France’s “Hadopi” law was passed last week following a revision which added a provision that a judge must approve disconnecting a user from the Web. A first offense will result in an email, while a second infringement will result in a letter being sent to the person who illegally downloaded material. A third strike would result in disconnection, now subject to a judge’s ruling.

Amendment 138 to the EU Telecoms Package was dropped, meaning that “individual countries would be able to ask internet service providers to remove users deemed to be persistent pirates without needing a prior court order,” writes the BBC, which believes that this is a lead up to the UK introducing its own disconnection policy for pirates next month.

Forrester analyst Mark Mulligan thinks that any legislation is too slow to do much to affect pirates, “Technology just moves quicker. Already we are seeing around 20 different alternatives to peer-to-peer piracy.”


|Thanks Hreinn, Image via DeviantArt|