File Sharing Finds Love in France

If you want to make something desirable, ban it first!

This is probably what happened with file sharing in France. Ever since the government has obediently imposed the laws that the music and film industries have desperately asked for, claiming they are losing so much money because of the illegal downloading, the phenomenon has become even more popular.

It seems that French find swapping files illegally online pretty cool and who can really blame them – in a socially turbulent 21st century too much effort is put to stop something that is announcing the need for a real change and instead to little effort is spend on other crucial issues we don’t want to discuss here.

As The Times reports, studies point to 42 per cent of software programs being pirated in France, compared with 26 per cent in Britain and 27 per cent in Germany.

File sharing has become a "national sport", thinks Cerise Club, a French Internet company, and that is kind of ironical since the French copyright law in this country is one of the most severe in the world.

"The French take a sly pleasure in getting round all the systems put in place, and it's very difficult to persuade them to do otherwise," quoted the Times.