Copyright>> Internet • France
.jpg "James Climent (top) and Jean- Luc Godard")
James Climent, a French photographer, got into trouble in 2005 for sharing thousands of music files on the Internet using the Soulseek P2P application.
This violated the French law protecting online copyrights.
In June this year he was asked to pay €20,000 to two music collection societies. The photographer does not have the money and he insists he would not pay even if he had “as a matter of principle”. He said there is nothing criminal about “sharing culture”.
Climent is raising funds to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights. Jean-Luc Godard, the legendary film director of the French New Wave, recently donated € 1,000 to back up Climent’s battle against the copyright law. Godard claimed intellectual property does not exist.
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