French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been an extremely vocal public advocate for those who hold copyrights. He has been the key supporter of a piece of French legislation which would mandate some of the world's most severe punishments for those found guilty of illegally pirating copyrighted material. The proposed law contained a "three strikes and your out" policy which would literally kick people off the Internet. If the law was in effect a French citizen who was proven guilty of copyright infringement three times would not be allowed back on the Internet. The French President championed the efforts which eventually got this bill passed, but it was later declared unconstitutional by the French Constitutional Council.
Unfortunately Mr. Sarkozy has now been twice accused of stealing copyrighted material himself. His first infringement came at the expense of the popular French music group MGMT. The President's political party UMP repeatedly used portions of the group's song "Kids" at some political rallies and in some web and television commercials. UMP party officials admitted to using the material because of its appeal to young people. The only problem was they never bothered to obtain permission from the band to use the song. The same party which was fighting to throw piraters off the Internet was pirating music.
Reasonable minds would believe that the incident with MGMT would have heightened the attention of the President, his staff, and other supporters of the "three strikes" law. I mean it must have been pretty embarrassing to be threatened by some French rockers in their early twenties. Maybe somebody should have sent out a memo. "Attention All Staff: Please Refrain from Stealing any Copyrighted Material, as it may serve to make us look like idiots"
That memo was never sent. Early this month the President had scheduled a conference with some French diplomats where he planned to distribute a short film about himself. He paid the distributor for 50 copies of the DVD but the conference was attended by about 400 diplomats. This situation did not present a problem for the president's competent staff however; they just made a few copies. When the story broke the president was caught holding the bag again.
Guess he only has one strike left.
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