Nicolas Sarkozy: French President Accused Of Pirating 400 DVDs

A French paper, Le Canard Enchaine, has busted French President Nicolas Sarkozy for pirating 400 copies of a DVD.

If the story pans out, this would be Sarkozy's second copyright infringement -- and a major embarrassment for a President famous for his three-strikes-you're-out, anti-file-sharing stance.

According to the paper, Sarkozy made 400 unauthorized copies of a 52-minute documentary starring the President himself, called A visage decouvert : Nicolas Sarkozy.

PC World France writes that a proud Sarkozy wanted to distribute the documentary to diplomats at a conference (the "17eme conférence des ambassadeurs"), but the DVD's distributor had only send 50 copies of the documentary.

A few copies short? Pas de probleme!

The President's office decided to make up for the difference by pirating a few hundred copies.

They even went so far as to doctor up a new DVD jacket, replacing the original DVD maker's name and logo ("Galaxie Presse") with a line crediting the President's "AV service" ("Service audiovisuel de la presidence de la Republique".)

Sarkozy's first copyright-infringement strike came after the President repeatedly used a song by the band MGMT at his rallies without asking the band's permission.

Zut alors.

Comments

[noweknow]

Frenchy Sarkozy is a fraud.

[CarlosDee]

I like Sarkozy more and more. He's actually the most progressive Western leader at the present time.

[ConradMazian]

I think that he should be jailed. Copyright infringement is a serious crime, and we cannot have one law for the elite, and another law for the masses. France, of all countries, should understand this.

[lightningbolt]

As usual, he won't be punished for it because justice in the western world is only for little people.

[Ergon]

Nah, I'm more interested in the story of how his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy 'broadened his cultural horizons' by getting him to appoint pedophile Francois Mitterand as Minister of Culture.

[CarlosDee]

You mean Frédéric Mitterand. And if you're not French its not really any of your business.

[Ergon]

And you're qualified to defend a French pedophilic how?

[Balzac]

Mr. Sarkozy learns how complicated copyright infringement cases can be. It's not so easy to be a law-abiding citizen in the digital age with archaic laws regulating copying.

[GrahamInCanada]

I think it is going to be very hard to prove that the 400 diplomats would otherwise have purchased copies of this DVD....

Oh wait, the game is to redefine copyright so that this doesn't matter.

What is more likely is the destruction of the theory of copyright itself, civilization cannot sustain copyright definitions that stray so far from reason...

[moutonnoir]

Redefine? This was never how copyright worked.

Try producing something of value some day.