Piracy? Virgin Megastores In France Fined

Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes:

In what I originally labeled “hilarious” and “ironic,” the Virgin chain of stores in France has been fined for illegal downloading and selling of a Madonna song, Hung Up.

The store’s online portal, virginmega.fr, was ordered by the Paris Tribunal de Commerce to pay 600,000 euros, or $754,000, in damages for downloading the Madonna song “Hung Up” from a France Telecom Web site that had exclusive rights to distribute the song for one week.

“This is an amazing case of simple piracy by a respected company,” Herve Payan, senior vice president for content partnership and service at France Telecom, said Tuesday. “Virgin behaved in a surreal manner by downloading the song, cracking protection measures and then selling it from their own Web site.” [Source: Newsfactor]

We Say: Why do I say I originally labeled it “x?” Because originally I thought it was a simple mistake, but since the story clearly states they cracked the DRM… Then I thought about the flap between France and Apple over the iTunes DRM. Although the proposed law has essentially been neutered, it was brought up by Laurent Fiscal, a director of the store.

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[tags]france telecom,france vs. apple,virgin lawsuit,hung up,madonna piracy[/tags]