You know, the world would be a much duller place without the French. While politicians in France debate whether to legitimatise P2P usage by charging a royalty levy on ISP subscriptions, the country's courts have gone one step further, and said file sharing is OK without the levy, providing P2P users don't profit from their file sharing.
That ruling has come in a case being pursued by French music industry body Société Civile des Producteurs Phonographiques against one Anthony G. He was accused of illegally uploaded and downloading over a thousand copyrighted tracks via P2P. But the court found the defendant not guilty of copyright violation, not because there was any question as to whether he had shared the music, but because he was sharing music for private use.
The decision, made at the end of last year but only recently made public, contradicts decisions being made by countless courts elsewhere in the world, who have generally rejected the 'private use' defence when it comes to P2P. The decision was made in the District Court Of Paris and the SCPP will now appeal - so it may only prove to be a temporary ruling - but for the time being the P2P situation remains both ambiguous and interesting over there in La France.