Half off! France "fights piracy" by subsidizing digital music

[p2p rules]

France has decided to try something... novel. The country will attempt to prop up the digital music industry by subsidizing legal music consumption by young people. Under the initiative, citizens between 12 and 25 years old will be able to purchase a "carte musique"—a prepaid card  usable on subscription-based music websites. The card will come with €50 worth of credit, but customers only have to pay €25. The rest will be paid by the French government.

The purpose of the program is to get the young'uns into the habit of paying for content instead of pirating it. The program will last for two years, and France expects to sell about one million cards per year. That translates to an expected €50 million total expenditure by the French government to help young people learn the value of paying for the content that they consume.

ars technica

[DaBees-Knees]

You have to love some news items and in particular answers to perceived problems presented by governments who don't fully understand the problem in the first place.

Further to the report above in an article at http://www.p2pon.com/2010/10/19/france-hopes-to-win-against-piracy-subsidizing-music-purchases/
It now seems that this wonderful scheme will not come in to effect for two years. "According to government officials the program was scheduled for two years, time in which the government expects to sell one two million cards."

The obvious conclusion that you can draw from this is that the French Government is so hand in glove with the Amercan entertainment cartels that they are prepared to subsidise them with french tax payers money. Hoping that in two years time the public will have forgotten how it was arrived at. If this is how they intend to represent their citizens then a drastic rethink needs to take place by the electorate at the next elections.