Le président de la République actuel a un plan. C'est la première phrase du livre de François Bayrou, Abus de Pouvoir, et l'on peut la vérifier au moins en ce qui concerne le contrôle du net. Depuis la loi DADVSI où il était président de l'UMP et ministre de l'intérieur, Nicolas Sarkozy a déployé son plan pour contrôler le net. Il a commencé à l'appliquer avant-même la loi Hadopi, et prévoit de le parachever avec la Loppsi. Dans cet article exceptionnellement long, Numerama tente un décryptage du net selon Sarkozy.

When Paul Levitz and Steve Geppi were appointed to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund board of directors Sept. 13, it was, from one point of view, an obvious choice on the part of the Fund. The new board members are perhaps the two most prominent and influential figures in the comics industry and both have a history of supporting the Fund in various ways. Before celebrating their arrival on the board, however, certain questions would seem to be in order. Can any organization, especially one as small as the CBLDF, remain unchanged as board members like veteran underground publisher Denis Kitchen are replaced by comics-distribution magnate Steve Geppi and DC Comics President Paul Levitz? What role exactly does the board play in guiding the activities of the Fund? And how might the appointment of Geppi and Levitz affect that guidance? How committed is Geppi, who has a history of condemning and refusing to distribute adult and edgy comic books, to the First Amendment? And how committed is Levitz, who has a reputation for pulping potentially offensive DC comics, to freedom of expression for even the most controversial of comics? The answers to these questions would go a long way toward telling us whether the comics industry has welcomed two powerful First Amendment advocates into key positions in the fight against censorship or if it has set a pair of foxes to guard the henhouse.

On October 27, U.S. Customs sent a letter to Top Shelf Productions notifying them that copies of the anthology Stripburger had been seized, charging that the stories "Richie Bush" by Peter Kuper and "Moj Stub" (translated, "My Pole") by Bojan Redzic, constituted "clearly piratical copies" of registered and recorded copyrights. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has retained counsel to challenge these seizures.

We, the undersigned, are musicians, actors, directors, authors, and producers. We make our livelihoods with the artistic works we create. We are also Internet users.

We, the undersigned, are musicians, actors, directors, authors, and producers. We make our livelihoods with the artistic works we create. We are also Internet users.

We are writing to express our serious concerns regarding the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

As creative professionals, we experience copyright infringement on a very personal level. Commercial piracy is deeply unfair and pervasive leaks of unreleased films and music regularly interfere with the integrity of our creations. We are grateful for the measures policymakers have enacted to protect our works.

We, along with the rest of society, have benefited immensely from a free and open Internet. It allows us to connect with our fans and reach new audiences. Using social media services like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we can communicate directly with millions of fans and interact with them in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

We fear that the broad new enforcement powers provided under SOPA and PIPA could be easily abused against legitimate services like those upon which we depend. These bills would allow entire websites to be blocked without due process, causing collateral damage to the legitimate users of the same services - artists and creators like us who would be censored as a result.

We are deeply concerned that PIPA and SOPA's impact on piracy will be negligible compared to the potential damage that would be caused to legitimate Internet services. Online piracy is harmful and it needs to be addressed, but not at the expense of censoring creativity, stifling innovation or preventing the creation of new, lawful digital distribution methods.

We urge Congress to exercise extreme caution and ensure that the free and open Internet, upon which so many artists rely to promote and distribute their work, does not become collateral damage in the process.