French Senate Passes Anti-Piracy Internet Cut-Off Law

An anonymous reader writes "The French Senate has approved a three strikes law for Internet users who download copyrighted entertainment media without paying for it. If, after two warnings, a person continues to download pirated music and movies, the internet service providers would cut off access for a year. Quoting: 'The legislation passed with a massive cross-party majority of 297 votes to 15. Only a handful of conservatives, centrists and socialists voted against, while the Communists abstained. In passing the bill, the senators rejected an amendment proposed by senator Bruno Retailleau of the right-wing MPF party replacing internet cut-off with a fine. ... The bill sets up a tussle between France and Brussels. In September, the European Parliament approved by a large majority an amendment outlawing internet cut-off." We discussed the introduction of this legislation several months ago.

Comments

The new ISP dilemmna...

[Joce640k]

If I obey the law and send a letter the customer won't need my bandwidth any more...

The Vivendi law

[pieterh]

This law was mainly pushed by Vivendi but there are powerful backers from all across the spectrum:

* Telecoms firms that want a mandate to filter all Internet traffic so that they can block all P2P, and then VoIP, and then video streaming and then anything which competes with their monopoly products.
* Large ISPs, because these are now all owned by the telecoms firms.
* Vendors like Cisco because they want to sell loads and loads of expensive filtering equipment.
* The music industry, because it still thinks it's going to sue its way back onto the right side of history. Stupid kloten, when will they learn?
* The movie industry, because they've drunk the music industry koolaid.
* The TV industry, because they want to sell more DVDs and because their distributors in the digital age are, of course, the ISPs.
* And finally, certain software firms, because the only way to implement this law, finally, is to use a fully locked down operating system that only runs authorized software, so no Linux.

The French tried so hard to get this same law pushed through the European Parliament, but that seems to be saner.

There are similar legislative pushes all around Europe, at the national level, and for the same reasons.

The Internet is, really, under attack from concerted and powerful forces that hate what those free packets represent.

Danish politician wants to legalise filesharing

[jonaskoelker]

Let's compare this with a danish politician (I'm from Denmark).

http://www.computerworld.dk/art/42432?a=newsletter&i=1393 says (my translation from danish)

"Enhedslistens"* candidate for the parliament, Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen, thinks tha file sharing should be legal, and digital rights management, DRM, illegal

"I think it's an illusion to believe that it's possible to stop copying. I amounts to sticking one's head in the sand. The politicians have to realize the necessity of forming a committee that will address the question of how artists can be compensated for their work."

*"Enhedslisten" is the leftmost party in danish politics, left of The Socialist People's Party. I'd guess they compare with the greens; the environment is also one of their big issues, they're all for taking from the rich and giving to the poor.

I remember them branding themselves as the Robin Hood party one time, but I don't recall them using that term again. If they get into parliament, they often hold around four seats out of 179, which is the smallest possible amount (less than 2% of the votes and you don't get in).

Be aware that this statement was during election season.

I hope this gives you nutrition for cognition :)

Re:Passing a Law Against What Everyone Does

[Kjella]

Please be sure to speak for yourself only and not assume that "everyone" does it.

Maybe not everyone, but a majority does in some age / sex brackets. Here's the latest stats from Q2 2008 here in Norway in percent of Internet users (which is 84% of all households, the rest mostly very old people). And they didn't have a category for those under 16 either:

File sharers: 19%

Males: 25%
Females: 12%

16-24: 47%
25-34: 31%
35-44: 13%
45-54: 5%
55-64: 1%
65-74: 0%

While the data isn't on that level, with a 2:1 ratio of males to females and 47% in the 16-24 age bracket overall, I'd estimate about 62% of males and 31% of females 16-24 do file sharing. That's right, if you're a young male and don't file share, you're probably in the minority. Note that this is the "file sharing" numbers, it's NOT the "watched youtube online" numbers. And while there's always the assumption that people will "settle down" when they get older, I think this trend will only continue as today's file sharers grow older.

Well then its irelevant

[Alterion]

"The bill sets up a tussle between France and Brussels. In September, the European Parliament approved by a large majority an amendment outlawing internet cut-off."" If this does conlfict with the EU amendment/directive then this will be thrown out by the ECJ whe it comes before them, simple.

Re:Well then its irelevant

[Cochonou]

For sure. But the article is slightly misleading: what is controversial in this law is not really that the internet access can be cut off, but that it can be cut off without a court decision. In fact, the law is proposing to create an "administrative authority" which would take care of these matters, without a trial, in order to speed things up. This is precisely what the european parliament aims to outlaw: the ability to cut off an internet connection without a court decision.
To make matters more complex, since the reforms promised by the European Constitution (which failed to be approved at a referendum in france and netherlands in 2005, and a revised version was rejected by ireland in 2008), the european parliament still has very limited powers: it shares its decisional power with the european council, which is made of the representants of the executive governments of the member countries. As far as I know, the european council has not yet taken a stance on this topic.

They don't know / don't care

[Nicolas MONNET]

All those objections have been raised. I know personally the people at the main advocacy group opposing this nonsense, and from what they tell me, they are in complete in denial. They are impervious to the technical arguments. The entertainment industry feeds them their talking points, and that's good enough for them.
But the technical aspect is just a part of the whole problem; constitutionnally, it's on grounds just as weak. And the European Parliament, backed by the Commission, has shot it down premptively.
It doesn't make any fucking sense.

Re:(Cynacism Alert) Good

[Fourier404]

That's right, find new ways to circumvent laws, instead of dealing with the actual problem.

Re:Money / ISP income

[azgard]

Maybe it will work differently. You will get cut off, but you still have to pay. Then, there is no problem for ISPs, in fact, more bandwidth can be overselled to others.