French "3 Strikes" Law Returns, In Slightly Altered Form

suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "The French Senate has once again approved a reworked version of the country's controversial 'three strikes' bill designed to appease the Constitutional Council. Instead of a state-appointed agency cutting off those accused of being repeat offenders, judges will have the final say over punishment. The approval comes exactly one month after the country's Constitutional Council ripped apart the previous version of the Création et Internet law. ... Not content to let the idea die, President Nicolas Sarkozy's administration reworked the law in hopes of making it amenable to the Council — instead of HADOPI deciding on its own to cut off users on the third strike, it will now report offenders to the courts. A judge can then choose to ban the user from the Internet, fine him or her 300,000 (according to the AFP), or hand over a two-year prison sentence."

Comments

Re:Laws based on baseball or cowboy games?

[Dogtanian]

Please, I thought we'd left that behind with George Bush and Ronnie Reagan.

"We"? Who is "we"? You talk like the American public and their way of thinking are the same as that of the rest of the world.

And which George Bush? Because I can assure you that from where I was sitting, Dubya's arrogant, bullying and downright childish "with us or against us" mentality was every bit as laughable- and he's only been out of office for six months. So don't get too self-congratulatory and blase about having voted Obama in and left all that behind- it's still largely the same American public who *re*-elected Bush in 2004 by which time they knew *exactly* what they were getting.

And don't expect the rest of the world to change lock-step with American politics.

Re:Two years prison time. Lovely

[shmlco]

So you're saying that if you knew you could easily be popped and fined 300,000 euros, or even sent to jail for downloading 20 euros worth of music, you'd still do so?

If that's the case then fine, build the jails. The world will be much better off with all the idiots behind bars as well...