France Revokes Ability To Disconnect Convicted File-Sharers From the Internet

New submitter Nicolas Jondet writes "French courts will not be able to disconnect convicted file-sharers from the Internet anymore. On Tuesday, the French Culture minister issued a decree modifying the graduated response scheme and removing the disconnection penalty. 'The report says that instead of simply disconnecting users, those suspected of copyright could be fined if they did not reply to warnings, with a relatively low fine (€60) to begin, and the size of the fine would increase depending on the number of infractions. French anti-piracy will now their focus – instead of handing heavy punishments to individual users, the government is looking towards penalizing "commercial piracy" and "sites that profit from pirated material," according to an official spokesperson.'"

Comments

Re:For once...

[Anonymous Coward]

I find your comment entertaining since it calls an entire country as cowards thus continuing a meme my peers have celebrated with many laughings, HOHO! I want to join with their laughings to reinforce my sense of self worth by pretending I AM TEH USA, HAHA! I know nothings of history for that is for the fags.

Do they mean...?

[mark-t]

Will they increase the fine, as they say, with the actual number of infractions? Or do they really mean they'll increase it with the number of allegations?

Dear Soulskill

[oldhack]

Can you write in English?

Re:Dear Soulskill

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Hey this is /. where we are pioneers not just in technology but also in spelling and grammar.

If you define Pirated Material as Stolen Material

[JabrTheHut]

Then expect Disney's web site to be targeted, for a start. Actually, all the major movie studios' unoriginal and uninspiring copies of each other should make them targets of this law.

Re:For once...

[Master Moose]

Actually,

I have been invited to less and less parties as I have begun to use Slahdot more and more. A study needs to be commissioned.

Re:If you define Pirated Material as Stolen Materi

[Samantha Wright]

I know you're just having fun, but (a) plagiarism of storyline has been a fundamental part of storytelling since prehistory, and (b) even if there were laws against being unoriginal, all of the source material is long out of copyright!

Thank the French Courts, not their government

[Camael]

The law the French government enacted to cut people off the internet, Hadopi, was basically unenforceable when the French Constitutional Court declared access to the Internet a basic human right in 2009.

The French judiciary has ridden to the rescue of the country's web users, striking down a controversial new law which would have allowed the state to cut off the internet connections of illegal filesharers for up to a year.

The ruling is a blow to French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who had characterised the so-called "three strikes" law as a crucial weapon in the fight against online piracy. The Hadopi law, named after the government agency which was to police the new regime, was also used by many in the content industry as an example that could be followed in the UK.

But France's constitutional council ruled today that "free access" to online communications services is a human right and cannot be withheld without a judge's intervention. The council also ruled that the method of policing the web envisaged in the law breaches a citizen's right to privacy.

Re:Thank the French Courts, not their government

[xelah]

I think a rather better argument would be that the Internet is now so important for communication, for political activity, for social involvement and so on that denying people access to it is to deny rights of free association. Not to mention that it's a vast vast overreaction.

"commercial piracy"

[fustakrakich]

Um, all piracy is commercial, and almost always involves some kind of lethal weaponry. If no money changes hands and/or the transaction is consensual, then it ain't piracy. Copyright is piracy. It takes money, heavy weaponry, and coercion to make it work.

Re:"commercial piracy"

[fustakrakich]

The smoke that left your chimney, the light that shone out your window is no longer yours.

Re:"commercial piracy"

[Anonymous Coward]

What have you ever published, that you think you deserve to deny professional writers and musicians a chance to make a decent living?

Deliberately or just through ignorance, you confuse copyright and droit d’auteur. Copyright was created by publishers, and mostly used by them.

But don't let being wrong cause you to reassess your world view.

Re:"commercial piracy"

[Your.Master]

False dichotomists are bums.

I think slashdot submitter misunderstood the artic

[aepervius]

Or maybe *I* am misunderstanding it. 2013-596 says "Objet : infraction de négligence caractérisée ; abrogation de la peine complémentaire de suspension de l'accÃs à un service de communication au public en ligne" and " III de l'article R. 335-5 du code de la propriété intellectuelle. "

But 355-5 is "Article R335-5 Créé par Décret nÂ2010-695 du 25 juin 2010 - art. 1 I.-Constitue une négligence caractérisée, punie de l'amende prévue pour les contraventions de la cinquiÃme classe, le fait, sans motif légitime, pour la personne titulaire d'un accÃs à des services de communication au public en ligne, lorsque se trouvent réunies les conditions prévues au II :
1 Soit de ne pas avoir mis en place un moyen de sécurisation de cet accÃs ;
2 Soit d'avoir manqué de diligence dans la mise en Å"uvre de ce moyen. "

EMphasis mine.


In other word, it is not about file sharer, but rather people putting an open access not securized. Now instead of disconnecting them after a 3rd warning, they don't disconnect them but put fines. Which makes sense, but is not about file sharer


Agaiin maybe I am misreading and somebody can check :
The decret :
http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000027678782

The original decret
http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do;jsessionid=40CAF13F7CA80F3ECF351133E3DD58CF.tpdjo17v_2?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006069414&idArticle=LEGIARTI000022393991&dateTexte=29990101&categorieLien=cid

suspected of copyright

[devent]

The report says that instead of simply throwing people in jail those suspected of stealing could be fined if they did not reply to warnings, with a relatively low fine (€60) to begin, and the size of the fine would increase depending on the number of infractions. (change mine)

Ah brave new world. And some people are asking me why I have such strong opinion on copyright. Because to serve a few special interests we throw every common sense out the window, we criminalize whole demographics for a crime that have no impact on anything. We reward monopolies, stifle our culture and create legal frameworks that would be just brain-dead for any real property.

The new government agency is headed by a board of nine members, three appointed by the government, two by the legislative bodies, three by judicial bodies and one by the Conseil supérieur de la propriété littéraire et artistique (Superior Council of Artistic and Literary Property), a government council responsible to the French Ministry of Culture.[15] The agency is vested with the power to police Internet users.

So you have some people, 6 from the current legislative, 3 from the judicial to "police Internet users". You know, normally the power to "police" is given to the executive, the judicial are the courts and assume innocent before proven guilty and the legislative forging out the laws. This is usually called "Separation of powers".

To ensure that internet subscribers "screen their internet connections in order to prevent the exchange of copyrighted material without prior agreement from the copyright holders"

Ah ok. So I am suppose to know in advance that the web site have the copyrights to present me the content? How am I suppose to do that? How am I suppose to know if the work is already in public domains, is licensed under a free license like the Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/who-uses-cc which about over 100,000,000 works are using the CC license or the site have some contract with the publisher?

(1) An email message is sent to the offending internet access subscriber, derived from the IP address involved in the claim. The email specifies the time of the claim but neither the object of the claim nor the identity of the claimant.

What email address are they using? My gmail address? My company address? My hotmail or yahoo address? There is no law that requires me to register an email address with the government.

I could go on. You can read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HADOPI_law
This bill stinks. It is a shame for a democratic country. It is a shame for Europe.