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[umiman]

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8046564.stm

French 'net piracy' bill passed

A controversial French bill which could disconnect people caught downloading content illegally three times has been passed by the National Assembly. The legislation, backed by President Nicolas Sarkozy, was surprisingly voted down by the Assembly last month.

The bill sets a tough global precedent in cracking down on internet piracy, and is being closely watched by other governments as a potential deterrent. The global music industry has been calling for tougher anti-piracy laws. The Creation and Internet bill was passed by a vote of 296 to 233 by the lower house and will go before the Senate for final approval on Wednesday.

The new legislation operates under a "three strikes" system. A new state agency would first send illegal file-sharers a warning e-mail, then a letter, and finally cut off their connection for a year if they were caught a third time. It has been backed by both the film and record industries.

But some consumer groups have warned that the wrong people might be punished, should hackers hijack their computers' identity, and that the scheme amounted to state surveillance. The socialist parliamentarian Patrick Bloche said the bill was "dangerous, useless, inefficient, and very risky for us citizens".

John Kennedy, chairman of the IFPI, which represents the global music industry, has described the bill as "an effective and proportionate way of tackling online copyright infringement and migrating users to the wide variety of legal music services in France".

Personally, I'm not too worried. Firstly, I use usenet for a majority of my otherinternetally needs, and usenet is virtually untracable if you merely leech. Secondly, they're going to bungle this up and make a mess of things. It'll either never fulfill its purpose, or go after it too zealously that people just go up in arms over how things are being done.

In any case, it would certainly deter a number of French pirates for awhile.

[Jreengus]

Seems doomed to fail. Either they wont catch anyone or else they'll start getting way too many innocent people.

[Rilder]

France Surrenders to IFPI! 

[Sean Mirrsen]

Yeah. Like the cheese-eating surrender-monkeys that they are.

I'm not going to be worried until something like this begins over here. In any case, I can see a few new viruses popping up that would attempt to download something illegal to get the innocent user banned from the internet.

[LegoLord]

But if that case is likely then it should be necessary to check for such a virus.

[Jreengus]

But if that case is likely then it should be necessary to check for such a virus.

Que fake viruses you can download then install once your internet gets cut off.

[Creamcorn]

BS

Also the book 1984 suddenly pops into my mind when I read this.

[Aqizzar]

These attempts to crack on illegal downloading always involve some new magic agency that's going to find filesharers or whatever and send them notices.  I've always wondered how that actually works.  I don't doubt it does, but how could such an agency figure out who you are?  Especially in light of IP maskers and rerouting and such.

I suspect they'll hit up a few dozen music sharers (if there are any anymore), proclaim it a great victory against those rascally hackers, then the whole thing will fade into obscurity as, once again, the tactics of nutjob computer geeks outpace the paltry efforts of apathetic civil servants with paper-thin computer science degrees.

[olemars]

I wonder how this kind of law meshes up with constitutional rights / human rights. In modern society, access to the net has become a big part of life and socialization. Cutting someone off from the net (even if it just means the home connection) could seriously impair both life quality and work.

[Hawkfrost]

Yeah. Like the cheese-eating surrender-monkeys that they are.

My French ancestry takes offense to that.



Seriously, what do they expect to achieve with this?
Either people will go around it or they will catch a bunch of innocent folks.

Either way, I'll sit back and enjoy.

[LegoLord]

You know, this whole thing is really just a war between the pirates and the corporations, with everyone else caught in between.  It's easier to pirate in some ways, and not only because it can be free.  We've got all these hoops to jump through to prove we're not pirates, but if we were pirates, we would be jumping through the hoops at all.

[Aqizzar]

I wonder how this kind of law meshes up with constitutional rights / human rights. In modern society, access to the net has become a big part of life and socialization. Cutting someone off from the net (even if it just means the home connection) could seriously impair both life quality and work.

Irrelevant.  It's a question of law and capability, nothing more.

Now, I have no idea what the French constitution has to say about the matter.  Specifically as it relates to a governmental agency's ability to say that a citizen can't buy a service (internet connection) that is not otherwise proscribed.  Any French people in the audience who can clear that up?

[Vilien]

There's no possible way for governments and companies to defeat internet piracy. They're fighting a losing battle.

[Tormy]

France Surrenders to IFPI! 

France always surrenders! 

[Yanlin]