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French Senate Passes Anti-Piracy Internet Cut-Off Law
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Nov 02, 2008 12:13 PM
from the trois-coups dept.
from the trois-coups dept.
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.
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Technology: France Seeks To Push 3-Strikes Law Across Europe 265 comments
quanticle writes "As you may recall, France previously threatened to cut off broadband access for file sharers. However, after lobbying by the public, the legislation failed in the National Assembly. Now, the government of Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to revive the the measure by pushing it as an amendment to the pan-European Telecoms Package. This amendment has the potential to impose 3-strikes across Europe, not just in France."
Submission: France To Cut Off Internet For Pirates by Anonymous Coward
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(Cynacism Alert) Good (Score:5, Funny)
Re:(Cynacism Alert) Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, if my internet is disconnected then I'll be forced to do productive stuff like read books and hit the gym...and if I need the internet that badly then I'll get it in my girlfriend's or roommate's name.
Parent
Re:(Cynacism Alert) Good (Score:5, Informative)
By the way, while I could not find the reference to the parliamentary action noted above, the summary is way off in its assessment of the weight of the European Parliament's action. The EU does not have the power to outlaw these kinds of things, only to issue directives that the member states transpose into their laws. The parliament itself is the weakest of the three European institutions, and if we are in traditional first pillar decision making in this case, its amendments do not really mean anything until the Council has approved them. In many cases, the Council can just reject an amendment and pass the legislation in its original form, or at the very least force the EP into negotiation. Historically, the EP yields to the council as soon as the Council makes an issue of something.
Once a piece of legislation (we'll assume that this is a directive and that the EP's amendment stands) is approved, France still has quite a long time (in general, 3 to 5 years) to transpose the directive. Only once this time limit is reached can any hypothetical tussle between France and the EU begin. These are, however, very rare as the EU is ultimately an inter-state, diplomatic body. It would require that either (a) the Commission place a complaint before the European Court of Justice, (b) that the French courts themselves ask the ECJ to interpret the situation, or (c), that another member state accuses France of not fulfilling its obligations.
None of these situations are very likely over something this insignificant. The Commission is aware that it depends on the good will of the member states to accomplish its duties. The French courts are historically reticent to ask the ECJ for opinions. Member states have attacked each other in front of the ECJ on less than a dozen occasions AKAIK as such actions are politically very sensitive.
In short, I would not hold my breath for a Eurocrat in shining armour to save the French internet users.
Please forgive my misuse of technical vocabulary in this post, my studies are in French.
Parent
Re:(Cynacism Alert) Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, what ?
Just because the USAsian system doesn't work out, the alternative should be this ? I'll tell you something: In Germany, state attorneys apparently have enough of the music & film industries' claims and apparently only act if hundreds to thousands of files are shared [netzpolitik.org] (link in German).
Parent
Re:(Cynacism Alert) Good (Score:4, Funny)
Don't forget the neighbours WiFi
Parent
Re:(Cynacism Alert) Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:(Cynacism Alert) Good (Score:5, Insightful)
It sucks that we haven't taken the steps to create a citizens mesh network to replace the centrally managed networking we're relying on. Bitching and moaning isn't going to do anything if you're still materially dependent on systems under other peoples control.
Take the steps to build a mesh network by the citizenry for the citizenry, then when they start passing laws to shut it down and sending the police out to force everyone to stop, THAT is when you should be protesting. Well, probably fighting on the defensive rather than protesting, but you get the idea.
At this point, the only thing stopping this from happening is the laziness of a citizenry who would rather demand their rights to be dependent consumers be affirmed than actually take responsibility and take effective steps to remedy their situation.
Parent
Re:(Cynacism Alert) Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:(Cynacism Alert) Good (Score:4, Insightful)
The only way to deal with the problem would violate too many laws. The US is too corrupt at that level and there are too many people in the country who are too goddamn clueless to make any meaningful change since in eyes of the law on election day and other things the clueless idiot's opinion carries as much weight as the education person's. Through political activism, etc you might make some advances, but probably not before you and are I long in the ground.
Parent
Bad. (Score:3, Insightful)
A censored internet will look nothing like the free net of '92. It will look like broadcast TV because the same people who censor that will be deciding who gets kicked off.
Passing a Law Against What Everyone Does (Score:4, Insightful)
Passing a law against What everyone does is a risky affair. Sure, legislators have to go along with the concept that recorded media is property. As in the idea that a corporation can actually own a song or a movie, which is quite absurd, although accepted. A slight change in a note makes a different song, a minor re-edit or re-filming of the same plot makes a different movie. Which according to the bizarre theory of corporate ownership of 'intellectual property' creates an entirely new piece of property.
Add to this strange notion that everyone has the means to quite easily break this so-called law, since computers and telecommunications are ubiquitous, and you have a situation where it is easier to break a law than it is to obey it.
Which is not a stable situation. The law enforcers must either ignore the law in general, focus its enforcement on a specific minority group, or enforce the law equally against everyone. Enforcing against everyone changes the conditions that law is supposed to protect and is almost never done. Choosing between non-enforcement and selective enforcement is often a matter of culture. I would believe that the French law enforcement will not enforce this law against French citizens, only against foreigners and then only when the foreigners break other laws (or act outside of French cultural norms) and this law becomes one more weapon that can be used to make them conform.
Americans on the other hand are basically punitive people. Laws like this are specifically focused on targeted minorities for the specific purpose of incarcerating them for profit into private prisons, to steal their property, and to destroy their political clout. An example is the use of the drug possession laws being used to re-enslave the African-American non-middle-class youth. Each year the drug penalties get harsher and more focused on Blacks while White youth are given warnings and probation for the same 'offenses'. In America, copyright laws will be primarily used against young people who protest against any government actions.
These laws are perfect for that purpose. They can be widely broken with no ill effect to society as a whole (like the marijuana laws), and still be enforced brutally against specific individuals and groups. As long as the mainstream of people can continue to download music and movies without hassle, they will accept harsh punishments for the same downloading activity against young people who demonstrate against the government.
If McCain is elected, expect the criminalization of file downloading and harsh penalties applied against only the people who actively oppose government policies. This is the American way of doing things and there are many historical precedents for using harsh laws against harmless activities in this manner.
Parent
Re:Passing a Law Against What Everyone Does (Score:5, Informative)
If McCain is elected...
Bla bla bla...The DMCA was signed into law by a democrat. It was a republican, probably more than one, that helped to keep Clipper chips out of your computers. In fact one of the louder voices was McCain's. This is not an endorsement. I dislike him more than most people do. But let's try to remember from who's trough both sides are feeding from. And also don't forget that Joe Lieberman, as a democrat, most likely had the patriot act waiting in the wings long before Bush showed up on the scene. These people from either side are not your friends. We need a serious purge.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Passing a Law Against What Everyone Does (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [www.ssb.no] 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.
Parent
Re:Passing a Law Against What Everyone Does (Score:4, Informative)
Grr. And of course the wrong table was in the copy-paste buffer, this [www.ssb.no] is the right one, you'll see the numbers I quoted in the column "Utvekslet musikk, filmer ved fildeling" which directly translated means "Exchanged music, movies by file sharing".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That certainly seems likely to me. When I was a kid, videogames were a thing that was done mostly by children. These days the average gamer is over 30 years old. I fully expect that number to continue treding upward as I age until the rate of videogame playing matches the current spread of TV watching among all age groups.
Common sense? (Score:2)
This is akin to if you'd murder someone with a knife for the third time, they'd not let you cut your own bread for a year...err, actually you wouldn't be able to cut your own bread for far longer than a year, seeing that you'd be in a maximum security prison...but anyway.
That really was a horrible example, someone want a car analogy?
Re:Common sense? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure. It's like getting caught driving drunk in the US. They'll give you a fine, even though you are putting the lives of all around you at risk. They might even throw you in jail for the evening until you sober up. When you finally end up killing someone because of your drunk driving, the government might maybe, begrudgingly, take your license away.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Not quite. I closely know a guy in jail now, for 2 years (3 years probation after that), because of 3 DUI's. He never had a wreck and never killed anyone.
You won't get it taken away the first time, but after the 2nd or 3rd, you will.
Re: (Score:2)
In Michigan, I believe you lose your license for a year.. the first time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Common sense? (Score:4, Insightful)
Car analogy:
You are a truck driver. You are caught on 3 occasions driving your truck through a gas station to skip a traffic light, regardless of whether or not you actually stopped to buy gas (in some states in the US, this is considered an illegal use of private property). As a result, you are prohibited from using public roads. Whether for driving your truck or your bicycle or even taking the public city bus, you are not allowed to do so for 1 year, because you didnt pay for something you may have had the right to access.
Seems only 15 out of 312+ members of the French Senate have managed to keep their heads out of their asses long enough to realize how much this law stinks.
Never mind that the government of a country should not be using its resources to protect private businesses from their own failing business model.
The internet has become an essential service for most people in today's world.
The law doesnt address how to resolve an issue of employees using the internet to download copyrighted material at work, if 4 employees do it at once, the entire business would lose internet for a year.
The law doesnt even specify that the downloading of copyrighted material must be illegal. If I go to cnn.com and download a podcast, I have downloaded copyrighted material from the internet and have not paid for it.
On the other hand, in many cases the validity of whether material is copyrighted is not apparent. If I download a torrent that contains copyrighted material that is not labeled as such, I have permission to do so from whoever uploads the material. If the source material is in fact copyrighted, I could lose my internet for downloading it from someone who downloaded from someone who downloaded it from the original host. I would have no way of knowing that the material was copyrighted. And thousands of people could lose internet access because of one person's actions.
This is a slippery slope that ends in transfer of information without a fee or a EULA impossible, which in the long run, turns the internet from the information superhighway into the worlds biggest electronic shopping mall.
Its not like we didnt have reasons to hate France before, but if this passes the lower house of the senate, I for one will be boycotting all things French (admittedly, that means I have to give up bottled water, but still, thats about 2/3 of France's economy, right?)
Parent
How would they know? (Score:4, Insightful)
The article is short on details. How will they know that the downloader didn't have permission to download the copyrighted work? There are movies, music, and video games that are copyrighted but freely available. Does French law require that copyrighted works be paid for rather than distributed at no charge?
Re: (Score:2)
They don't really care if you have permission. What is in it for them to do their research?
Re: (Score:2)
Unless they've thrown all ISP privacy laws over board, I guess it means every C&D letter (in the US you'd call it a DMCA notice, but it's not the US) will be counted towards the limit, three letters and you're offline for a year. The ISP probably won't do any fact-checking at all...
Re: (Score:2)
> I gueI guess it means every C&D letter (in the US you'd call it a DMCA notice, but it's
> not the US)
No. I'd call it a C&D letter, because that is what it would be. It would have nothing to do with the DMCA.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
How will they know that the downloader didn't have permission to download the copyrighted work? There are movies, music, and video games that are copyrighted but freely available.
One would hope the law says "unlicensed" rather than "not paid for". One would fear that the law is made by lawyers (just because we don't like lawyers). A fortunate side effect is that they probably know to distinguish the two.
If not, then because due to the fact that
There are [...] video games that are copyrighted but freely available
We would have that apt-get is a tool for software piracy: nexuiz, openarena, wesnoth; that's three strikes. Be sure to add the music to your playlist (dpkg -L $pkg; unzip the pk3s).
The french are trying to outlaw Linux? They're probably st
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
First, the French copyright law "droit d'auteur" ( author's rights ) are significantly different of US copyright law.
Second, the article isn't accurate. The HADOPI (Haute Autorité pour la diffusion des Å"uvres et la protection des droits sur Internet, " hight authority of protection of broadcasting right on internet" approximative translation ) only investigate cases after copyright holder request.
So it's pretty unlikely that the author or the copyright owner request intervention of the hado
They don't know / don't care (Score:3, Interesting)
All those objections have been raised. I know personally the people at the main advocacy group opposing this nonsense [laquadrature.net], 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 premptivel
Will they do the same to business & government (Score:2)
Seems only fair, eh? :-)
297 votes to 15 (Score:2)
So now you know who in your government was willing to sell out, and who wasn't ( or had a higher price then the industry was willing to pay ).
Heh (Score:4, Insightful)
Some people should release some 'copyrighted' material they created then lure some of the political figures to download it. Once a couple of people get banned from the net, that law will disappear quickly.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you seriously believe that such people would ever be banned?
Better way... (Score:2)
I'd release my stuff as freeware with a EULA that said that politicians weren't allowed to use it, then go after only them. Nobody reads EULAs if they can help it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Seeing how far removed some of those figures are from reality, you'd probably have to teach them what a download is, let alone how to download something.
The worst part.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The worst part is that this doesn't really require any evidence. It's "three warnings", not "three convictions". There's no due process.
Also, cutting people off the Internet is a way disproportionate punishment. For me, this would mean:
- Not being able to participate in the work of my political party of choice (The Swedish Pirate Party, if you're wondering..)
- Heck, it will cut me off from lots of vital information that I need to practice my democratic rights.
- Not being able to pay my bills without going t
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly. Try getting by on a somewhat modern western university without having access to the online materials (Stallman wrote about that [gnu.org].)
This is a non-story... for now (Score:5, Informative)
Yes but (Score:3, Insightful)
Nazi-douchebag Sarkozy had his government use "emergency" procedure to pass it, so it will only be discussed once in each chamber.
Of course, just the mere fact that they claimed it to be an emergency is yet another proof that those assholes are just doing Vivendi's bidding.
Constitutional Court (Score:3, Informative)
First of all, even if the second chamber does approve the law it also has to stand the test in the Court of Cassation (Cour de cassation) [wikipedia.org]. If the law is deemed unconstitutional there it will have to be changed.
P.S. Vi har ikke noe liknende i Norge, vi "tester" ikke om lovene er konstitusjonelle eller ikke på samme måte. Det er mer likt det amerikanske systemet hvor man også kan utfordre lover i Høyesterett (føderal).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You made a confusion with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conseil_constitutionnel [wikipedia.org], which duty is to ensure that the principles and rules of the constitution are upheld
The new ISP dilemmna... (Score:3, Interesting)
If I obey the law and send a letter the customer won't need my bandwidth any more...
The Vivendi law (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Extra penalties (Score:5, Funny)
I heard there will be extra penalties if the downloads weren't in French...
Danish politician wants to legalise filesharing (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's compare this with a danish politician (I'm from Denmark).
http://www.computerworld.dk/art/42432?a=newsletter&i=1393 [computerworld.dk] 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 :)
Well then its irelevant (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Well then its irelevant (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
So.. You programmed the thing, right?
Just write your own sheet music that corresponds to what you did. For bonus points, get a graphic artist to design you a "robot clef" for the machine parts.
Assuming, of course, that what you did corresponds well enough to the standard scales.
Welcome to /., btw.
(also, you might wanna get a free account, even if you just post anonymously. Lock in your user-number today, they're only going to go up!)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.