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.

(Cynacism Alert) Good

[betterunixthanunix]

I'll take the cynical stance and say that this is a good thing. We need fewer people on the Internet. We need to return the 'net to the state it was in circa '92.

Re:How would they know?

[jonaskoelker]

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 still angry at the Germans (who are adopting it, as we have all read) ;)

Or they're pissed at the freedom fries thing and want software frenchness rather than software freedom... ;)

Extra penalties

[Brandybuck]

I heard there will be extra penalties if the downloads weren't in French...

Re:(Cynacism Alert) Good

[Dan541]

Don't forget the neighbours WiFi

Re:Passing a Law Against What Everyone Does

[Kingrames]

"that helped to keep Clipper chips out of your computers." So THAT's what happened to Clippy.