French Senate Passes Anti-Piracy Internet Cut-Off Law 225
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.
This is a non-story... for now (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How would they know? (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 hadopi for a work he distributed for free by himself.
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.
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.
Some precisions about the vote (Score:1, Informative)
'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.
Actually the 297 against 15 wasn't the actual vote, it was just an amendment trying to substitute the disconnection with a fine. The final vote for the law was unanimous, every political group voted "for" except the communists who preferred the abstention.
That was a sad day.
See the report from the advocacy group LaQuadrature:
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/graduated-response-will-france-disconnect-europe [laquadrature.net]
Re:The new ISP dilemmna... (Score:1, Informative)
No worry for them : even when the customer is cut-off the internet, this law requires the customer to continue to pay the bill.
(note: mod me informative)
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".
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:The worst part.. (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].)
Re:Constitutional Court (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