Major Battle Brewing Between French Gov't and ISPs

Dangerous_Minds writes "Drew Wilson has been following HADOPI (France's three strikes law) a lot lately, and the latest developments are that the French ISPs and the French government are edging closer to a full-on war over compensation. The French government apparently requested that ISPs send an invoice of the bills after a certain period of time, but the French ISPs don't feel this is good enough — probably because of worries that the compensation the government will ultimately provide won't be enough. The ISPs are demanding adequate compensation, and if the government doesn't give it to them, they simply will not hand over evidence required to enforce HADOPI law. While HADOPI demands that ISPs cooperate, speculation suggests that if the government takes ISPs to court, the ISPs will simply rely on constitutional jurisprudence to shield them from liability (translation)."

Gotta side with the ISPs on this one

[Pojut]

Monitoring and fulfilling information requests costs time and money. If they're being required to do so constantly, chances are they had to bring on temporary staff to keep up with the worklog. It's wholly unfair to demand this of them, and yet not compensate them.

Then again, "fair", "business", and "government" don't go together, so ::shrug::.

Wow Brilliant

[Haedrian]

So the government buckled to pressure from large 'content-producing' corporations - and our only defense is are other large corporations who don't want to comply because it hurts their wallets.

Not because they think its a bad idea, respect their customers or whatever, because it hurts their wallet.

What a giant mess this world is - money driven. When are the revised copyright laws coming out? No there's no large company which wants that, oh allright - Never O'Clock

Re:Why do people allow this to continue...

[Anonymous Coward]

The same reason you allow murder and other shit to still happen. There is nothing an individual can do about it.

Europe

[Lord Ender]

So in one part of Europe, internet access is a fundamental human right. In another part of Europe, it can taken away entirely for the minor crime of copyright infringement.

When is the EU civil war coming? There needs to be a Scandinavian Lincoln to conquer France and free the oppressed.

ISPs are not police forces

[Drakkenmensch]

Police forces, for one thing, get an upfront budget instead of being asked to "police the country first and send us the bill later, we'll decide if we pay you back or not."

Not enough anti-piracy laws

[cheekyjohnson]

Clearly there needs to be more anti-piracy laws that hardly affect the pirate and mostly just affect the average citizen! What would we do without these worthless bills, laws, and treaties that don't actually affect their intended target, take away more of everyones rights, and try to 'recover' imaginary profits that pirates 'stole'?

Re:Gotta side with the ISPs on this one

[Pojut]

What do you mean "again"? Most people only get concerned when I'm NOT talking to myself :p

Re:ISPs are not police forces

[Richard_at_work]

Banks are not police forces either, and yet they have to report suspicious activities and supply evidence all the time.

Law that should not exist

[betterunixthanunix]

When enforcing the law creates an undue burden on society -- tax dollars are not enough, private industries dollars are not enough, and people continue to break the law anyway -- perhaps it is time to ask, "Does this law even make sense?"

Oh, wait, the copyright lobby -- I forgot that their interests trump everything, even logic.

Re:Never gonna happen

[Anonymous Coward]

As unlikely as getting the American government to surrender, I think (read Vietnam.)

Re:Gotta side with the ISPs on this one

[wisnoskij]

Well you could say the same of ISPs, the government is a huge customer of most industries and tend to pass pro industry laws.

Re:Never gonna happen

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't like the French, but if it wasn't for them, you'd still be drinking tea.

So are you implying that the french government is the Only government, nay group of people, that have the ability to pull a successful revolution in the past few decades of time?
Or just implying that the past few decades never happened?

Unless you can somehow prove that a bunch of angry people with guns and decades of time on their hands to use them are 100% unable to do what the french did, then your statement is false.

Re:Never gonna happen

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of the time A&T turned off a shit load of FBI wire taps cause they weren't paying the bills.

Where the government won't look out for your rights the corporations will, spying on a million people costs a lot of money and it ain't coming of their their profit margin if they can help it!