TorrentFreak

The place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collide

3-Strikes Law to Disconnect French Pirates

Over the past few months, many countries have looked into the possibility of disconnecting file-sharers from the Internet. Today, France is the first to present their new “3-strikes” law, which allows anti-piracy outfits such as IFPI, RIAA and MPAA to police the Internet.

A few weeks after the University of Washington showed that “copyright infringement warnings” are based on reckless tactics, France announces to use these notices to disconnect pirates from the Internet. The warning emails, sent by anti-piracy organizations, often carry the force of law with an ISP, despite being a blind unproven accusation. Lobby groups have pushed for these notices to be all the evidence needed for punishment in some countries, and France is the latest to follow the lobby money, with a 3-strikes law just proposed.

The new legislation will make it possible to disconnect people from the Internet, if they receive more than two copyright infringement warnings. The warnings will be sent out by the ISPs, solely based on data gathered by anti-piracy organizations.

Christine Albanel, the French Minister of Culture presented the new bill today. She hopes the bill will significant reduce online piracy, and is quoted as saying at a press conference: “We know that we are not going to eradicate piracy 100 percent, but we think that we can reduce it significantly.” President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has spoken out in favor of the new legislation before, backed the Minister, and commented: “There is no reason that the Internet should be lawless.”

If the new bill passes, anti-piracy organizations will be in complete control of the Internet subscriptions of French citizens. There will be a new agency that will forward their complaints to ISPs, who will then send out the warning emails. One of the major problems is, however, that the data gathering techniques, as used by IFPI, MPAA and RIAA, are far from accurate.

Interestingly, the French law goes directly against the European Parliament who, this April, condemned state plans to authorize the disconnection of suspected file-sharers from the Internet. European Parliament said that disconnecting petty file-sharers would be “conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness”.

The controversial bill will come before parliament this autumn, and if it passes, the new legislation will become effective on January 1st, 2009.

Related Posts

Previous Post | Next Post

  • g

    eww.

  • Joys of democracy
  • very

    then being in france sucks!!

    clearly the reason for this draconian law is pressure from the U.S. Once, this is SUCCESSFULLY implemented in France, U.S. and its partners, including U.K.and many countries in Europe might follow with similar laws in their countries.

    Already Pirate BAY had to be shifted from Sweden to Egypt because America threatened with W.T.O. sanctions against Sweden, unless the bay was shutdown.

    These incidents don’t sound a good omen for p2p world. It’s important for all of us to come together and protest against this draconian legislation for our own good and our own future

  • Anonymous

    Oh thank god!!! Europe was turning into anarchy without this. Yes, it will be the end of piracy as we know it in Europe…

  • http://www.eZee.se www.eZee.se

    The FRA lagen passed in Sweden… now this in France. Europe’s beginning to look like a pretty f#cked up place to be right now, open corruption and privacy violations. (Hmm, reminds me of a certain super power, great people… shitty government)

    Honestly though, we did suspect France was going to screw their citizens, not the first time… look at France’s history…everytime in time of war they bent over and took it like whores, the resistance was only via groups of private citizens NOT the government.

    Encrypted P2P… here we come!

    Cheers!
    http://www.eZee.se – copyright is copyWRONG

  • laughing

    end of piracy in europe?? (or anywhere else for that matter) ha ha! nice joke

  • Zeke129

    @3: TPB isn’t in Egypt. That was a joke.

  • Anonymous

    Nice, I could gather three “copyright infringement warnings” on those anti pirate lobbiest and disconnect them from the Internet.

    The only thing those law will achive is explosion in friend-to-friend darknets.

  • Mr Roboto

    Even if 100% of the countries on earth passed the same law, they would still not even “Reduce it significantly.” This lady is a bimbo and has no idea what she is talking about. It’s obvious from her statements that she is just repeating what some other asshole said, like all politicians I suppose.

  • The Wandering Perv

    Being in France has always sucked…. At least, internet-wise. I’ve known a few French in my time and they’ve always complained about how monitored their online actions were. One used to play on a pirated (read free) T4C server and he was always nervous about getting caught… And then, he just disappeared…

    So after Canada’s crazy law comes France’s. Seriously, do they really think that suing pirates or disconnecting them is going to give them anything in return?

    If you sue a pirate for hundreds of dollars, chances are that he won’t be able to pay up. That means that jail-time will become necessary. However, Canadian prisons are full to the brim, so much that most newly convicted people get sentences served out in the community. And if the poor French get disconnected… then they’ll just have to go to Starbucks or hang out at a campus with free wifi…

    Seriously, if we had the money to pay for everything we pirate, we wouldn’t be pirating it! If we can’t get our stuff on the internet, we’ll just have to do what our poor ancestors did: arts and craft, playing outside, makin’ teh babies… We’ll manage.

    I wish that the MPAA, RIAA and co. would strike a deal with ISPs and get their piracy money straight from them. I wouldn’t mind a 20% increase on my internet bill if it meant I could be rid of all of these petty threats…

  • Louis Choquel

    Bonjour,
    I’m French and I can tell you this legislation is far from its final form / far from being approved and applied. But I’m sure it’s gonna make a lot of noice in France in the next 4 months.

    Still, I believe that in France we do have good conditions to innovate and develop P2P software without grockster horror stories pressuring us. That’s the context in which we are developing http://www.podmailing.com/

    Sorry for the reckless self-promotion but we’ve been working long and hard on that piece of French-Touch P2P and it’s just coming to fruition so I’m seeking to get feedback from you expert users on our features and performance.

    Podmailing is a P2P file sharing service based on BitTorent which among other things:
    * hosts and re-seeds torrents freely for up to 1 month (longer soon)
    * implements a hybrid BitTorrent/http protocol that enables our transfers to work despite BitTorrent throttling

    I hope you’ll like it, voilà !

  • Kill a Commie For Mommy

    Believe it or not America is still much more “Free” than most countries in Europe. Just look at the U.K. with their cameras that take pictures and video cameras that record everything you do , then mail you a ticket when they need revenue. A law like this would never have a remote chance in hell of passing in the states. Americans are passive politically (Some would say dumb) but don’t fuck with our cable T\V or Internet or you’ll see the sleeping giant awake from it’s slumber.

  • Norway FTW!

    Feel bad for you guys down there right now.. Hope you’ll kick the law to hell, and Sarkozy as well. Just don’t like him.

  • arggh

    Politicans controlled by a moral secretly backed up with nice wadded envelopes arriving when they need it.

  • Anonymous

    By clamping down on ordinary P2P users, this will just drive them toward using safer methods to fill their hard drives.

    Downloading from Usenet’s alt.binaries or sites like Rapidshare are safe methods, as is using P2P over a proxy service.

    Since all of these safe methods require a paid subscription for unrestricted service, the ISP’s clampdown on file sharers may end up profiting a host of industries: safe and private “pay-to-download” service providers of various kinds.

  • damm dutch

    its the french, they suck at almost everything….

  • Anonymous

    > “There is no reason that the Internet should be lawless.”

    The internet is better free, though.

  • oneplusone

    Too bad. I used to like France. Fucking Sarkozy. What a creep.

  • oneplusone

    Too bad. I should say that it isn’t France’s fault. It’s that weasel Sarkozy.

  • Gargamel

    Quote” 12 Jun 18, 2008 at 23:07 by Kill a Commie For Mommy

    Believe it or not America is still much more “Free” than most countries in Europe. Just look at the U.K. with their cameras that take pictures and video cameras that record everything you do , then mail you a ticket when they need revenue. A law like this would never have a remote chance in hell of passing in the states. Americans are passive politically (Some would say dumb) but don’t fuck with our cable T\V or Internet or you’ll see the sleeping giant awake from it’s slumber.”
    -
    I dont know if your just stupid or ignorant. They censor your news and dumb it down for you and throttle your p2p on the internet already, and you think a law like this wouldnt pass in the Good Ole Third Reich? Err sorry. The USA?

    Gots news for ya there JFK, something worse already did pass, its called the DMCA, in the land of the ‘free’ where your own Government sue’s kids, grandmothers and dead people for 100′s of thousands of dollars for a mp3 (or as torrentfreak has already shown even a PHOTOCOPY MACHINE)

  • defred

    quote : its the french, they suck at almost everything….

    Héhéé ! maybe right (fucking 53% right ><).

    I’m french, in france, open source and open culture militant, and sharing believer.

    Yes this idea of law sucks ! (it has been design by a former CEO from a well known disc retailler here in france “la fnac”, no need to say its design for the vampires of industry, distributors, dealers and so on). It would require just too much investment to make this filtering works, I don’t think private ISP are going to let loose on their customers.
    And as another frenchiy sais already, the law is far from being accepted and “active”.

    Only problem is : having this idea is already retarded.

    dF
    (rusty english, my bad)

  • anon? or someone you know?

    this was already going on in florida, im not sure if the isp’s just decide to do this bythemselves, but they give u 3 warnings then they suspend your “account name” permanently.

    but then just open a new account with a different name :)

  • Gargamel

    I would like to also applaud TF for moderating the comments on here. To many times i’ve seen people just talk crap on this site when TF has brought good articles and news to the table.

    Kudo’s TF!

  • lTauronl

    This law is very good actually. It will allow the anitpiracy organizations to make a huge mistake by cutting of many innocents who in turn will sue them for more than they lose because of piracy. They’re just digging their own graves.

  • Anonymous

    @22
    Better things be done without pain.

  • nurgle

    sucks to be french …

  • Yoshi

    France has 50 meg ADSL2+ internet connections fitted into their inferstructure I believe… something like this would greatly reduce the amount of bandwidth used by the french to upload and share content to the rest of the world…. the worst effect this will have is stop public uploading from the french but wont change anything else really, your average dumb user will be screwed bu the other 30-40% will still be fine. :)

  • Tip

    I’m going to tip France as being a place of ‘pirate’ innovation.

  • Pissed off American

    This is a classic example of a L2P (lobbyist to politician) network. Money is transferred, in the form of bribes, or “campaign contributions” from the lobbyists to the pols. When the pols have finished loading up on money they begin to seed it back to the lobbyists by giving special treatment to the companies that hired them which, in turn, increases their salaries. At any time a lobbyist can drop a connection with a pol (or vice versa) and open a new connection with another as it becomes politically expedient. This ensures that the swarm of bribery and graft keeps flowing in any circumstance. Rinse and repeat until everyone else is fucked. L2P networks have been known to be used in stopping seriously dangerous activities such as online piracy and smoking marijuana.

  • Pedant

    Bring back the guillotine!!

    Down with the new aristocracy!

    Vive la revolution!

    *goes off to eat some cake*

  • sucksbigtime

    this amounts to a lifetime ban of internet use if you get caught 3 times
    OK lifers.
    is filehsaring a crime or sickness like gambling addiction.
    we need government subsidies for filesharing addiction to cure these people, self help groups, treatment programs, maybe even a tax on movies and music to pay for this therapy.
    don’t punish filesharers they’re sick\helpless people who need our help. maybe if you own more than 50 dvd’s or 500 purchased songs you are an addict and can apply for a rehab program. You shouldn’t have to go cold turkey.

  • Sarkozy’sGayBoyfriend

    I encourage ALL FRENCH PEOPLE to keep DOWNLOADING and encourage your friends and families to STOP purchasing CD’s/DVD’s. They hurt you, hurt them back where it hurts… When they ban half the country and realize how stupid this law is it will be revoked.

    OR just use encryption :)

  • Anonymous

    I can see it now. Giant subnets of printers are going to get banned… lol

  • Robbie

    Someone – quickly – what is sppf.com’s IP address (French RIAA)? Am I the only one who’s work is being illegally shared from that site?

  • Anonymous

    Bah last weekend I changed my impression of france from being idiots, to them being ppl like you and me.

    Now I see this, france please stand up against this law.

    It’s the old ppl that made this law, but it’s the young ppl that is the future. Make your word heard.

  • James

    I can only see this backfiring in a big way. They’ll get it wrong. Imagine if something important (hospitals/emergency services etc.) get disconnected. Shit will hit the fan. Pluss if they diconnect someone who’s done nothing wrong.

  • Fail

    Someone spoof the DOD network on a torrent tracker. Let them demand the US military get disconnected.

  • Kevin

    DOD network is all over swarms anyway.

  • Karma

    I’ve been there many times. Like anywhere there are good people there, but there are a huge number of aholes there. They act superior, think their technology and culture are superior. They use different technologies in their cars which just makes them unsalable anywhere else in the world and think its better, but one else does. They look down on the rest of the world. A lot of French delight in really screwing with foreign visitors, particularly English nationals. I have seen the French police pull over slower, barely speeding Brit cars and ignore French cars going much faster. I think British TV did a documentary about this a few years back and filmed this happening. They pretend not to understand you if you don’t speak French and like I said look down on the rest of the world as unenlightened.
    @5 Yes a lot of French fell right in line gladly with the Nazis many more than they care to admit now, and after the rest of Europe and the USA saved their asses (twice) they thanked us with a great big finger and then dropped out of NATO later.
    I think its karma they deserve it for their arrogance. Don’t ever try to understand why a French person does anything, they are not like most of us elsewhere.
    I would not be surprised if they did this and then lectured you on their “joie de vivre”

  • Karma

    I think there are a lot of French in Canada too.

  • Squeak

    Podmailing isn’t in Linux :( Unless it works with Wine I can’t use it.

  • if the french didn’t care karma

    why are they bowing to the US pressure now? The French didn’t “voluntarily bow down” to German aggression willingly. There were resistance groups. The French government set up a little entente after Uk and the US practically abandoned them pre-WWII and banked their defenses on the Maginot line. It obviously failed, but that doesn’t say they “voluntarily colluded with crazy nazi’s.” Yes Vichy France helped Germany in WWII, but they were a puppet state, not really run by French. Go study history again, and you also clearly don’t understand the real meaning of karma, and understand it the same way as does the main character in “my name is earl” (which is not right at all people! Karma is not like a religion (by itself) where it magically creates retribution!)

    Clearly, you are ignorant of the US/Uk’s own shortcomings *cough* corruption, DMCA; giving in to US demands *cough*

    Ps: France dropped out of NATO cause they were tired of listening to the US and their cold war “issues” with the USSR (or something like that according to my world history textbook, can’t remember correctly right before going to sleep), and wanted to have greater say on the international scene, not cause they only wanted to annoy other countries.

    You are clearly too arrogant…

    Canadian Jim Prentice is bowing to US pressure too, not to “French idiocy” as you claim so (which doesn’t exist)

  • PS

    WWI, France held back Germany by (effectively) themselves in a stalemate for quite a long time….the first battle of the Marne saw basically French (Parisian) civilians being armed and marched to the front to halt the German advance.
    (no offense intended to Germans or French, just saying history, I know why the first war was started (in short (all sides are to blame): Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, Nationalism))

  • Prison planet

    The world runs on economic enslavement,has for thousands of years.

    You can NOT claim freedom AND have a price,Freedom IS FREE DOMAIN the price has been paid for all who know and love the truth!

    And in truth
    Life is FREE the world is FREE EVERYTHING IS FREE.But LIES have imprisoned and enslaved the entire world including YOU!

    If every 1 quit there jobs never to return.DEMAND their freedom these HUGE conglomerates would DIE OFF.

    But hey what do I know just keep on doing what it is you are doing so as to damn our children and children’s children to the furtherance of the enslavement of the planet,just like our Grand parents and parents before us.

    Remember that the love of money IS the root of all evil,And the tree of todays society is from those very same roots of evil.Money
    For business is nothing more than the justification of ones own greed over the needs of others.

    And if you are to say to me “but I don’t <3 money” I say bull shit what do you spend 40+ HRs a week doing???
    Thats right you feed the lies.

    people spend 3 times+ more time @ there jobs than they do there own kids and wounder why society is fucked up.Oh and the best part is they actually think they are doing it for there kids in reality its for all the bullshit needless things they’ve spent on credit now they are economic slaves.And now it goes 1 better you cant even raise your own child anymore,schools are for creation of educated fools.

    This is the 21st century.
    Never has Government worked in the past for the people continuously,But rather has continuously enslaved and oppressed its people 10,000+ times over in the past and will continue for as long as we give it the future.

    Government takes 1% of power from 100% of the people and then convinces the people that the only power they have is the 1% they lost never realizing that we still hold 99% of the cards!
    Wake up people!!
    We win the moment we decide we do.

  • Jean j Lazar

    Wii

  • stacy

    people on _riderlove.com_ have a heated discussion about this too.!!

  • Anonymous

    If this happens they’ll be pushing for it everywhere, and it will be RIP internet and push technology back 30 years to the days of LPs, tapes, and radio cassette players.

    Coz nobody will be buying CDs. Disk trading and pirated DVDs will be all that’s left. Oil prices will shut down the economy.

  • Anonymous

    I always have believed that Sarkozy is an imbecile, asshole and a person without dignity, personality nor character. Sarkozy is also a sheep that does all that the US Bush administration wants.

  • the.dwarfer

    france has a history of the people rising up against thier leaders when they feel there is something wrong with the law. justlook at the last decade. hardly a year goes by when the french aren’t setting fire to something in protest. they may crumble when faced with a war but they don’t mind fighting with thier own goverment.

  • WakuWaku

    This is not going to happen,
    simply because it is against the policy of the European Parliament

  • Karma

    It all comes out in the open eventually. Read this 2006 article in the Guardian which reports tribunal in Toulouse found French state and SNCF Railway Company guilty of collusion in deporting Jews.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jun/07/france.topstories3

    When it comes to war all countries involved are eventually guilty of war crimes and unjust and inhuman treatment. War leaves no one unstained.
    Historically speaking many people in France saw Hitler as their savior. They feared communism much more than Germany not everyone but a large number of French welcomed the invading army with cheers, gifts and flowers as they lined the procession route. Not to say that other countries didn’t support Hitler as a defender against communism too. But large parts French industry and banking was supporting Nazi Germany before WW2 and France became a place for German soldiers to enjoy and live it up and take leave there while the allies were fighting to liberate France. It went way beyond the contemporary accounts of a puppet government.

    Karma meaning. Well it means different things to different traditions. In India its meaning differs from group to group. Buddhists ,Hindus and Sikhs have had different meanings for centuries. Some groups think it is the negative or positive energy accumulated in this life others think it goes through past and future lives.
    In English the same words have different meanings and over time the same word changes in definition and usage. Decimate used to mean when The Roman army would draw lots and kill one tenth of the ranks as punishment but now means utterly destroy as well. Context is everything in word meaning. This is why French is no longer the international language of business.The French have tried to do everything to stop French from changing at all. English doesn’t do that. It incorporates other languages words freely and constantly changes.
    So actually your right I do understand it the same way as does the main character in “my name is earl” does, its more an unescapable law of nature to me. The word has taken on a New Age-metaphysical meaning and is generally understood as shorthand for “what goes around comes around.”
    The quip about Canada yes that was uninformed, I admit to being quite ignorant as to what happens there like a lot of people in the USA and I suppose I should as the border is only 200 miles away from me.

  • kyro

    France isnt the first country to do this.
    New Zealand has had this in place since 2004.

  • Anonymous

    Old France joined the Nazis…New France joins the MPAA, INFI, and RIAA, not to different IMO.

  • Me&Myself

    I’d never liked the french. They had always been some kind of strange folks to me and now there is one more reason to hate them. Hope that this does not spread on here to Germany. Man I wish I could just live in Sweden.

  • defred

    wow Oo

    what a fine collection of stereotypes you all folks got on the french people, that’s funny. Bringging up WW2, WW1 to comments some copyright sucking law is just lame (the godwin point is always easy to reach while talking about france).
    Can I spit out my own stereotypes about english peoples, german or US peoples ? its pointless.
    Once again blaming a whole population because of a stupid idea coming from their governement is just stupid. Americans are not Bush, french are not Sarko, Germans are not Merckel, and so on.
    What about swedish peoples, a recent project of law is trying to get all communication to be monitored in sweden. Are the swedish a bunch of evil spies? no. So please cutoff with the caricatures.
    (ho and remember the guys that prevent patenting of software in the european parliament, greatly helping and protecting the european opensource movement ? Nope ? Well he was french.)

  • James

    Sweden’s now lost the plot also. They past that spying law.

  • bbfg

    If it’s against EU laws it will never be passed?

  • Anonymous

    @ 51
    Fucking hell, you believe in the European Parliament? But seriously, go kill yourself.

  • John Thomas

    The end of the internet as we know it.

    JT
    http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com

  • Rycon

    lol Reduce piracy significantly.. hahaha… ahahaha.. are you serious? hahahahaha.. HAHAHAHA…

    You sir.. are a complete moron.

    http://rycon.baywords.com

  • anyone

    Something else going on with Cinemageddon gone down

  • thoouth

    “this was already going on in florida, im not sure if the isp’s just decide to do this bythemselves, but they give u 3 warnings then they suspend your “account name” permanently.

    but then just open a new account with a different name :)”

    Lol! Good point.

    Already figured opening one in my partner’s name but you’re absolutely correct. Its not like the ISPs ask for id is it???

  • Anonymous

    When you say it is not citizens’ fault but the fault of the president – it is WRONG!

    President Sarkozy was elected by citizens, now it is up to them to take responsibility and take action.

  • Anonymous

    Power to the people, that stupid midget that calls himself president of France thinks he can do whatever he pleases, let the streets burn again so he can taste fear. Sick world that is.

  • Fremus

    Yeah sure. They want to disconnect at least half of their customers (including some network printers)? I’m curious about that…

  • Josh

    Time to go back to the old way of passing around a disk…

  • joao

    Frenchman are all gay… merci pour sa, bijou bijou

    hahahahah

  • Lord of Pirates

    “Bring back the guillotine!!

    Down with the new aristocracy!

    Vive la revolution!

    *goes off to eat some cake*”

    I love you for that.

    Anyways, yet another retarded law.

  • Anonymous

    how is this a big deal? Normally when somebody actually crosses the threshold to get the attention of government officials regarding file sharing, they either go to jail or pay a serious fine…whereas in France they would actually have to prove the file sharing allegations THREE times before any measure is taken, and even then the most serious punishment will be to use your neighbors wi-fi because the internet company refuses to take your money

  • Julien

    It’s fun to read some folks who use this news to criticize France…
    Anyway, i’m French and i can tell you that this law is just a project and it is far from becoming a law!
    IF this law is voted than one of the most important change will be that only a decision of the court will be able to eventually disconnect someone. It was said in the decision of the Conseil d’Etat which studies every projetc of law. So ISP will never have the power to disconnect anyone in France!!!

  • Not Me

    If this passes like this it will be the ultimate DoS tool.

  • Fanakapan

    Being British, I take comfort from the fact, that 1000 years of accumalated Jurisprudence would prevent such a Heath Robinson scheme from erupting here, despite what our intelectually stunted leaders might say.

    I had also assumed, wrongly ??? that France had a cannon of laws that were also fairly old and tested, so this may not yet pass the Legislature, or the Judiciary.

  • karma….are you so misinformed?

    Can’t completely cross off the “supporting nazi” before WWII, but:

    Why was there the Maginot line?
    Why was there the little entente?
    Why were the french so insistent on reparations after WWI to the point where there was rapid inflation in Germany?
    Loaning money to Germany helped jump start the economy. When the circle of money stopped (by the US stock exchange) Germany fell into depression (and old crazy nazi’s came into power)

    They probably were more worried about communism (but that was part of why the BRITISH appeased the Nazis, not FRENCH.)

    English incorporates? Are you so arrogant?

    Did they incorporate the native americans heritage (or for that matter, any imperialist country at the time) when mercilessly exterminating/stealing land?

    Change in meaning I agree to.

    Diversity of languages is a good thing for the world. In every language, there is some word that has NO counterpart in another language. Every year (avg), more than 20 languages die.

    As for karma, it is a PHILOSOPHICAL ideal. you know what a PHILOSOPHICAL idea is? Same thing as Confucianism, same thing as (I think, forgot which one) Theravada Buddhism. It’s not some natural law, or saying, do bad and “magical mystical poof” you’re getting retribution. My name is earl gets it SOOOOOO OFF (even on the “modern definition”)! Its not funny (when you think its real)! you obviously don’t understand other people/regions cultures.

    Modern definition should more realistically be like:
    What goes around does come around, but that’s not saying its magical. Its more of “if you annoy other people, its MUCH MORE LIKELY, they will do something that annoys you”. Not that its definitely going to happen. Just MORE LIKELY.

    Purely original is the belief that when you reincarnate, you deeds done decide what you are reincarnated in to (short summary).

    The point after all of this, is that, it’s not “the french getting what they deserve”.
    It’s “evil colluding greedy politicians listening to US” (which I will agree with you on colluding part, but here, not on WWI/WWII)

  • as for democracy

    In my view, there can only be true democracy when people did what the Athenians did, vote on each issue directly, but then there is logistical issues, mob rule issue, the fact the public can easily be swayed by advertisements now (not that politicians can’t be swayed by greed)

    Until then, I’d rather call it “republic”

    I just refer to “joys of democracy” to outline the irony.

  • lol

    “police the internet” lmao

  • Anonymous

    case “$subject” in [Pp]ol*) rm -rf — “$subject”;; esac

  • Ice

    I think this right for a country who’s french president is spending 90% of his time screwing his girlfriend and traveling with her around the world “To hell with France and french people” seems to be his motto.

  • fuzzypig

    No the internet shouldn’t be lawless, so how about getting off your fat, fecking backsides and finding these child-abusing scum that are allowed to have access, nailing them first?

    Oh sorry, you mean you only want to go after people who cause financial ruin for multi-millionaires, sorry I thought you mean people who screw other’s lives up so badly, they never got a chance to start life properly…

  • justaskstupidq

    what is riaa by the way? is it like musically-religious organization? who are all these lawyers?
    -why they are spying on everyone? why use of usb drive is ok to transfer files, but internet is not? why libraries have still available cds and dvds?

  • @24

    No class actions in france -> we’re fucked

    sieg heil is the next worldwide motto, i’m afraid.

    nazis have won in the end :/

  • Monster_mack

    I am truly very sorry for everyone who did not vote for sarkozy, and now have to stick with him.

  • reality

    The truth is that the world is ugly.
    Time and time again it has been shown that countries in Europe vote against their people wishes why?
    The USA is the world power and rules everyone right now. He who has the gold makes the rules. People in USA turn a blind eye to their government because life is good and they are fat dumb and happy. Seems like people don’t want to admit reality. The USA is the winner in the global competition. This will continue until people unite and fight the power, but right now it doesn’t go much further than complaining. People in Sweden and France need to stand up and fight for their rights and freedoms.

  • Your to blame!

    Google…. French Synarchy.
    WW2 was a long time ago but France still has to admit what they did, like most of the world already has. That’s why they ppl don’t like them now.
    You are nasty to us when we visit your country, not just gov. French ppl bring it on themselves.

  • nWo

    Well guess i feel sorry for any one who uses OVH and Kimsufi servers, lol.

  • question mark!

    question: can encrypted p2p connections evade this 3 stricke rule?(not allowing legacy connections),if it is true than we all shall encrypt our connections at once!

  • @ 83

    It’s very nice to see how your government’s poor propaganda worked on you.
    I hope you’re proud.

    Btw, the synarchy is a long dead movement, which would tend to prove our prejudice about americans is right (I guess it’s ok to abuse your petty way of thinking)
    And last but not least, speak french like I speak english, and then you’ll be allowed to talk about “welcome when I visit your country”, redneck.

  • you know (@ 86)

    there’s too many intolerant [nationalists] and misinformed people who go on torrentfreak……look at the Canada and the Swedish news comment posts for example. 83 is just one of them.

  • yellapieman

    niniff.com/?YIT

  • IrelandGetOutOfEU

    And this only because those irish retards didn’t want to give more power to E.U.

  • blah

    Ill say it

    SWING and a miss LOL.

    When no one is left on the net and your country becomes a bunch a morons due to lack of intelligence then we shall see how life is and what jobs you can do.

    Oh wait they want you stupid….

  • Bryan

    This is going to be funny! Someone just have to use the same method, which the researchers used to get MPAA to send cease-and-desist letters to printers, only we have to fake all ip-ranges from france. In that way an entire country is going to be blocked off the internet due to idiot politicians.

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

NewsBits

Even more news...

  • Blu-ray Anti-Piracy Tech Stops Discs and Promotes Purchases

    An anti-piracy system present in all official Blu-ray players since 2012 has received a fresh update...

  • Foxtel Breeds Pirates by Locking Up Game of Thrones

    One of the main reasons why people turn to piracy is the lack of legal alternatives....

  • UK Student Admits Breaching Sony Copyrights With Leak of PS3 SDK

    Last year an Internet user known as El Nomeo leaked version 3.70 of Sony’s Playstation3 SDK...

  • Pirates Can Be Identified Despite Sharing IP Addresses, ISP Claims

    Carrier-Grade Network Address Translation is a network mechanism through which many Internet subscribers can share the...

  • Feds Seize Cash from Major Bitcoin Exchange’s Dwolla Account

    The U.S. Government has taken a significant action against the web’s top Bitcoin exchange by seizing...

MostDiscussed

Below are TorrentFreak's most discussed articles of the past month. Join the discussion if you like.

CopyQuote

Left Quote

“The Pirate Bay has been one of the most important movements in Sweden for freedom of speech, working against corruption and censorship.

Peter Sunde Left Quote

PopularArticles

A selection of some TorrentFreak's classics dug up from our archives.