After its initial adoption in May 2009, the original version of the controversial Hadopi anti-piracy legislation was nuked by the Constitutional Council, France’s highest legal authority. Taking a similar stance to that of the European Parliament, the Council declared the proposals unconstitutional and demanded that accused individuals have a fair trial.
A modified version of the bill, which passes the ultimate disconnection decision to a judge, was accepted July 8th by the French Senate.
Now, according to a report, the Ministry of Culture has decided that a company called Extelia – a subsidiary of the post office – will be made responsible for administering identification information and sanctions under the so-called Hadopi legislation.
Extelia will be responsible for processing the IP addresses provided by the rights holders and collecting subscriber information from ISPs. The company will then send out emails and letters advising allegedly infringing recipients of their obligations under the law. It will also manage the issuing of sanctions, the monitoring of their implementation and connection restoration following the dreaded 3rd strike.
Extelia will conduct a trial period of 10 to 12 months beginning this fall, to be financed by the Hadopi agency from its annual budget of 6.7 million euros (apprx $9.5m).
To begin, around 1000 semi-automated warning emails will be sent out per day, which is just one tenth of the proposed output when the scheme is up to speed.
The outfit that will actually carry out the monitoring of suspected infringers is yet to be decided. However, Marc Guez CEO of music collection society Civil Society of Phonographic Producers (SCPP) – which works with the likes of EMI, Warner, Universal and Sony BMG – said that two companies are in the running, Advestigo and TMG.
Lawmakers in the lower house of parliament will start debating today on the modified bill. However, the opposition Socialists are threatening to refer the bill back to the Constitutional Council after loading more than 700 amendments, apparently in an attempt to slow down parliamentary debate.
If the bill successfully passes the lower house, it will next be examined by lawmakers from both the upper and lower houses and submitted to a new vote in both houses of parliament, before eventually becoming law.
