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.

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“The surprise vote caused outrage among record companies and film producers, who say illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) copying costs their industries millions of euros every year,” says the BBC. “It was an embarrassing defeat for the government, which had planned to introduce large fines and possible jail terms of up to three years for internet pirates.

“Seventeen year old Aziz Ridouan became so angry at the number of people already being taken to court that he started up his own pressure group.

“Today, the Audiosurfers Association has 6,000 members. It campaigns for a change in the law and helps defend those being prosecuted.”
Socialist MP Patrick Bloche, who helped draft the amendment, argues, “Rather than outlawing, punishing, and paradoxically maintaining to a certain extent an illegal system. Let’s make a different choice: authorising peer-to-peer downloading, but in return, putting in place a system allowing artists to be paid.”

Then the Big Four, Vivendi Universal (France), EMI, (Britain), Sony BMG (Japan, Germany) and Warner Music (US) pulled their well-worn trick of mobilising contracted performers such Johnny Hallyday, “to protest, arguing that revenue from a global licence wouldn’t compensate for the millions they say they risk losing through falling CD sales,” says the story.

Nonetheless, “The MPs’ vote in December sent the government scuttling off to redraft its bill,” says the BBC. “It has since spent two months in consultations with artists, industry representatives and internet users to try to reach a compromise. More than 13,000 musicians signed a petition in favour of the global licence. A website set up to encourage a debate on P2P copying was inundated with replies.”

France’s latest plan still rejects global licensing, “although it agrees that private copying should be allowed,” and, “The sanctions for illegal copying have been reduced considerably, with fines beginning at 38 euros (£26, about $46) ) for small-scale piracy.”

Meanwhile, people in France aren’t entitled to make personal copies of DVDs, even if they don’t distribute them, France’s highest court, the Cour de Cassation in Paris, has ruled, overturning an earlier decision by a lower court.

P2Pnet.net

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