French anti-piracy bill sets dangerous precedent for Internet users
By Jason Buckland, Sympatico / MSN Finance
French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced he will resign from his governing duties yesterday, stepping aside and conceding ruling power to a political trio led by Jerry Bruckheimer, Simon Cowell and three of the four members of Metallica.
Okay, not exactly, but that’s at least the sentiment of a new anti-piracy bill passed by France on Tuesday that should be drawing the ire of every Internet user, not just ones with baguette crumbs all over their keyboards.
Channelling its best impression of George Orwell, France passed a bill that would allow its government to shut off the Internet connections of users in the nation thought to be downloading movies and music illegally – while still making them pay for the service.
The plan, agreed on by Sarkozy’s government, will operate as a kind of “three strikes” system.
Culprits, for lack of a better word, would receive two e-mails warning them to quit the downloading or they’d be cut off. Next, a certified letter would arrive at the connection’s address and, if the behaviour persists, zap! As you still pay for the bill, your Internet could be suspended for anywhere from two months to a year.
Even if you forget such a move “defies a European Parliament measure … that prohibits (European Union) governments from cutting off a user’s Internet connection” – as the Associated Press puts it – it’s pretty clear this isn’t how anti-piracy efforts are going to work best.
The glaring omission from the French strategy is, of course, that alleged perpetrators wouldn’t be given fair trial or a chance to challenge the charges levied against them. Concerns that this will set a terrifying Big Brother, totalitarian precedent on government’s ability to intrude on the Internet activity of its citizens are understandably validated here.
Plus, a move like this reeks of intense lobbying by movie and music production houses whose profits have been gobbled up by piracy. While we’re all for putting a stop to theft (more movie money surely means more jobs spun-off for film crews and the littler guys involved in production), this enforcement strategy just doesn’t feel right.
Does allowing a federal government to intervene on Internet activity genuinely have its country’s best interests at heart, or is this more a quick-fix to appease the complaints of studio heads whose cries grow impossible to ignore?
Truth is, no government knows really how to handle the issue just yet. Canada is working on legislation in partnership with countries like the U.S. and New Zealand, but it’s still a ways off from ironing out the issues on an increasingly complex concern.
No one has things figured out, but if one thing’s for sure, we’re guessing this French legislation doesn’t last long.
Posted by: don | May 13, 2021 8:29:16 AM
Maybe its going overboard but at least they have the balls to do something -- Do you think we could trade our parlament loonies for some of they're poletitions
Posted by: gael | May 13, 2021 10:50:54 AM
I am a french citizen from france living in canada. I am absolutely shocked. No government should be allowed to disconnect someone's internet connection. IF they wanna do something about piracy, they should just fine people and that s it!
Posted by: Lionel | May 13, 2021 11:03:16 AM
thats totalitarism on the making!!!!!! Sarkozy is more of a tyrant than a president...and this comes from a french citizen living in Canada
Posted by: Shelley | May 13, 2021 12:01:03 PM
You will never stop it. This is excessive at best. Takes me back to the days when I would regularly make cassette tape copies off all my albums.. comes with the business. People make illegal copies of everything from designer handbags to shoes.
Posted by: Lindon | May 14, 2021 7:14:26 PM
Piracy will never stop. Those that are good at it will never get caught. We are always a step ahead.
Posted by: SP | May 15, 2021 2:50:03 PM
Piracy is an issue for organizations/people with cr4p products. A good movie people will line up to see, good artists can always attract large audiences (even Michael Jackson can still sell out).
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. We are willing to give the gov't absolute power over our methods of communication???
VERY SCARY.
Posted by: DV | May 16, 2021 1:11:41 AM
Mistake in the article: France does not have a federal government, it's not a federation.
"Does allowing a federal government to intervene"
Posted by: Kothor | May 16, 2021 2:36:49 AM
I think what needs to be looked at is as said in the article "No one has things figured out". The major issue is that technology is moving so fast that no one can keep up. This is one extreeme mesure taken by the french government that astonishes me.
One thing is a fact, piracy will not go away. We had tape decks in the 80s, CDs in the 90s and now DVDs and Blu-Ray. It is easier and faster too get to this information then ever before but it really needs to be reviewed by everyone (industry, governments and consumers) because heavy handed activities dont really help anyone. Its hurting the consumer and its hurting the buisness.
There are many papers written by many universities around the world on this issue. Look them up, read them and if you have imput please please talk to your members of government.
Posted by: HGR | May 16, 2021 7:50:59 AM
Is the movie and music industry really hurting that bad? Looking at the De Vinci Code so far made $758 million.
I think it's just greed, the movie and music industry are making tons of money and want tons more!
Posted by: William | May 16, 2021 9:13:57 AM
Well if they were to cut off my internet connection, Hmmmm lets see, oh yeah, i live in a large city and at present there is twelve available neighbors with wireless feeds, just move on to the next LOL.
This is a load of crap and would be impossible to control
Posted by: Nick | May 16, 2021 9:33:46 AM
The first sentence is written poorly. I'm not going to bother reading the rest. I hate when writers don't know how to write.
Posted by: Net Inform | May 16, 2021 10:52:59 AM
The right move is to bother with another type of internet outside the control of know telecommunications companies and make it almost free. That is more important than this net fiddle daddle. The music world and movie world was in trouble the moment CD and DVD's cost hight enough to consider avoiding all together. Net costs by computer updates cost more than most of net hassles in the first place and France knows this deep down.
If problem solved in future by new net protocals and networking scanning; this will be pointless for both sides for a time at least. I cannot care personally because i rarely listen to lots and lots of music and vids. Predating this was when disposeable income didn't include Microsoft, Apple and all the networld extras. That's real common sense most have forgotten.
Posted by: Freeman-on-the-land: rick | May 16, 2021 4:42:18 PM
well, if they tried to make me pay while it was shut off, I would laugh really hard at them. A NOTICE of understanding and intent and a claim of right, is what we all need to do...join the world freeman society dot org. Look into taking your rights back through the above mentioned NOTICE. Learn about that movement...and peace to you all.
Posted by: Canuck | May 16, 2021 5:12:48 PM
piracy is not really the problem. The reason people downlaod music, or movies is the fact big business charges $25 or more for a dcd that cost them all of 8 cents to make. Ok, Ok, you want to add a little for the move guys, tha actors, and whatever.. then ok how's $5.99 sound? If they made it affordable and you got value for your money most of these people downloading wouldn't do it.. There would still be some, but most would be abated..
Posted by: philippe | May 17, 2021 10:53:05 AM
I think the easiest way to proceed would be to have the real internet connexion providers pay for content and pass it on to the consumer. Instead of having a real 100 GB per month dowload right... we could have an information package right... for example, from a film site, we would download a film for 5GB even though the dowload is only 1 GB...
People do not want to plug in their credit card number and pay pall account every where...