France adopts main section of anti-P2P law

While in New Zealand seriously thought about the law protecting the rights of users in the degree of equal protection of the rights of sound recording (and film) studios, the French government seems to have decided to fight “pirated content” with all rigor.

Last week, the French National Assembly, without hesitation, included in its upcoming law the most controversial part of it, which will allow users who have been convicted of downloading and distribution to be disconnected from the Internet for a period from a month to a year.

At present, the Assembly is working simultaneously on several sections, which will later be included in the law itself, for which they will vote in parliament. The most interesting part of it is the “Section 2” ( translated by Google version , English) which deals with the creation of a “Higher Authority” (La Haute Autorité) at the institutional level, which will administer the rules and distribute punishments.
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UPD: The law was not adopted , the number of votes for: 15, against: 21.

This very “Highest Authority”, the French abbreviation of which sounds like HADOPI, will receive and consider complaints from all copyright and patent holders whose rights have been violated in relation to P2P content distribution. If the same user repeatedly receives warnings (and he will receive them, there is no doubt) during the calendar year, HADOPI may (although not required) issue a sanction for permanently disconnecting the user from the world wide web, for a period, I repeat, from the month up to a year. And in order for the user not to start running between different providers, a “black list” will be drawn up, where the names and data of the guilty will be entered. If the provider does not disconnect the user or connects the user in the list - receives an automatic penalty of € 5,000 each time the user receives a warning.

This suggests that if, for example, a certain provider will not pay attention to its user base and does not monitor the “black list” - every month he will receive a fine of € 5,000 x the number of those who are punished. Not a bad figure, it turns out, considering that according to statistics, about 40% of users of an average provider use P2P to share content.

In addition, HADOPI talks about the duty of users to protect their own networks. That is, the excuse "this file was downloaded through my open Wi-Fi network" will not work - the punishment will still reach its goal. And in order to eliminate the “fool factor”, and minimize the precedents of guilt on the fact of ignorance of the law, HADOPI licenses and certifies special software that will be constantly in connection with the central server of the “Highest Authority” and whether the network is protected or not. This ridiculous excuse to oblige almost 100% of computer owners to install monitoring software has already caused a wave of protests in France, but there is still time before hearing the law.

If they accept him (to which most politicians lean), this will be the strictest anti-P2P law in the world and it is obvious that governments will start to adopt it from other countries where the music and film industry has enormous influence and money to lobby. their interests - for example, in the USA. But even if the law is not accepted, another version of it will definitely come, where the same truth will be written in other words.

via ArsTechnica