French 'three Strikes' Antipiracy Law Passes Second Reading

IDG News Service — French Internet users who share music or videos without permission from the copyright holders are one step closer to losing their Internet access, after the French National Assembly gave its assent to the so-called Hadopi law on Thursday night. The law had its first reading in the Senate last year.

Under the new law copyright holders will have the right to monitor file-sharing networks and report people they suspect of piracy to a new regulatory body, the High Authority for the Distribution of Works and the Protection of Rights on the Internet, known in French as the Hadopi.

The authority will send an electronic message to those accused of distributing copyright works without permission, warning them not to do it again -- without identifying the works they are accused of sharing or copying. Repeat offenders may have their Internet access suspended for up to three months and, if they do it again, for up to a year. In each case, their name will be added to a blacklist preventing them from signing up with a different ISP for the duration of the suspension. ISPs will have 15 days to put such suspensions into effect, or risk a fine of €5,000 (US$7,500).

Civil liberties and free software groups were quick to react.

Although a number of deputies, including some UMP members, sought to amend the bill, "None of the technical aberrations, economic nuisances or serious attacks on our rights were removed, even though they were all exposed in detail," Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesman for La Quadrature du Net, wrote in an e-mail.

Among the few concessions made to the opposing deputies, Internet users who have their Internet access suspended by the Hadopi will no longer have to continue to pay their ISP while the suspension is in force. Another means that copyright holders who live in tax havens will not be able to invoke the law.

Open wireless connections or lawless house guests might get Internet subscribers into trouble for the actions of others, but the law will exempt anyone who agrees to install a government-approved filter on their computers.

However, the law makes no provision for interoperability with operating systems such as Linux, or the use of free and open-source filtering software for this purpose: it is an attack on free software, said April, an association for the promotion and defense of free software.

While it currently has a strong free software industry, "France is making a mockery of itself in sabotaging one of its greatest competitive advantages," April spokesman Frédéric Couchet wrote in an e-mail.

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