French "3 Strikes" Law Returns, In Slightly Altered Form 159
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "The French Senate has once again approved a reworked version of the country's controversial 'three strikes' bill designed to appease the Constitutional Council. Instead of a state-appointed agency cutting off those accused of being repeat offenders, judges will have the final say over punishment. The approval comes exactly one month after the country's Constitutional Council ripped apart the previous version of the Création et Internet law. ... Not content to let the idea die, President Nicolas Sarkozy's administration reworked the law in hopes of making it amenable to the Council — instead of HADOPI deciding on its own to cut off users on the third strike, it will now report offenders to the courts. A judge can then choose to ban the user from the Internet, fine him or her 300,000 (according to the AFP), or hand over a two-year prison sentence."
Why is there no link in the fine summary? (Score:5, Informative)
No due process, just a rubber stamp (Score:5, Informative)
This new legislation may also be declared unconstitutional.
This time they try with a special court consisting of one judge to decide cases. The judge may not hear the parties involved, but is only allowed to give his decision solely based on a report from the new state antipiracy office. He is supposed to work expediently and not use more than 45 minutes per case.
Also language has been changed in the new law text possibly making it legal to eavesdrop private communications like email for antipiracy purposes.
The law text passed the senate wednesday, and is expected to pass the national assembly soon.
Links in french: Numerama [numerama.com] Le Monde [lemonde.fr]
Offtopic...... (Score:4, Informative)
I know this is offtopic, but is anyone else having problems getting the comment slider all the way down to show comments -1 and below with Firefox 3.5?
Re:Un, Deux, Trois........Zoot Alors! (Score:3, Informative)
I am pretty sure it was Groundskeeper Willie that first said that cheese eating surrender monkeys line.
Re:Could be worse (Score:3, Informative)
Not entirely. Remember that there is technology to hide what you are truly doing on the internet. ISPs banning you on a whim is easy because they don't have to prove anything. Now you just have to say that you use an encrypted p2p video chat network (with high resolution or some other lie to cover up excessive seeding) and it will make the judge look really bad if he rubber stamps anything. Plus, you might be able to make an appeal. Still, I don't think this law will be tolerated for long if the other wasn't. Really sleazy for them to do this if you ask me.
text of law (Score:3, Informative)
For those who read French, here [senat.fr] is the actual text of the law.
Re:The court gets all of 3 options, right? (Score:5, Informative)
The reality is bit uglier than what the article might say. When your IP will be caught exchanging one of the 10.000 referenced files on a p2p network - the HADOPI being the one who will be monitoring the p2p networks - this addendum to the three-strikes law will trigger the following events:
- under a special, fast track process akin to the one followed for a speed ticket, the judge might order your ISP to cut your connexion, or (logical OR, not XOR) have you pay 1.500â. This is not a trial, it's a judge statement, and you'll have to go to court to defend yourself, but not before having your connexion cut and the fine paid. Btw, you'll still pay for the connexion that have been cut. You can get protection from this though: you need to install a (today inexistant) HADOPI-certified spyware (read network packet scanning, email reading spyware) on your - Windows - computer. This will magically make you not liable of this part of the law
- you're still liable under the DADVSI (counterfeiting) law which can, on another judgment, get you up to 300.000â fine or (logical OR...) 3 years in prison
- and then I don't see anything in the words of the proposed law that would prevent the copyright owner from suing you for lost revenue
For the smart among you all, you'd have already noticed that everything is trigger by just one thing: an IP on a p2p network. The IP. Something absolutely, positively unfalsifiable, that can't be spoofed. Right?
And soon, if LOPPSI goes through and you've used an encrypting bittorrent client, you'll also be sued under the premise that you're planning terrorist actions.
The most fun part is that this addendum in it's current state allows for the HADOPI commission to "read" your - and I quote - "electronic communications". Not "p2p connexions", not "bittorrent connexions": "electronic communications". Email, web, IM, VOIP: it's electronic, it's scanned. The french government is just passing a law to get a legal eavedropping right on all national internet communications.
I love being french those days...
Re:Could be worse (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Could be worse (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Could be worse (Score:2, Informative)
It's not going anywhere: zombie bill (Score:4, Informative)
This is just Sarközy trying to save face. This law is even more unconstitutionnal that the previous one, and it's going to be bitchslapped down by the constitutionnal council once more, and worse. For instance, they've added a crime for not securing one's internet connection, punished by a hefty fine. Given that it is impossible to achieve 100% security, even for a security professional, it is simply absurd to require it of the common net user.
They still don't care that it's technically impossible. They believe their own bullshit.
Everyone knows this won't pass the CC. Even most of the majority. (Many are not pleased that Sarkoléon is marching them towards the cliff, but they are good little soldiers, like GOP congressmen under Bush. Which is fitting, considering how Sarközy got elected by applying Rove's methods.) The Council was damning in its first rejection. Not only did it nuke the damn thing's only mean of coercion, charitably leaving the useless part standing; but it also reserved the right to nuke it further in the future.
Not *slightly* altered (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry, the summary is bad.
The new proposed law is *not* slightly altered. Several main points make is somewhat more acceptable :
1- the internet subscriber is presumed innocent as per the French constitution. The word of the "HADOPI" authority carry no judicial weight other than a denunciation. The courts will have to do their own fact finding, and they are not likely to be satisfied by a mere IP number matching that of the subscriber.
2- The internet subscriber can defend him/herself before any punishment is meted out. In the previous version, the internet connexion was summarily cut, and only then could the subscriber complain and argue his/her innocence.
Most importantly, the decision is now up to a judge. One has to remember that judges are not at all friends of the current French government. Their budget have been cut, their power have been diminished, they are already overworked. It is not likely that judges will favour the Sarkozy approach, which is to punish early, punish often.
My personal opinion is that this is a face-saving law. The new law is 99.9% inapplicable in practice. There is just no way thousands of people can go through the court system every month as is the government's plan. Plus people are *very* likely to put up a good fight, like they have done everywhere. There are no possible settlement.
Soon the entertainment industry will realise that they have been wasting their time all along, and that they will eventually have to offer what everybody wants, which is a cheap, effective, legal system, be it unecumbered VOD, global licence, whatever . Otherwise they will die, simple as that.
Re:Two years prison time. Lovely (Score:4, Informative)
You wouldn't believe how many people don't know what is legal and what is not.
They grew up in a world where you would readily pick up a tape or CD from a friend and copy it. And nobody cared. They taped music on the radio and they taped shows on TV. To them, "taping" it from the internet is no different. The subtle difference, that the radio or TV station broadcasting the show paid for this, and also their possible recordings, was never explained to them, nor did they care. They were used to swapping records and later CDs with friends and they look at you very strangely when you tell them that no, you won't copy that song for them.
I work for a company that also deals with our version of the RIAA. They are in the same building, and they outsourced their IT requirements to us. Just recently, a woman working for them asked me whether I could help her unlock the Nintendo DS of her daughter.
For a moment I was wondering whether she tried to set a trap, but she was straight up and honest with me. And somehow I doubt that her 9 year old dauther is in any way interested in developing homebrew software. Informed about the legality with "copies" she shrugged with an "everyone does it".
Straight from the mouth of someone working for the local RIAA.