French ’3 Strikes’ law passes 2nd reading
p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- The French national assembly has to its lasting shame caved in to corporate music and movie industry pressure to pass an anti-P2P, anti-file sharing, anti-consumer bill.
Its final acceptance would turn the country into a virtual copyright enforcement division.
However, a joint commission composed of government-nominated members of the Senate and National Assembly, must first, “reconcile differences between the texts voted by the two parliamentary chambers,” says the IDG News Service.
“Before the President signs the text into law, senators and deputies will have the opportunity to challenge its validity by referring it to the Constitutional Council.”
How far will the French people allow this farce to go before staging another revolution to drive home the reality that the interests of the people come first, not those of a tiny collection of venal companies which answer only to their shareholders?
Any final implementation of the ‘three strikes and you’re out’ law would put another element of a world-wide conspiracy by the entertainment cartels to gain exclusive control of the Internet as a distribution and marketing vehicle, using scarce public funds, in place.
Scarce national resources wasted
The conspiracy is causing serious government disruptions in France, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the US, to name but five of the countries affected, at a time all resources should be wholly focused on finding solutions to the burgeoning economic crisis created by the disgraced G. W. Bush administration.
That public funds are being squandered and scarce national resources wasted in France and elsewhere to further purely vested commercial interests is a shocking indictment of the governments involved.
The French version of ‘graduated response’ bill was initially touted by French president Nicolas Sarkozy, whose wife Carla Bruni recently released her third album, with FNAC retail chain boss Denis Oliviennes French, and culture minister Christine Albanel, fronting it on behalf of the labels and studios.
“The bill as a whole was accepted by France’s senate in October, after the government minimised reading time by declaring it an emergency legislation, and is now being read, section-by-section, by the assembly,” says paidContent UK, continuing:
“Politicians voted for the section that would disconnect customers for up to a year, but disallowed a section that would compel them to continue paying their subscription. It’s strongly supported by rights holders including the music industry, but not liberties campaigners who say the so-called HADOPI enforcement agency would be allowed to act against consumers without proving their guilt.”
Alone in the world
By going this far, France sets itself in direct confrontation to the European Parliament.
“France is definitely alone in the world with its kafkaesque administrative machinery, an expensive mechanism for arbitrary punishment,” said La Quadrature du Net.
However, that’s not the case, noted p2pnet, continuing »»»
New Zealand, too, is meeting fierce resistance in its attempts to impose a virtually identical law on its citizens.
And in the US, the Big 4 are trying, and failing, to use their RIAA and the corporate media to bamboozle the nation into believing major American ISPs are firmly behind the plan, which claims providers are willing to become copyright enforcers.
The European Parliament has endorsed the Lambrinidis report, effectively condemning the so-called HADOPI three-strikes-and-you`re-gone policy promoted by French president Nicolas Sarkozy on behalf of Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music.
Sarkozy, a close friend of ex-US president George W. Bush, and Denis Olivennes, who runs France`s largest consumer electronics and media retail operation, want the Draconian legislation applied to alleged online pirates.
But the European Parliament has turned its back on every proposed amendment, rejecting the corporate music inspired graduated response for the third time, says La Quadrature du Net.
A Greek politician and member of the European Parliament for the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, part of the Party of European Socialists, Eurodeputy Stavros Lambrinidis` (right) report centres on the protection of online liberties, confirmed by the European parliament by an overwhelming vote of 481 to 2522, says the story, going on »»»
It stands in clear opposition to the French HADOPI law in holding that illiteracy with computers will be the illiteracy of the 21st century; holding that guaranteeing Internet access to all citizens is the same as guaranteeing all citizens access to education and holding that such access must not be refused in punishment by governments or private organizations; holding that this access should not be used abusively for illegal activities; holding that attention must be paid to emerging questions such as network neutrality, interoperability, the global accessibility of all Internet nodes, and the use of open formats and standards.
The approval of the Lambrinidis report and the rejection of the French amendments is the third consecutive time that the European Parliament has rejected the French graduated response, since the approval of the Bono amendment to the report on cultural industries3 and the well-known Bono/Cohn-Bendit/Roithova Amendment 1384.
Every amendment supported by the French government, notably those proposed by Eurodeputies Jacques Toubon and Jean-Marie Cavada,” has been rejected, says La Quadrature du Net.
Europe has once again sent a powerful political signal in France`s direction, says Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder of La Quadrature du Net, adding:
The approval of the Lambrinidis report is a slap in the face for the French minister of culture Christine Albanel, facing a serious and near-unanimous opposition.
This vote, moreover, is a demonstration that French citizens can turn to Europe when their rights are treated with contempt in France. says La Quadrature du Net co-founder Jérémie Zimmermann.
Final implementation of the law would also represent a blow to Net Neutrality not only in France, but elsewhere.
“Article 5 allows courts to impose any measure necessary, technical or otherwise, to end or prevent breaches of copyright by Internet users,” notes IDG, going on:
“Amendments aiming to limit those measures to those proportionate to the offense, or to put the responsibility on those publishing or hosting the content before the ISP, were defeated.
“Just 33 of the National Assembly’s 577 deputies attended the evening debate; 29 of those present voted in favor and four abstained. Although the bill was strongly contested, including by some members of the ruling party, the UMP, the government’s majority ensured it would pass, perhaps explaining the low turnout.”
Under the new law, rights holders would be allowed to spy on the networks and report anyone they claimed was illegally sharing copyrighted music to the so-called the HADOPI, the High Authority for the Distribution of Works and the Protection of Rights on the Internet.
Adds IDG:
“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 â¬5,000 (US$7,500).”
IDG News Service - French ‘three Strikes’ Antipiracy Law Passes Second Reading, April 3, 2009
paidContent UK – France`s Three-Strikes Move Closer, On Collision Course With Europe, April 3, 2009
La Quadrature du Net, The European Parliament rejects graduated response for the third time, March 26, 2009
p2pnet – Europe parliament rejects French 3 strikes law, March 27, 2009
meeting fierce resistance – New Zealand: safe from Big Music. Or is it?, March 25, 2009
bamboozle the nation - Comcast, AT&T say No! to RIAA 3-strikes plan, March 26, 2009|
HADOPI – French `3 strikes` anti-P2P law mired, May 10, 2008
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April 4th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
âIâve heard that if you put a frog into a pan of boiling water, it will jump out immediately, but if you put the frog in and turn up the heat a little at a time, the frog will cook.”
French citizens are frogs here, and the traitors like Sarkozy love frog soup.
April 4th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
I’m french, and i can add that Albanel said “There is a firewall into Open Office”. HAHA !
I am now waiting the next elections
April 4th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Depite all the concern these type of “laws” generate, we all need to keep a few things in mind:
1. The test of any law is whether it can meaningfully be enforced (IE, backed up by coercion of punishment of some kind). Can this actually work in practice? Not with stuff like VPN’s, open wifi, proxies used to prevent identity theft by concealing IP addresses, etc.
So those who are even moderately tech-savvy won’t even be inconvenienced in the least.
2. Do they sell USB key-drives or any other type of “mass storage device” in France? If so, “snearkernet” will simply become more prevalent.
3. So, let’s assume somebody DOES get “their connection” taken down for a year. And? What’s to stop them from using other connections? We already know that IP addresses are NOTHING like physical addresses (even in IP V6). So “disconnecting” somebody in a way that makes sure they STAY ‘dissconnected” is functionally impossible.
4. Let’s say this DOES actually “work”, and the French Government DOES end up disconnecting a third of it’s population: what then?
Well, assuming they actually DO get “disconnected” (rather than just having their personal accounts removed — WE know the difference), then there’s a solid third of the French population who won’t be able to engage in E-commerce, or any of the other trendy crap the capitalist class is foisting on us lately. That’s not going to go over very well, because above and beyond all their protestations about “quality” or “service” or suchlike, corporate businessfolk are fundamentally greedy, and their primary purpose is keeping profit-margins as high as possible. If an entire third of your nation’s populace is unavailable to partake of the wonderful “digital age of commerce” assinine laws like this are supposedly ushering in, how exactly is that “efficient?” from a business-standpoint?
5. Let’s also not forget that according to the CopyFascists, p2p use is (supposedly) concentrated among teens and twenty-somethings. (That’s total bullshit, but we’ll run with it for now.) Who are the biggest victims — oops, I mean customers — of Big Media? Hint: N’Sync didn’t become popular on the basis of “talent”.
So even assuming that this DOES “work”, and they end up depriving large chunks of their populace of Internet access (which, like I said before is extremely doubtful) — if they do that, they’ll just be depriving themselves of a whole generation of potential customers who’ll become so much more radicalized over Intellectual Monopoly bullshit, that in a relatively short space of time, “Intellectual property” will be regarded as pernicious nonsense in the same way that “racial purity” is, nowadays.
(As another example for anybody from the United States: who DOESN’T — thanks to the efforts of Southern Segregationists in the 1960s — still implicitly view “States Rights” as a codeword for Jim Crow laws?) That issue — and not returning that Stormfront dude’s donation — was enough to kill Ron Paul’s credibility.
The topic of “States Rights” is — rightly — poison to the extent it became tied in with Segregationists.
Laws like this can only hasten the inevitable day when “Intellectual property” is fully recognized as the poisonous lie it really is.
Good job, France!
April 4th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
“5. Letâs also not forget that according to the CopyFascists, p2p use is (supposedly) concentrated among teens and twenty-somethings. (Thatâs total bullshit, but weâll run with it for now.) Who are the biggest victims â oops, I mean customers â of Big Media? Hint: NâSync didnât become popular on the basis of âtalentâ.”
COOL…I’m a twenty something again, thanks Henry, for pointing that out!!
BTW… I havent been 20-anything for about 20 years now ROFLMFAO!!!
The MAFIAAS are a bunch of retards, this article is just further proof!!
April 5th, 2009 at 4:20 am
I’m french so…
It’s possible that the law will not pass the Constitutional Council.
So we have still a chance.
And if the law pass, it will be active only in about 10 months.
And it’s possible that the the law will simply not be applicated.
So to be continued…
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