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A bill that proposed a ‘three strike’ law for internet users caught downloading copyrighted material was shot down by French politicians today, despite being heavily supported by President Nicolas Sarkozy who has a majority party in French government.
The law would have seen internet users get two warnings for their illegal activity. First, an email would be sent out, then an official letter. If these were ignored and the user is caught once more, their internet connection would be cut off up to an entire year. It’s a very strict idea that has unsurprisingly been supported by the Record Industry Association of America who only a few days ago was praising France’s decision to implement the law, describing it as sign that copyright holders and ISPs are forging a ‘strong relationship’ in the fight against internet piracy. The movie industry also backed the plan.
The final vote came in at 21-15 against with socialist Patrick Bloche describing it as: “dangerous, useless, inefficient, and very risky for us citizens.”
So far, it’s unknown how the government are going to track more complicated internet connection problems such as shared internet in family homes. The biggest problem however, is found in wireless broadband connections. If someone hijacks your connection and then uses it to download copyrighted material who is to blame? There also plenty of ways around the law, such the download site ‘ThePirateBay’s new private VPN service which can hide your activity on the net.
It’s extremely likely that the bill will up for vote again later this year and will probably pass through once more controversial issues like banned users still having to pay their ISP have been ironed out.
It’s been rumoured for some time that the UK may consider mirroring France’s plan including full internet disconnections, but news from earlier this year suggests that this is now unlikely. Intellectual Property Minister David Lammy spoke about the subject in an interview with The Times in January: “We can’t have a system where we’re talking about arresting teenagers in their bedrooms.” Critics are also quick to note the idea of ‘proportional response’, where banning a user from the entire internet is an extreme solution when a user has only downloaded a few songs.
Either way, the piracy battle continues with more and more countries trying to find ways to tackle piracy that appeases the entertainment industry, ISPs and regular net users.
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