French say non to pirates with year long Internet ban

Davey Winder
Monday, 23 June 2008 03:54

IT Policy - Regulation

The answer, at least in the eyes of the French government, can probably be found in the fact that some 300 people have been convicted for piracy over the last couple of years in France. Yet piracy remains as prevalent as ever. Certainly there has been no slowing down of the dive in popularity of recording industry sales across Europe.

At the heart of the HADOPI bill, and essential for its success, are two accords. The first has the entertainment industry agreeing to remove copyright protection on legally purchased French music and video. A sensible move that means the media that a consumer has bought can be played back on any device. The second requires all ISPs serving France to agree to blacklist convicted users for periods of up to 12 months.

This is actually quite clever, because once the initial fuss dies down as it inevitably will, the law will remain. More importantly, the onus on enforcing that law will sit firmly with the ISPs. So guess who the public will blame for what many see as a Draconian infringement of their freedom?

Not least because the cost of that enforcement, the cost of deep packet inspection monitoring, will inevitably be passed on to the law abiding Internet consumer. Oh, and the likely outcome of many innocents being caught in the anti-piracy net while the commercial scale pirates get away with it.