France’s lower house of parliament formally passed a revised “three-strikes” bill that will allow authorities to disconnect illegal file-sharers from the Internet.

First proposed back in June of last year, the “Creation and Internet” law was later successfully passed before being ruled unconstitutional by the country’s Constitutional Council for the use of the Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des droits sur Internet (HADOPI), a new govt agency whose task it would be to sanction those accused of illegal file-sharing.

It concluded that under the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man only a judge should have the power to disconnect individuals from the Internet, arguing that the Internet is essential for the “free communication of thoughts” and therefore full civic participation in a democracy. To curtail basic freedoms will hence require a trial and judge’s order rather than that of a dedicated body (HADOPI).

The new bill satisfied those concerns by now allowing a judge to make the “third strike” decision of either disconnecting an Internet user, a fine of up to 300,000 euros ($415,000USD),or a two-year jail sentence.

“Artists will remember that we at last had the courage to break with the laissez-faire approach and protect their rights from people who want to turn the net into their libertarian utopia,” remarked Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand.

The most frightening part is that even account holders who had nothing to do with the illegal file-sharing can be held accountable, risking a 1500 euro fine or month’s suspension of their Internet connection. So parents, entire households, or the simple unwitting victims of wi-fi piggybacking could find themselves without what the country’s Constitutional Council already concluded was essential for the “free communication of thoughts” and therefore full civic participation in a democracy.

The measure was passed on a vote of 285-225, close enough to make the issue far from over.

Stay tuned.

jared@zeropaid.com

The political momentum in Europe has favoured the Pirate Party throughout Europe. The question is, can the French Pirate Party become the third country to elect a pirate party member into office on a level of government. Already, the French Three Strikes law has caused significant political controversy, one flash point being that one man was fired from his day job for simply voicing his opinion about the law; a case that since sparked a lawsuit.

With the momentum from the German and Swedish counterparts mixed with the controversy of HADOPI, there is reason for optimism.

The French Pirate Party has issued a press release (Google translation) saying that “every vote counts”. From the press release:

On the occasion of the by-election of the 10th district of Yvelines, following the resignation of Christine Boutin from his post as Deputy, the Pirate Party presents its first candidate in a French election

23 years old, studying computer engineering specialty at the University of Orsay, a former adviser to the district centerville Rambouillet, supplemented by

33, Game Designer, member of the team coordinating the Pirate Party International commissioned by the Pirate Party in France.

Long awaited, this nomination is a strong signal across Europe in favor of free access to culture and information, respect the privacy of citizens and rewriting the code of intellectual property, patents and respond to copyright. This election takes place precisely in the period of voting in the web laws and precedes the opening of debate on the future law Loppsi: this application is the voice of citizens who wish to denounce the social choice account we require that the current government.

The LOPPSI 2 legislation was another major point of controversy. We reported on the new legislation back in May when it first hit French newspapers. The legislation basically would allow police to basically upload malware to a users computer.

There’s plenty of reasons to find the Pirate Party of France particularly appealing after HADOPI and LOPPSI 2. What we don’t know is his odds in actually winning that particular seat. Since it’s a new party, it’s difficult to tell whether or not the new rise in popularity for the party across Europe would boost his presence enough to contend with established parties. We will certainly know around the 20th whether or not 3 times is a charm.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

HADOPI, also known as the three strikes legislation for many, has been a very controversial law not just in France, but throughout the world because the copyright industry has been pushing for other countries to adopt similar laws. While the French government has been pushing for the legislation, it doesn’t mean there isn’t fierce resistance. Opposition managed to delay HADOPI up to the September session.

Of course, there is a reason why some who are opposed to HADOPI consider the government stubborn. In a recent news story in LeMonde (Google translated), the government is planning on dealing with HADOPI as well as a few other pieces of legislation in a special session in September.

HADOPI has already had it’s run of dramatic twists and turns. HADOPI originally was to disconnect users on a third copyright infringement complaint, have their names blacklisted amongst ISPs and the users would have to pay for their internet connection even though they had been cut off. In it’s final stages, the Constitutional Council knocked it out, saying that there must be judicial oversight. The French government then backtracked and modified the legislation to force the judges to spend only 5 minutes on each ruling – a process that is said to be at least 40 minutes of work per ruling.

With this latest twist in the HADOPI legislation, it seems that the government is fighting to keep one of the most notorious pieces of French legislation moving forward at breakneck speeds. However, it’s not like the opposition parliamentarians are out of options. No doubt, there’ll be more sparks flying over this piece of legislation.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

His journey throughout all of this probably started off as a humble employee, working at Frances broadcaster, TF1. He probably had no idea that one day, he’d be the centre of a major political debate that the whole world is watching at the time.

Then, the HADOPI law debate came up. Three strikes and you’re out for copyright infringement online. At the time, the proposal would have no judicial oversight whatsoever – not to mention being forced to pay your subscription fee even though you have been, well, banned from the internet. Your name would be added to a blacklist so you can’t subscribe with another provider and the amount of time you were disconnected, at the time, was still being determined.

Not surprisingly, the law was just about as controversial then as it is now. For Jérôme Bourreau-Guggenheim at the time, he wasn’t exactly too keen on the law either. So, while at work, he sent an e-mail to his member of parliament to express his personal opposition to the “three strikes” law. His member of parliament’s office, who also happened to be part of the governing party, UMP, then forwarded the e-mail to the minister of culture who then forwarded the e-mail to his employer, TF1. Bourreau-Guggenheim boss then hauled him into his office where he was showed a copy of his e-mail before he was fired for “strategic differences”

His story hit several major French newspapers. He went from just a side-line employee to a front-line borderline celebrity who is against the French three strikes law. The story has since caused political waves.

Now, it seems, a new development has happened in this case. French newspaper, Le Monde, is reporting (Google Translation) that Bourreau-Guggenheim is suing his former employer, TF1, for discrimination. His lawsuit is based on article 225-2 of the penal code which addresses “violations of human dignity”.

The punishment for such a violation is up to three years in prison and a 45,000 euro fine. That article specifically deals with an employment dismissal based on a political viewpoint.

Le Monde makes an additional interesting point:

By revealing the affair in its issue of May 7, Libération had quoted from the letter explicitly refers to mail sent to Ms. de Panafieu. Including this clarification: “This correspondence was received through the office of the Minister of Culture, which has posed address the same day the company TF1. A path to strong symbolic resonance, given the suspicions about the relationship between power and sarkozyste audiovisual group, whose main shareholder, Martin Bouygues, is the near the head of state.

Another part of the article says:

It is true that the case has already made much noise but it has needed to add: wrangling in the Assembly, where the former Minister of Culture, Christine Albanel, has been strongly implicated by the opposition; sanction against the member of his Cabinet who had transferred to the TF1 mail received from Ms. de Panafieu (Le Monde, 12 May).

Now committed criminal in a long process, Mr. Bourreau Guggenheim-must adapt to circumstances. To live this matter without further destroying his career. Say they have had “some contact with elected representatives of the opposition, which (l ‘) were invited to participate in debates on Hadopi”, the former part of TF1 should also “reassure (the) future employers” when is invited to an interview. TF1 who denounced “positions (…) radical expressed publicly,” he defends himself on these two points: “I am loyal, I have nothing being published at TF1. And I am not an extremist free download.”

At this point in time, it’s not hard to see this as a no win situation for the UMP of France, not to mention TF1 who is neck deep in this political fiasco as well. It would appear that Bourreau-Guggenheim has a number of additional options should things go sour for him including referring to the European Court of Human Rights. Though one can only imagine how much additional political damage that would cause for the government who is not only intending on pushing through the three strikes law at all cost, but also changing around the French court system and giving judges only approximately 5 minutes to rule on each disconnection.

This case about a French employee fired for opposing the three strikes law, unfortunately for TF1 and the UMP, isn’t going to go away any time soon.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

So what can you do in five minutes? Order pizza. Walk up and down a shorter street. Flip through all the channels on your TV and conclude there’s nothing to watch. Read through this article. Now, you can add, if you’re a French citizen, have your internet connection cut off by a judge. There’s a new version of the HADOPI, or, three strikes law, out and it seems details are emerging on just how the government plans to deal with alleged file-sharers while still having their day in court.

According to Futurezone (Google translation), in order for the 50,000 cases to be had each year specifically geared toward enforcing the three strikes law, the French judicial system will hire 109 new employees, including 26 more judges. Each case is suppose to take about 45 minutes of work, but each judge will be given only 5 minutes to handle each case on average.

Futurezone notes that the European Union did essentially prevent the three strikes law from passing in any country within the union, and, indeed, there were even legal threats from at least one member of the European Union if France were to enforce their three strikes law.

“We’ll have to wait and see whether French politicians are still eager to support the bill with this price tag attached. France wouldn’t be the first country to drop Three Strikes because it’s simply too expensive.” Janko Roettgers commented on p2p-blog, “British regulators estimated earlier this year that implementing Three Strikes would cost about 2.5 million GBP per year. The UK government eventually abandoned the idea of Three Strikes and is now favoring solutions that would require less oversight.”

This isn’t the only thing happening in Britain of course. Users in Britain are also stepping forward and saying that they are being sued for copyright infringement of material they have never even heard of before. This does raise the question of the validity of targeting someone via IP address in the first place. There are some resemblances to the French three strikes law promising to prosecute 50,000 users and the Dream Pinball case that has recently resurfaced. A large number of users are being targeted for copyright infringement while there hasn’t been much discussion on what happens if someone is wrongly accused. Of course, when it comes to the three strikes law, there’s plenty of criticisms against the law to go around from when the bill was proposed to when it was passed to now. Not the copyright industry minds because they’re getting what they want and a playing card to use when they pressure other countries to adopt similar anti-file-sharing laws.

“The Pirate Party opposes and condemns the contents of this new bill,” The French Pirate Party said on their website (Google translation), “which is once again a few special interests at the expense of the general interest of citizens.”

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

If you catch the odd story here and there, there’s been quite a war of words over in France regarding file-sharing and the Pirate Party movement. Officials have suggested that sites like SnowTigers are profit making machines. Plenty of members refute the claims that people pay money to access more content on private sites (as one of the standards in private site design is not to sell access to content, though users can get VIP status for being a donator – donations aren’t usually explicitly encouraged)

Apparently, in the French copyright debates, one observer has gone so far as to suggest that the Pirate Party is little more than a group of hackers. Not surprisingly, members of the French Pirate Party didn’t like being called that and William S. posted comments to refute those claims (Google Translation).

Someone by the name of Authueil has apparently suggested that the Pirate Party in France is not legitimate at one point, but since considered the party an “annoyance”. Some more of the description of this persons comments:

“This small group is clearly the game of the cultural industry by accepting to play by its rules. [...] In the battle of communication, this party hackers target is an ally of the cultural industries. They clearly draw against their side. “Finally, he finished his ticket by questioning our competence in the areas we wish to defend, arguing that the law would be a Hadopi buried:” Once again, these are people who ‘t know little about who embark on the front of the stage. The problem Hadopi is already finished! [...] The cultural industries operate a retreat in good order with a new text intended primarily to save face.”

In response, William says that the party has existed for 3 years now. He then reiterates that the Pirate Party stands for free and equal access to culture. The movement also stands for civil privacy (an issue that has lately been a hot topic in a number of countries now) and that they stand against patents on life as well as reforming copyright laws. One wonders how such a movement that stands for such things couldn’t be legitimate.

The response also notes that normal citizens who are members of the Pirate Party have similar interests and have joined in a united front on the issues that matter to them. In fact, going a step further, he says that the Pirate Party doesn’t want to just take a back seat in the democratic process and say how pitiful it is that topics of interest to them never really make it to the public, but rather make the issues known and the debates that they want to bring up are essential in this modern time.

He then tackles the label of “hacker” in general, suggesting that the insinuation being brought forth originally was that the copyright industry lobbyists are trying to make criminals out of ordinary citizens and doing thins like labelling the Pirate Party as little more than hackers. He already pointed out that many members of the party are ordinary citizens with interests and concerns shared amongst those in the Pirate Party.

Finally, William targets the insinuation that the controversial HADOPI law (known by many as the French “Three Strikes” law) is far from “buried”. He points out that a judge can issue a final strike and disconnect a user as well as the issue of a €1,500 fine. He also makes passing remarks that the civil digital rights movement in France now has to deal with LOPPSI (and LOPPSI 2 no doubt).

From what we can tell, this also highlights the much more broader issue of the general self destructive attitude the copyright industry has had in the last decade. It’s the whole notion that technology is at odds with business interests and that both cannot co-exist. So the only thing left to do us to try and somehow control technology to the point where humanity will be pushed back to a pre-internet era. This kind of attitude, by far, isn’t exclusive in France. We’ve seen the MPAA suggest that many people who are opposed to the copyright industries ideas are “Enemies of Copyright.

There is one reason and one reason only that the public interest and the copyright industries business interest is at such odds in the first place – the industry has, in the end, made it that way. Added to this, the fact that the industry is being practically dragged into the present day isn’t helping and the fact that there’s been such legally violent resistance to change only contributes to an already really bad problem. If the industry took all the money that was spent on the lawsuits, or, “education campaign” as they would prefer to call it, and invest it into alternative business models to adapt to the changing technological climate, one might think that debates such as “is it right to download?” vs “is it right to sue your fans?” wouldn’t even exist because the industry is already keeping up. Suing over 35,000 fans in the United States alone, pressuring other countries into copyright reforms and demonizing everyone else who thinks differently isn’t going to earn very many friends in the grand scheme of things. These days, name calling is the least of the problems facing internet users.

Granted, there has been the odd comment here and there that suggest the industry is starting to do some forward looking thinking, but actions have always spoken louder than words. The biggest more recent example is the RIAA saying they’ll stop suing music fans, then turning around and filing more lawsuits afterwards anyway.

At the end of the day, the copyright industry have decided to pick their enemies in this debate – those enemies have wound up being everyone who isn’t a copyright industry executive or lawyer. This has just been the latest example as to why the debates have polarized in such a way.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

There was an interesting development from the hugely popular video sharing site. A report from Billboard says that SPPF has sued YouTube saying that over 100 music videos from their catalogue appeared on the site. All this after a previous episode where SPPF demanded the content be taken down (which, consequently, were taken down) only to have the video’s be re-uploaded by their users.

YouTube issued a statement saying that SPPF didn’t use their content ID system which prevents others uploading similar content.

While using the content ID system may have helped, one user discovered at one point that the system is far from perfect. Regardless, one might wonder if the fact that the labels decided not to use the system would hurt them in any legal case against the site.

Of course, there was another interesting tidbit BillBoard uncovered:

Meanwhile, SPPF also unveiled results for 2008, with a 14.9% increase in income to €14.5 million ($20.2 million). The rise was mainly due to various exceptional items and to an increase in music video income, thanks to the growth of digital terrestrial television (DTT) channels.

If there was an argument to be made that having an unauthorized video uploaded on YouTube will do harm for record labels, the fact that their revenues increase will not likely help that argument.

Of course, SPPF is far from the only entity to sue the website. Last year, French Broadcaster TF1 sued YouTube for €100 million. That was on top of the Italian Media Companies half a billion Euro lawsuit. Lawsuits, at one point, became so frequent that some observers renamed the site “SueTube” given that the site seemed to be, at that time, attracting a large number of lawsuits.

[Hat tip: Open Rights Group]

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Several times now the UK govt has revealed that it will not seek to disconnect those repeatedly accused of file-sharing via a “three-strikes” graduated response system to piracy, and will use “technical measures” to deal with the problem instead.

Well, some copyright holder groups are apparently not happy with that position, the UK’s Federation Against Software Theft and Investors in Software (FAST IiS) being two of those groups.

FAST IiS Chief Executive John Lovelock wonders why there is no punitive response to alleged copyright infringement.

He says in a press release:

“Online piracy is the greatest threat there is to the business software, video games, music, TV and film industries. FAST IiS has lobbied the Government for increased penalties for serious copyright infringers, digital copiers and ‘pirates’. We believe the most effective way to demonstrate the seriousness these infractions have to the creative industries is to cut off the tool that enables them to take place. In the same way that dangerous drivers are banned from their vehicles, why should persistent content thieves harm this important UK sector, risking jobs and cutting taxable revenue? The issue is that we the industry are having to take second best because the Government doesn’t have the will to impose stringent penalties on what is no different to shoplifting in effect.”

Lovelock even laments that current laws treat online copyright infringement offenses more leniently than physical offences, repeating the same nonsensical 1:1 loss theory.

“A lost sale hurts the creative industries just the same whether a physical disk is copied or the offence happens online,” he says.

FAST IiS is therefore lobbying the UK govt to treat all copyright infringement offenses the same, where they happen physically or digitally, and to treat the creative industries in a coherent and joined-up manner by considering all industries when finalizing the Digital Britain report.

The anti-piracy group says there ultimately “must be a fear factor together with a significant likelihood of being caught.”

“Over the past two weeks we have seen government minister flag up ideas like reducing the speed of broadband,” adds Lovelock. “What a waste of time and a technical absurdity otherwise, technology will more than likely, progress to neatly side step such barriers.”

Now FAST IiS is correct to call throttling a “technical absurdity,” but even more absurd is the notion of disconnecting individuals from what France’s top court has called a “prerequisite for democracy.” The Internet is vital for full civic participation and the expression of ideas and opinions, and thus disconnecting individuals from it should never be taken so lightly.

jared@zeropaid.com

A report from 01net highlights (Google Translation) the latest developments on the now fallen website.

The report says that 10 administrators have been arrested and now authorities are targeting users. They appear to be breaking the users down into two separate categories: users who donated to the website and users who used the site regularly.

In another report from 20minutes, authorities suggested that they have seized data from servers not only in France, butalso from the Netherlands and Canada (Google translation). An unconfirmed report flatly denied that servers had been seized in Canada.

During a 2005 court case in Canada, the copyright industry through the CRIA lost their one and only case against alleged file-sharers. Effectively, they couldn’t prove their case enough to bi-pass privacy laws and concerns to obtain private customer information from the ISP. So while authorities may say that people will be prosecuted for being a member of the site, the likelihood that anyone in Canada would be prosecuted, from what has been seen in the past, is pretty much nil. At worst, some users may get a notice of copyright infringement from their ISP via the voluntary notice-and-notice regime.

There’s been numerous reports that contain quotes from authorities suggesting that this was a profit making business. Some of those quotes suggest that if you pay money, you’d have direct access to more infringing content. One user who spoke to 20minutes said that these were plainly false and that while donators could get VIP status, you don’t get access to more content on SnowTigers. You were not encouraged to donate said the user.

If anything can be said about the case, it’s whether or not much of what is being said by authorities amounts to little more than sabre rattling. What are merely scare tactics and what are actual threats? In the past, most of the threats authorities have given, outside of the web admins, have been little more than scare tactics. Still, this is France which is run by a president who is desperate to get a three strikes law passed no matter who says the law is illegal or unconstitutional. Who knows what will happen in the end?

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

It was almost a month ago that the French National Assembly defied the EU Parliament and passed the controversial “Creation and Internet” law that would create the Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Oeuvres et la Protection des droits sur Internet (HADOPI), a new govt agency whose task it would be to sanction those accused of illegal file-sharing.

Offenders were to receive two separate warnings about their illegal activities before losing Internet access for from 2 months up to a year, with the names of the “three-strikers” appearing on a blacklist to prevent ISP shopping.

That law’s now been ruled unconstitutional by France’s Constitutional Council after having been requested by the opposition Socialist Party to rule on its legality.

It concluded that under the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man only a judge should have the power to disconnect individuals from the Internet, arguing that the Internet is essential for the “free communication of thoughts” and therefore full civic participation in a democracy. To curtail basic freedoms will hence require a trial and judge’s order rather than that of a dedicated body (HADOPI).

The court ruling reads:

Under Article 11 of the Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789: “The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious rights of man: every citizen may therefore speak, write and print freely, except to respond to the abuse of this freedom in cases determined by law “that the current means of communication and given the widespread development of communication services to the public line and the importance of these services for participation in democratic life and the expression of ideas and opinions, this right includes freedom to access these services;

What the Council basically found is that freedom of expression and communication are “prerequisite for democracy” and any attack on this freedom must be “necessary, appropriate and proportionate to the aim pursued.”

The Council did however, find that it’s legal to send warnings to suspected file-sharers on behalf of copyright holders.

Culture Minister Christine Albanel said the law would be “rapidly completed” to transfer the power to cut off Internet access to a judge, rather than a state agency.

Stay tuned.