Viva Le France!

[Meshugger]

French antipiracy law passed in the underhouse, wonderful times ahead

 

Basically, a "3-strikes" law according to netpiracy. At the third time, your internet connection is closed, but you still have to pay for it and you're not allowed change your ISP.

 

Is it prone to faults in personal integrity and basic rights? You betcha!

 

A rather interesting comment.

 

For the more shocking news, read this [wordpress.com]:

 

An element of Hadopi which hasn't received much or enough attention as yet, is a section which specifies steps that can be taken by computer users to ensure that they will not be found liable under the new regime. The following is a rough translation of the relevant sections, taken from the text of the law in its current state, as found here. Bear with me, it is torturous, some explanatory notes are added in bold...

 

Art. L. 331-30.

[Walsingham]

What I find extraordinary is the way these punishments are all completely beyond anything levelled at someone who - for example - sells drugs, or commits common assault or vandalism.

 

I don't support piracy, but I am equally opposed to the huge media giants who are opposed to it. Where does that leave me?

[Kaftan Barlast]

I love it when politicians vote on laws without having a clue about how either the law or the technology works. Thats how we Swedes got the brilliant FRA-laws that no one really knew what it was for. Its like corruption out of ignorance.

 

 

and a fair share of:

 

"These guys from the copyright lobby bought me an all-expenses paid golf trip to St Andrews, and I dont use those computery thingies anyways so.. Im gonna vote yes on this."

Edited May 13, 2009 by Kaftan Barlast

[Meshugger]

What I find extraordinary is the way these punishments are all completely beyond anything levelled at someone who - for example - sells drugs, or commits common assault or vandalism.

 

I don't support piracy, but I am equally opposed to the huge media giants who are opposed to it. Where does that leave me?

 

The avarage voter.

 

The french should do what the french do best when the government are behaving like ****, start a damn revolution. But instead of sending them to the gallows, they should be deported to Greenland without any sources or means of survival. Their last days of their pathetic lives should be televised like a reality-show for the viewers pleasure, as they have to try to to steal food from the local polarbear, or try to hunt seals with their briefcases that have been custom-modified into warhammers; made deadly by the sheer weight of all the paperwork from the very law that they wanted to instantiate.

[HoonDing]

"Le" France?

 

It's funny how the people who made this law apparently haven't heard about anonymous surfing and encrypted downloading..

[Moose]

That's a light punishment for being caught *three* times. Sure beats prison time and/or a massive unpayable fine.

[Purkake]

That's a light punishment for being caught *three* times. Sure beats prison time and/or a massive unpayable fine.

 

The difference is that this is done without any kind of trial or legal stuff. If they "suspect" that you have pirated stuff you get the letters and eventually disconnected.

 

I hope this won't spread to other countries...

Edited May 13, 2009 by Purkake

[HoonDing]

I hope this won't spread to other countries...

The European Parliament recently rejected this proposal from France.

[Meshugger]

That's a light punishment for being caught *three* times. Sure beats prison time and/or a massive unpayable fine.

 

Of course it is a slap on the wrist if beheadings are conducted on people making out, hands sawn off for every theft and so on. But in relative to EU and French law.....well, you get the drift.

 

Besides that, the point is that this is just the start of what people in power think that the internet should be like: The end-user should not decide on what webpage he or she will surf to, it should be decided by the ISP, which in turns adheres to the laws according to the government.

 

For example: wikipedia, facebook and newsites are ok-sites for the public use, and if the customers wants to surf to other sites (which can contain questionable material, we do not know) then he has to pay extra, but still has not 100% access. Here, the government steps in again by having a blacklist of webpages that contain material that "is not in the interest of the general public" and simply mandates the ISP to restrict access completely.

 

We will be free to do what the EU tells us to.

 

 

Yippie?

[Purkake]

I hope this won't spread to other countries...

The European Parliament recently rejected this proposal from France.

 

I didn't know that was connected to the crazy French thing. That's great!

 

I want the internet to remain the wild west it is today with 4chan and all the other weird stuff. I has worked pretty well so far.

[Kaftan Barlast]

When we grow old, I wonder if were going to sit and reminisce about the good old days when the internet existed? Because by then, the entire net might have been replaced by a completely regulated giant iTunes store where users can only consume, never participate.

 

 

I should write a novel about this, I could call it 2048

[Rosbjerg]

The french should do what the french do best when the government are behaving like ****, start a damn revolution. But instead of sending them to the gallows, they should be deported to Greenland without any sources or means of survival.

 

We don't want them polluting our perfectly clean ice.. send them to Alaska instead..

Edited May 17, 2009 by Gorth
Quoted material edited

[Walsingham]

I get annoyed by these posturing weasel ****s because they are inevitably going to try and abuse powers put in place to prevent acts of terror and serious crime. This weakens the mandate of those measures, and may lead to their abolition. And for what? It won't stop piracy. Surely it will just go back to being distributed in hard copy, which makes money for organised crime!

[Pope]

Sucks to be French.

 

Even more than it did before, that is.

 

 

 

 

I hope it doesn't blow over. France is not very far from here.

Edited May 14, 2009 by Pope

[Purkake]

Sucks to be French.

 

Even more than it did before, that is.

 

 

 

 

I hope it doesn't blow over. France is not very far from here.

 

If that stuff get's to the Netherlands then we might as well give up.

[Meshugger]

Soon there will be a law that mandates recordcompanies and moviestudios to directly shut down the internet service of any suspected user. The user can of course complain, but that is reserved for later in the courts, not before the suspect's connection has been shut down. That is the first step.

 

The second step will be broaden these kinds of practices to other industrial sectors, such as the media and newsbroadcasting in general. The governments will not complain since they have been high positions in these companies, have relatives or friends in those positions, or are entering them after leaving office. Suffice to say, they are looking to control the means of broadcasting within the 'Net since that gives them a huge potential revenue and marketshare.

 

The third step is to slowly phase out the current architecture of the Internet and replace it with a 'safer', 'robust' and 'sound' Internet that closely resembles the channels that we watch on TV, removing the power of the enduser to decide on what is on the Internet or not.

 

I will try to keep updated about similar draconian laws in the future.

Edited May 14, 2009 by Meshugger

[Volourn]

"At the third time, your internet connection is closed, but you still have to pay for it and you're not allowed change your ISP."

 

This is dumb. You are forced to pay for a service you ar eno longer allowed to use? That's retarded. That's like being caught sneaking into a theatre, being barred from the theatre for 2 years, and being forced to pay for a ticket once a week that you cna't even use. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Or someone convicted of murder and legally barred from owning/using guns including hunting yet still being forced to pay for a hunting license. or someone who is no longer allowed to drive yet forced to still pay for car insurance.

 

And, I'm as anti piracy as anyone.

[Walsingham]

I'd imagine that proviso is intended to make ceertain the ISPs don't avoid tracking the problem for fear of losing business. But I agree it sounds unprecedented.

[taks]

That's retarded.

that's because they don't want to punish the ISP for your crime. of course, the law is stupid to begin with, so stupid provisions like these should be expected, right?

 

taks

[Maria Caliban]

The french should do what the french do best when the government are behaving like ****, start a damn revolution. But instead of sending them to the gallows, they should be deported to Greenland without any sources or means of survival.

 

We don't want them polluting our perfectly clean ice.. send them to Alaska instead..

 

This might be a great idea. The US has struggled to maintain the grizzly bear population.

Edited May 17, 2009 by Gorth
Quoted material edited

[Humodour]

That's a light punishment for being caught *three* times. Sure beats prison time and/or a massive unpayable fine.

 

Except it's not caught three times its "some random copyright holder (or note even) suspects you downloaded a copy of their work and gave you a strike". But hey, it might just be limited to Hollywood since Sarkozy is all powsy wowsy with them, so we're in safe hands right?

 

Anyway, the EU has determined that this three strikes law is illegal, so it'll probably exist for all of 6 months if it gets passed (and heck, it might not even reach the EU if the French Supreme Court blasts it first, which is probable).

[ramza]

That's a light punishment for being caught *three* times. Sure beats prison time and/or a massive unpayable fine.

 

The 3-step punishment will not prevent further criminal charges and the payment of damages to the "victims".

The decision to freeze your internet connection will be taken in the form of a legal act from the administration. Of course, you can always contest that act before a Court. At the same time, there is a possibility that the prosecutor may parallelly press charges against you for copyright infringement.

 

In other words, it will hurt A LOT if you ever get caught...

 

There is another problem with that law that few people know. Aside from many legal inconsistencies, there has been word of some kind of device that will allow the average consumer to be "relieved" of any suspicions against him. That device is some kind of software that is recommended to be installed on your pc and that will be tracking your connections. In case of litigation, you just hand in your pc and the software will tell the new high authority that you are innocent. Otherwise, they have the right to punish you with just your IP address as proof of your infringement! There is no real way to prove your innocence in that case and you will have to go before a Court in order to achieve that. In the meantime, no internet connection and you still have to pay the fees to your ISP!

 

Big Brother is watching you! Not even China has gone that far...

[Morgoth]

This sucks. Hope such a law never gets passed in the EU.

[ramza]

Well, the Eu Parliament is against the principles of that law but the French will do everything in its power to convince the Parliament. In any case, the Parliament will have the last say on this matter. That is why, if you are a EU citizen, you must vote, during the June elections, in favor of candidates who are opposed to such a law.