"To the grieving minister of Culture...." Source: http://www.laquadrature.net/. License: CC-BY-SA.

Ars Technica reports that HADOPI, the infamous French “3-strikes law” passed in May after an initial defeat, has been overturned by the Constitutional Council.

“Moreover, whereas under section nine of the Declaration of 1789, every man is presumed innocent until has has been proven guilty, it follows that in principle the legislature does not establish a presumption of guilt in criminal matters,” wrote the Council. This basic principle applies “to any sanction in the nature of punishment, even if the legislature has left the decision to an authority that is nonjudicial in nature.”

The court also made a strong statement about freedom of speech: “Freedom of expression and communication is so valuable that its exercise is a prerequisite for democracy and one of the guarantees of respect for other rights and freedoms and attacks on the exercise of this freedom must be necessary, appropriate and proportionate to the aim pursued.”

Good to see that this guilty-until-proven-innocent law did not muster the tests of the Council.

• Ars Technica
• Digg

Ars Technica reports that Jérôme Bourreau-Guggenheim, an employee of the French broadcast station TF1, was fired after his employer found that he had written to his MP (Member of Parliament) voicing opposition to the French “3-strikes” law. The termination was said to be because of “strategic differences” with TF1.

The bill is sometimes referred to as “HADOPI,” after the French acronym for the new administrative authority that the bill would create; HADOPI would be responsible for overseeing warnings and Internet disconnections for those who repeatedly infringe online copyrights. The idea is so unpopular that 88 percent of the European Parliament this week voted to ban the practice unless overseen by a judge.

After Bourreau-Guggenheim expressed his opposition to the law, he thought no more about it until he was called into his boss’ office and shown… an exact copy of his e-mail to Panafieu. According to his boss, the e-mail had been provided by the Ministry of Culture, where Minister Christine Albanel is the French government’s key backer of the Création et Internet law (and also a UMP member).

But why did the Ministry of Culture have Bourreau-Guggenheim’s e-mail? Because Panafieu’s office had passed the message from its constituent on to the Ministry, which then passed it to TF1, which also supports the new bill.

I don’t know how things work in France, but it sounds like that could be considered political discrimination. I would hardly call a private e-mail message to an MP a “strategic difference,” and the fact that he did not quit suggests that he probably still supports the company in some way. It isn’t like he was publicly campaigning against his employer and everything they stand for, or even criticizing the company at all.

• Ars Technica
• Digg

Baseball Glove - Credit: kevindooley on Flickr (CC BY)

France has decided to throw out the proposed 3-strikes law.

After a two hour discussion, the law was rejected by the National Assembly with 21 votes against and 15 votes in favor. According to early reports, the Socialist party changed their initial position and decided to vote against the law after witnessing the mass opposition from the French public.

“There was a wind of revolt in the country, which engulfed the Assembly and made us move from opposition to the majority,” a Socialist member said in a response, adding “The government is now in trouble.” France’s Minister of Culture Christine Albanel was shocked by the rejection and said it was a “trap” set up by the Socialist opposition.

Unfortunately the law is not completely off the table. It is likely to be voted on again on April 27 according to members of UMP, one of the supporting parties. However, failing to get it passed through the National Assembly the first time is clearly a huge mistake that is almost amateurish, and public opinion is not likely to change anytime soon.

Oooh…maybe they’ll change it to a 4-strikes law.

• TorrentFreak

Ars Technica reports that the French “3 strikes law” has been drafted and is now up for debate in the French Parliament. According to the article, the law is the toughest if its kind to date.

“Création et Internet” requires home Internet users to install certain approved security software and to secure their networks. The old “I had an open WiFi network and someone across the hall probably logged on and downloaded all those episodes of The Office” won’t work; while that may be what happened, the law tries to avoid such controversies by simply making each Internet subscriber responsible for what happens on their connection.

One obvious retort is that people will simply slip down the boulevard to the café for a cup of overpriced espresso, a waiter with bad case of ennui, and an afternoon of torrenting. But the Law will not be mocked so easily. When French Minister of Culture Christine Albanel answered some parliamentary questions about public WiFi networks, she said that the solution was simple: such hotspots would offer only a “white list” of approved websites.

This sort of “plug every hole in the dike, the consequences be damned!” strategy shows just how far the government is willing to go in order to protect the copyright industries; not even rank censorship is a bridge too far. And the logic of this approach suggests that the current practice of scanning BitTorrent swarms for IP addresses will have to give way to deep packet inspection of Web content as users shift to streaming media, direct download links, and darknets.

Mandatory router security? Government-mandated censorship of public Wi-Fi hotspots? Deep packet inspection? Evidentially the “guilty until proven innocent” trend is crossing international borders.  Not only is this a waste of government time and taxpayer money, but this will have serious consequences for ordinary, law-abiding French citizens. We know full well that there will be mistakes made, and the lack of legal remedy would leave the victims in this defenseless.

• Ars Technica
• Digg

Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), the political party to which French President Nicholas Sarkozy belongs, is being accused of copyright infringement by US indie band MGMT over using one of their songs:

The Union pour un Mouvement Populaire party paid a standard €53 fee ($75.54 Cdn.) to France’s music licensing body, but MGMT’s lawyer Isabelle Wekstein says that this was not enough to cover subsequent uses of the song, particularly on the Web.

The party has admitted to using the popular track, Kids, at its national congress in January, in two online videos and in political advertisements. But it claims this was an unintentional mistake and offered the band a symbolic €1 ($1.43 Cdn.) for copyright infringement.

Wekstein has rejected the offer, calling it insulting.

This is especially ironic, considering that UMP — and Sarkozy in particular — has been pushing for 3-strikes copyright legislation, railroading it through France’s legislature. I’m somewhat surprised that this issue was allowed to explode; one would think a large political party would have the resources to pay whatever licensing fees they needed.

• CBC story
• ZeroPaid’s take on the story

Baseball - Credit: thebusybrain on Flickr (CC BY)

Italy plans on following the French model of dealing with p2p infringement.

According to a THR report, yesterday Italy’s Ministry of Culture signed an agreement with French officials to cooperate on anti-piracy issues. Furthermore, in an indication of how Italy sees its legislation progressing in the future, Minister of Culture Sandro Bondi said that Italian laws will “follow the French model” in providing strict protection and controls for copyright works.

As we previously reported, plans for a “3 strikes” regime had already been touted in Italy by the movie industry during meetings in Venice, with the MPAA’s President Robert Pisano stating: “Maybe the first couple of times they get a warning e-mail, then perhaps the speed on their account is reduced, and if they keep doing it then maybe their account is closed.”

It’s like digital baseball!

• TorrentFreak

Music - Credit: rossinabossio on Flickr (CC BY)

TorrentFreak reports that French record labels have decided to sue file sharing applications LimeWire, Vuze, Morpheus, and Shareaza. They are also suing Shareaza’s hosting provider, SourceForge.

SPFF had already sued the various companies and organizations last year, but until now it has been unclear whether the US based companies behind the applications could be prosecuted under French law. A French court has now ruled that this is indeed possible, which means that they can proceed to court.

Recent French legislation which inspired the labels to go after the P2P companies, suggests that all P2P applications must have a feature to block the transfer of unauthorized copyright works. The clients that are sued by SPFF obviously don’t have such a feature. In fact, it is questionable whether it would be technically possible to develop such a filter. Nevertheless, SPFF demands it, and is claiming millions of dollars in damages for lost revenue.

Interestingly, SPFF is also going after Sourceforge, the open source development website, because it hosts the P2P application Shareaza. Putting aside the discussion on the responsibilities of application developers for their users activities, the decision to go after SourceForge for hosting a application that can potentially infringe, is stretching credibility beyond all bounds”

Not exactly sure what the French labels are expecting out of this, since I don’t believe that French law applies to software hosted in the United States, even with the ruling by the French court. Also, isn’t Vuze hosted at SourceForge as well?

• TorrentFreak

France has decided to use a three-strikes-your-out rule to shutdown internet connections for illegal downloaders.

Under a cross-industry agreement, internet service providers (ISPs) must cut off access for up to a year for third-time offenders.

In a classical French approach the scheme will be enforced by a new £15 million a year state agency, to be called Hadopi (high authority for copyright protection and dissemination of works on the internet).

The law has strong backing from Mr Sarkozy, who has taken a close interest in artists’ rights since marrying Carla Bruni, a model and folk singer. However, it has run into opposition from a range of bodies including the state data protection agency, consumer and civil liberties groups and the European Parliament. Big web companies, including Google, and Dailymotion, the video-sharing firm, refused to sign up to the 40-member industry accord last November.

Lame. I don’t quite get why they need Google and friends to play along.

• Times Online
• Slashdot