3-strikes  law is passed by the French Parliament in late night session. Opposition arguments failed to change its course, and alternative sanctions were squashed.  1000 people  a day are expected to be cut off the Internet under the new law. 

 

At around 11pm last night, the French Assemblee Nationale voted in favour of the Creation and Internet law . This is the law that will bring in graduated response or 3-strikes measures to clamp down on peer-to-peer filesharing and the uploading of music and television videos onto websites such as  You Tube.  According to French news reports, only 16 Parliamentarians were present for the vote, which

came after five full days, and around 40 hours of debate, split over two sessions in March and April. 

 

The opposition put up a good fight, and indeed, I was watching some of  the debate on a  webcast, and  they were  well versed in the arguments against the law. They questioned the Minister, Christine Albanel, and her young malerapporteur, Franck Riester, in great technical detail. They questioned the principles of sanctioning users for downloading, as well as the functioning of the Hadopi - the public authority which is supposed to oversee the law. The argued that the law is unworkable, and that users will get around it, in spite of the excessive controls that have been built into it. The Hadopi is expected to order  10000 emails, 3000 registered letters and  1000 people to be cut off the Internet, every day. The transmission of the emails and the letters will be carried out by the Internet service providers ( broadband providers), who will also be responsible for cutting off their own customers. 

 

Read the report in Liberation.  

Click here for the text of the Creation and Internet law , as voted, (French only).