About 20 months after the ball first got rolling, politicians in France’s national assembly on Tuesday voted 296-233 in favour of the Creation Et L’Internet bill (explanation on Wikipedia), which would create an agency called Hadopi to warn, warn again, then disconnect ISP customers found illegally downloading copyrighted media content.
The bill was drawn up by culture minister Christine Albanel of president Sarkozy’s ruling UMP party after entertainment retail chain Fnac’s chairman Denis Oliviennes produced a position paper, agreed on by 40 other companies. The bill was originally rejected in April when only a handful of parliamentarians turned up to vote, but was resubmitted and has now been approved by 53 percent of the 557 members. One Green opponent quoted by Numerama denounced “the fantasy of control of the network”. The bill is strongly opposed by consumer and digital liberties activists and must now go to France’s senate before adoption.
France may have voted for the measure, but European Parliament members are bitterly opposed to this form of “graduated response”. Last week in Strasbourg, they voted for a third time to write in to a telecoms reform bill a stipulation that any authorities wanting to disconnect ISP users must first seek a court order – if adopted, MEPs’ request could render France’s move illegal.
France has rejected Europe’s jurisdiction on its copyright enforcement throughout – its cultural industries felt threatened in recent years; TF1 filed