French Constitutional Council rejects new law against piracy

The French Constitutional Council, rejected a bill that sought to create a legal entity not to cut Internet access to those who were caught illegally downloading content.

The board considered today that the Internet is a part of the right to freedom of expression and consumption "and stressed that" in French, is the presumption of innocence that prevails, while the justice to decide which penalty to apply in every case of piracy.

The bill - approved last month by the majority of the UPM in the French Parliament with the opposition of the Socialists - provided a system for monitoring traffic on the Internet. Who was caught the pirate received a notice by e-mail.

If the practice continued, followed by a second warning, this time by letter. If you do not stop to illegal downloads, Internet access would be cut for a period up to one year. The fee for the connection, however, would continue to be paid.

The bill resulted from an agreement between the holders of copyright and the providers of Internet access from the start and had the support of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The system involved the creation of an entity called rendition Hadopi (name that was also called the law) and, in partnership with providers of Internet access, would be responsible for implementing the measure. One of the objectives of the project was to ensure that small cases of piracy have to be necessarily resolved in the bureaucracy of the courts.

Many advocates of civil rights groups have been strongly critical of the measure, to raise problems of privacy and not just wait for a court to consider you guilty for cutting access.

The French Minister of Culture, Christine Albanel, has responded and stated that the project should be rewritten - but without the possibility of cutting off the access, it will lose strength.

Albanel had two years ago emphasized the importance of finding a system that would allow the small decriminalized piracy.

Online Piracy: UK chooses to reduce the internet speed of offenders

So it seems that the French model of three warnings before a final cut of Internet users to freely share files subject to copyright threat not contaminate the rest Europe. The UK - one of the countries that most tended to approach the solution promoted by the French President Sarkozy - will choose to reduce the speed of Internet offenders.

The rule on this matter - the Digital Britain, the interim version was known to April 29 and whose final version was made public the next day June 16 - contemplates restrictive measures for users performing bulk downloads of files, but resigning permanently at cutting of the Internet, moving the site of the BBC. It is estimated that seven million British system using P2P (peer-to-peer/ponto-a-ponto).

As in France, people that share files protected by copyright, will receive three warnings by the government authority responsible for supervising the Internet, and if ignore these warnings, will face sanctions such as reducing the speed of Internet connection or cut off (seconds or minutes), in order to discontinue the "downloads".

The British Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham, said that the authorities completely discarded the idea of letting users without Internet, appears to them that the measure is totally disproportionate.

This decision is in the recently decided that the European Parliament, which voted negatively a European initiative similar to the French, confirming that only in cases of threat to public safety and to permit an "independent and impartial tribunal" might be an Internet user without network , ruled the EP, which sees the Internet as one of the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens.

The French deputies adopted in mid-May that the proposal provides for punishment of illegal downloads of files with a cut in internet access in case of recurrence. After two warnings, the offenders will be made without Internet access for a period up to one year, but continue to pay the tuition. For these administrative sanctions are applied, will take office the High Authority for the Diffusion of Works and Protection of Rights on the Internet (Hadopi), whose start-up is scheduled for the autumn. Sarkozy welcomed the implementation of the agreement more than a year between the cultural industry and the providers of Internet, under the aegis of Denis Olivennes, the chairman of Fnac date.

Commenting on the French vote and committed to propose a solution to Portugal, the Civic Movement Anti-Internet Piracy (MAPiNET) - which denounces heavy losses in the market of cultural industries - ranked it the "giant step in the fight against piracy on the Internet . About the application of a law similar to the French to the Portuguese context, the Minister of Culture has already announced such measures are unlikely to be implemented in Portugal without any a court order.