France to Block The Pirate Bay, Disconnect File-Sharers

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: April 8, 2009 8:22:11 AM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] France to Block The Pirate Bay, Disconnect File- 
Sharers

France to Block The Pirate Bay, Disconnect File-Sharers
Written by Ernesto on April 03, 2009
<http://torrentfreak.com/france-to-block-the-pirate-bay-disconnect-file-sharers-090403/ 
>
Despite public protests the French Parliament has passed a  
controversial new law that will see alleged copyright infringers  
disconnected from the Internet. In addition, France’s Minister of  
Culture Christine Albanel has stated that under the new law, ISPs may  
be ordered to block The Pirate Bay.

In order to clamp down on piracy the French have passed a new law  
requiring Internet service providers to cut off Internet access for  
persistent offenders. Under the new legislation ISPs have to warn  
alleged copyright infringers twice, and if they they ignore these  
warnings their Internet access is terminated for up to a year.

One of the biggest problems with the new law is that copyright  
infringers will be identified only by an IP-address, which will  
undoubtedly lead to many false accusations. Those who want to prove  
their innocence have only one option, namely, to install a spyware  
application that will monitor their every move on the Internet and  
report it back to the authorities. Hardly practical.

The law goes much further than disconnecting alleged file-sharers  
though. In addition it is now possible to take “any action” in order  
to put a halt to copyright infringement. Minister of Culture,  
Christine Albanel, explicitly named The Pirate Bay as one of the sites  
that could be easily blocked under the new law.

Thus, without having to provide evidence that a website is engaging in  
illegal activities, it can still be blocked. Potentially this could  
mean that access to BitTorrent sites is disallowed in France, as well  
as access to sites like YouTube or perhaps even Google.

In summary, the new law introduces unlimited options for the copyright  
holders to go after sites and people that may or may not infringe  
copyright, without having to actually proove that the accused are  
guilty. To date, this is by far the most aggressive and unbalanced  
piece of copyright legislation that we’ve seen.

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