France’s lower house of parliament approved a bill on Tuesday allowing authorities to cut off Internet access to people who download illegally, a measure that entertainment companies hope will be a powerful weapon against piracy.
Critics, meanwhile, complain the bill threatens civil liberties, and questions remain about how it will be enforced. The bill has garnered attention beyond France, both from music and film industries struggling to keep up official revenue and from privacy advocates who worry about government intrusion.
The Culture Ministry has estimated that 1,000 French Internet users a day could be taken offline under the bill. Pirates who ignore e-mail warnings and a registered letter could see their Internet connections cut for up to a year and they could also face up to 300,000 euros (US$435,000) in fines or jail time.
Even parents whose children download illegally could be targeted for neglecting to police their online activities — after warnings, the family’s Internet service could be shut down for a month, and they could be slapped with a 3,750 euro fine.
The bill must clear at least one more hurdle to become law, gaining approval from a small committee of lawmakers tasked with harmonizing the two versions.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the husband of model-turned-singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and friend to powerful French media figures, supports the bill.
French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand applauded lawmakers, saying: “Artists will remember that we at last had the courage to break with the laissez-faire approach and protect their rights from people who want to turn the net into their libertarian utopia.”
David El Sayegh, general manager of France’s National Union of Phonographic Publishing, praised the effort, saying: “It’s extremely urgent to have regulation on the Internet to make users responsible.”
But opposition Socialists and several members of Sarkozy’s conservative party are against it, largely because of the powers it grants a new agency, called Hadopi, to impose sanctions.
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