Music Blogs

Although the French government remains committed to making three-strikes law, the plans have had another albeit temporary set back after the lower house of the French Parliament postponed voting on the latest proposals until the Autumn. As previously reported, French ministers had previously got their three-strike proposals through the French parliament, but the new legislation fell at the final hurdle, the French Constitutional Council. The proposals would put a three-strikes system to tackle online piracy into French law. A new government agency called Hadopi would take complaints from content owners regarding individuals who access or share unlicensed content via P2P. The agency would then issue two written warnings to those individuals, telling them their content sharing activity is illegal. If they continued to file-share after that, under the original proposals, the Hadopi agency would have the right to order the illegal file-sharer's internet service provider to cut off their net access. However, the Constitutional Council deemed that last bit of the process unconstitutional. Sharing concerns with some in the European Parliament, they said it was wrong that a government agency should be able to deprive citizens of net access - the constitutional chiefs said that sanction should only be made by a judge. Which is why the French government has had to revamp its proposals - basically adding a final stage to the process whereby the Hadopi department passes a list of offending file-sharers to a specially appointed judge who basically rubber stamps net disconnection orders, albeit only after suspected file-sharers have been given an opportunity to appeal if they believe they have been falsely accused. Those new proposals were quickly passed by the upper house of the French parliament earlier this month, but were always going to face more scrutiny from the lower house, which previously voted against the whole Hadopi proposal at one point. Although voting on and passing a couple of amendments to the new proposals, the French Assembly decided to put off the final vote on the new laws until after the summer break, in September. Although only a temporary set back, it's another frustration to the music industry who want to see the three-strike system put in place asap. Responding to the latest delay, French collecting society SACEM issued a statement on behalf of their members, saying that French authors, composers and publishers "wish to express their great disappointment and genuine anger following deferment of the vote to the next parliamentary session. Fully aware of the need for scrupulous respect of public freedoms, they deem, in compensation, that literary and artistic property rights should also be protected and respected by law. While they see their income from the phonograph market shrink year after year, month after month, with no compensation from online services to make up for their loss, because of the impact of piracy in particular, they solemnly ask the members of parliament to take their responsibilities to answer this institution of justice".