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France plans to ban you from the Internet |
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Written by Felix Da Silva (fdasilva@bitnip.com)
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Tuesday, 29 January 2008 |
 Legislation allowing the French government to send e-mail warnings to anyone
downloading pirated music should be passed by the summer.
After 3 e-mail warnings, the internet service providers would have to block a
person’s web access.
According to the Financial Times, illegal downloading in France had reached such a point that
the authorities had to act.
Mr. Berbinau at the Midem international music market said,
We have to do something, but it is only transitional, only to give time to the
industry to adapt and maybe to encourage a new business model. The e-mail warnings would tell people that they had been caught breaking
copyright laws. It would be sent to anyone that has been caught breaking copyright laws and not just to large scale pirates.
Professor Lawrence Lessig urged delegates at Midem to realise that
criminalising young music fans was not the way to cope with the problems.
I agree with both Professor Lawrence's stance and Mr. Berbinau. In the short term, they have to do something drastic to curb the copyright infringements while they have to implement a program or adapt for the long run.
Although it does seem drastic to cut off a person's connection to the Internet if someone has been caught 3 times. It is not that hard to use a fake IP address or a proxy to download music.
On paper, this might work but I don't see how it would actually work in a large scale. Passing a legislation is one thing and enforcing it is another.
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