How is it that the “media and entertainment” industry manages to even get these laws submitted? French people may not be able to fight very well, but I thought they at least had some common sense. Link to TimesOnline article.
There was a law that was supposed to pass through the French Parliament that would make the government responsible for monitoring internet usage of people and determining if they were in fact downloading illegal materials. If they were found to be downloading illegal materials then they would get three warnings. After which, if they continued to download then their internet would get cut off from a period of 1 month to a year.
On the face of it, it doesn’t sound too bad does it? If you ARE downloading illegal stuff then maybe you should stop. HOWEVER. The reality of it is that the MPAA and RIAA (and whoever else is in this shindig) would be overseeing this, and picking and choosing anything and everything that even remotely (or not) looks like something that may have at some point maybe been possibly copyrighted by them (and not anyone else).
And on top of that, they tried to sneak in a last minute amendment that said even if your internet is cut off you STILL have to pay for it!